Doomsday Clock moves closer to midnight And I wish the Canadian government would wake up and do more to combat global warming. I’m not often ashamed of Canada’s record on the world stage, but I am over this. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I’m a dual U.S./Canadian citizen. I frankly don’t often pay attention to U.S. holidays, since I live in Canada. But I do like to note the occurrence of Martin Luther King Day each year. Dr. King is one of my personal heroes, and I try to honor him in my work when I can. For […]
HELP! Anybody in Ottawa out there? The people in Ottawa I asked to pick up today’s Ottawa Citizen for me are out of town, it turns out. I could really use a couple of copies of today’s edition (Monday, January 15). I only need the page my article appears on (page A11). Many thanks to […]
Barbara J. King is just about to come out with a book entitled Evolving God. As it happens, that particular title wording was one of the working titles I used for my own novel Calculating God, as you can see here. Why did I change it, given that it was apt? Because if your eye […]
A very nice review of Boarding the Enterprise, the Star Trek essay collection edited by Robert J. Sawyer and David Gerrold, is online now at Talebones. Check it out.
This Monday, January 15, 2007, the Ottawa Citizen — the largest-circulation newspaper in Canada’s capital city — will carry an op-ed piece by me, Robert J. Sawyer, on Michael Crichton’s tendency to blend fact and fiction in his books. (An op-ed piece is an article that appears OPosite the EDitorial page; it’s an opinion piece […]
Lots of nice news in the last 48 hours. First, I’m going to be this year’s Guest of Honour at GenreCon, the nifty one-day genre-fiction con held in Sarnia, Ontario; the date is Saturday, May 12. Robert Charles Wilson and I were at GenreCon two years ago for the Rob and Bob Tour for Mindscan […]
Behind-the-scenes bonus: Robert J. Sawyer’s three-minute audio pitch (MP3) for Rollback, prepared for the sales force of H.B. Fenn, Tor’s Canadian distributor (a short presentation by Rob on the book and its marketing, one of several such presentations about the season’s major titles that the sales people receive to listen to in their cars.)
My buddy Edo van Belkom put me onto Authors’ Booking Service, which specializes in getting authors gigs in schools and libraries in Ontario. So, if you’re a teacher or librarian who’d like to have me come visit, have a look here.
Hey, all you newsmagazines and other media outlets that did their “2006-in-review” news coverage earlier this month: Don’t you think that the execution of Saddam Hussein was one of the top news stories of 2006? Yeah, well, people looking back at your coverage would never know it. A polite request: leave writing about the future […]
In today’s edition of The Globe and Mail: Canada’s National Newspaper, the books section is devoted to “Books of the Year.” Among the 38 people The Globe asked to discuss their picks are yours truly, plus Jane Urquhart, Freeman Dyson, Jack Whyte, Emily Pohl-Weary (Judith Merril and Fred Pohl’s daughter), and Ronald Wright — plus […]
It was a nice Christmas this year. It was Carolyn and my turn to host the Sawyer family get-together. Among the goodies I found under the tree: * The first new series of Doctor Who on DVD * The second season of The Simpsons on DVD * The book The Trouble with Physics by my […]
I’ve been a member of the The Writers’ Union of Canada for 16 years now. I’ve got nothing to do with the one-day seminars they’re putting on across Canada entitled “Writing as a Profession: How to Get Published and Survive as an Author: Professional Development Workshops for Writers in All Phases of Their Careers,” but, […]
Here’s the word-verification screen that Blogger offered me this morning. Gee, thanks!
My RCA REB1100 (REB-1100, REB 1100) eBook reading device succumbed yesterday to the dreaded grid of death: a condition in which the internal flash ROM is corrupted, and the device won’t do anything. After googling around, and an hour or two of trial-and-error on my own, I managed to get the device working again, including […]
Just received the following email, with the subject line “My Friend is an excellent Science Fiction, Military, And “What If” Writer.” Dear Mr. Sawyer, I have a Writer Friend who has a great imagination and is an excellent Writer! We met at our Writer’s group and are “Writer Friends.” Do you know of an agent […]
There’s a lot of discussion in Planet of the Apes fandom about what the back end of Colonel Taylor’s ANSA spaceship looked like. The ship is only ever seen partially submerged in water in the film (at Lake Powell), so the details of the rear end have been left mostly to the imagination. William Creber, […]
Not sure how long it’ll be available on-line but the latest electronic newsletter from Writers of the Future contains my essay “Eight Things New Writers Need to Know,” reprinted from the latest volume in the long-running series. I’m a judge for the contest, and I do recommend beginning writers enter it.
… about a Japanese reader’s visit with me. It’s a meeting I fondly remember, and I’m delighted it meant so much to him, too. You can read what he had to say here. (And thanks to the friend who drew this to my attention!)
So, on Saturday night, Kirstin, Carolyn, and I watched To Serve All My Days, the new fan-produced Star Trek classic episode from New Voyages. The previous episode done by this group — In Harm’s Way, with guest star William Windom — was brilliant, with an amazingly clever and interesting script. And this new episode had […]
Last Saturday, Kirstin Morrell was in town from Calgary. She’s the managing editor of Red Deer Press, the company that publishes my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint. I took her on a whirlwind tour of Toronto’s sites, with an emphasis on those of interest to an SF fan (which Kirstin most assuredly is: she’s also […]
I love the Planet of the Apes apes figures in this 12-inch series from Sideshow Collectibles (I’m not keen on the human figures, though — to me, they look nothing like Charlton Heston and the rest, suggesting that Sideshow didn’t have rights to their likenesses). But the apes are excellent, particularly the Zira and Cornelius […]
The biggest honour a writer can pay to another human being is to dedicate a book to him or her. I have been touched and deeply moved to have books dedicated to me before by Edo van Belkom, James Alan Gardner, and Mike Resnick. And I can tell you now from experience that the thrill […]
I’ve had an insanely busy — but very pleasant — last couple of weeks. The highlight was this past Friday night, December 15. Carolyn and I hosted a party in honor of two of this year’s Hugo Award winners: my editor David G. Hartwell, who won for Best Editor, and my great friend Robert Charles […]
I’m doing another marathon of interviews for CBC Radio stations coast to coast today. This time, it’s about the future of the Web — perfect for my upcoming WWW trilogy. The news hook is Time magazine having named “You” (all us bloggers, YouTubers, MySpacers, and so on) as its “Persons of the Year.” I’ll be […]
The Canadian bookselling chain Chapters / Indigo / Coles asked 150,000 members of its iRewards loyalty program to pick the top 100 Canadian-authored books of all time. Only one book published as science fiction made the list: my Calculating God, coming in at number 79. You can see the whole list here (I’m on page […]
I’m very pleased with this cover for the hardcover of Rollback, which will be published by Tor in April 2007. There’s actually a lot of detail in the dark background; if you can’t see it, turn the brightness and contrast up on your monitor. Click on the small version above for a bigger version; note […]
The fund-raising book fair for the World Fantasy Convention in Calgary in 2008 sponsored by Calgary’s writers’ workshop IFWA was a great success. Lots of money raised, lots of good books swapped or acquired. Plans are in the works for an even bigger such event next year. Tomorrow is a big party day for me: […]
David Suzuki is a leading Canadian science broadcaster, geneticist, and environmentalist, but if you didn’t know that and read the bio note on his article on page 18 of the 23 September 2006 New Scientist, you might think he was a raving ego-maniac, since it’s completely self-referential. :) It says, in its entirety: David Suzuki […]
A nice write-up about the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy is here at bTALK. Thanks, guys!
