I plum forgot to renew my subscription to New Scientist, which is my single most important science resource for my science-fiction writing. Not only do I really enjoy the magazine, but I’m constantly turning to the full-text online archives for research. Must renew right away, ’cause now I’m locked out of the archives! Gak! Ironically, […]
The Spring 2006 issue (#98) of The New Quarterly: Canadian Writers & Writing contains a trio of essays about science fiction: “Uncle Hugo’s Legacy” by Robert J. Sawyer “The Exuberance of Science Fiction” by James Alan Gardner “Science Fiction’s Literay Fusions” by Patrick Forde The picture of me above (which I like to caption, “Alas, […]
Two friends sent me this about the same time: film producer Bonnie Jean Mah in Vancouver, and lawyer Ariel Reich in Palo Alto. I just totally love it, especially since I have all the Art Asylum Star Trek action figures that are used in this one-minute promo for Classic Trek on G4 TV: Star Trek […]
As we slide into summer, people’s minds often turn to reading. Twelve years ago, I was asked by Now, Toronto’s weekly entertainment paper, to suggest some Science Fiction for People Who’ve Never Read SF Before. I still recommend all the choices on the list, and I offer it up as this week’s Monday Spotlight, highlighting […]
I guess the ad-copy deadline for the June Locus, which arrived in the mail today, was prior to the Nebula Award winners being announced 27 days ago, ’cause the back-cover ad for the forthcoming mass-market paperback of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell calls it “An utterly compelling epic tale that won both the […]
I’ve just accepted an offer to be one of the author guests of honor at Chattacon 2007, being held January 26-28, 2007, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In other news, just sold Czech rights to my short stories “Fallen Angel,” “Ineluctable,” and “Shed Skin.” Woohoo!
I’m delighted to announce that I will be giving the keynote address at the Surrey International Writers Conference, in Surrey, British Columbia, Friday, October 20, 2006. This is in addition to the seminars and blue-pencil cafe work at the conference. Looking forward to it!
CBS News sends out a daily newsletter called “Inside Scoop,” with highlights about the day’s news coverage. It always begins with the “Quote of the Day,” and today’s quote is this: “Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.”— Robert J. Sawyer Woohoo! The quote is from Chapter 14 of […]
I’m pleased to announce the sale of Spanish rights to my Mindscan to Ediciones B.
Back in 1999, Ray Kurzweil published a fascinating book called The Age of Spiritual Machines. Rather than do a traditional review, The Ottawa Citizen newspaper invited me and A.K. Dewdney — who used to be Scientific American‘s games columnist — to have a dialog between us about the book. That piece was great fun to […]
I’m delighted to announce that I’m nominated for not one, not two, but three Aurora Awards this year — one nomination in each of the three English-language professional categories. This hasn’t happened since — well, since the last time I did the same thing, back in 1998. :) My nominations this year are: Mindscan for […]
My great buddy Edo van Belkom just won the Ontario Library Association’s Silver Birch Award. His winning book was Wolf Pack, which also won last year’s Aurora Award. The Silver Birch is a gigantic award in Canada, and I’m totally thrilled for Edo. The Silver Birch is voted on by kids in Ontario: The Silver […]
Had a wonderful two-hour lunch today with Tommy Yune, co-director of the recently completed movie Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. To my absolute delight, Tommy told me I get a “thanks to” credit at the end of the film. Why’s that, you ask? Well, back in early 2003, I was hired by Harmony Gold to write […]
I stumbled across this today: an interview (transcribed from audio tape) done by Therese Littleton for Amazon.com when Robert Charles Wilson and I were on book tour together the first time, back in 1998, when he was promoting his Darwinia, and I was promoting Factoring Humanity. It’s a great interview: you can read the whole […]
I see that Barry R. Levin Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature — the world’s leading SF rare-book dealer, located in Santa Monica — has named Jack Vance this year’s recipient of The Collectors Award from Most Collectable Author of the Year. And an excellent choice he is, too! I was honored to get this same […]
Ann Cecil reviews me twice in the current issue of Sigma (May 2006, Issue Number 242), the newsletter of Parsec, the Pittsburgh SF club. She calls my Mindscan “highly recommended,” and of the anthology Down These Dark Spaceways, edited by Mike Resnick and containing my “Identity Theft,” she has this to say: This is one […]
KeyCon in Winnipeg this past weekend was wonderful. At 500 attendees, I’m told it was the best turnout in years. And although this was only KeyCon 23, it was impressive to see preparations already well underway for KeyCon’s 25th anniversary, in 2008. I’d never met the other guests of honour before, but we all got […]
I’ve just been asked to be one of the Author Guests of Honor at the science-fiction convention Oasis 20, to be held May 25-27, 2007 (next year), in Orlando, Florida. I was previously Guest of Honor at Oasis 16, and for their 20th anniversary, Oasis is inviting back all its previous GoHs. It’s going to […]
My great friend Jeanne Robinson — wife of writer Spider Robinson — was shortlisted to go into space aboard the Shuttle as part of the NASA’s Civilians in Space program. After the Challenger disaster, that program got cancelled, and Jeanne never got to go into space, where she would have pioneered zero-gravity dance, as described […]
I am delighted to report that my Mindscan is a finalist for this year’s John W. Campbell Memorial Award. The nominees are: Transcendent, by Stephen Baxter The Meq, by Steve Cash Child Of Earth, by David Gerrold Mind’s Eye, by Paul J. McAuley Seeker, by Jack McDevitt Learning The World, by Ken MacLeod The Summer […]
People find my website when searching on all sorts of terms. One term that recently brought a nice person to my site was “Sybok” (I know it was a nice person, because he went on to send me a couple of emails). Sybok is the name of Spock’s half-brother in Star Trek V: The Final […]
I was born in 1960, which is the same year the kids on That ’70s Show were supposedly born. I had a fondness for this show, when it first started back in 1998, because parts of it echoed my own teenage years. And so I tuned in tonight for the hour-long series finale. It was […]
I think I should have been an agent. Not only am I spending a lot of my time these days (a) reviewing deals that I’m being offered and (b) negotiating deals with other authors for books under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint — but I’m finding I’m actually enjoying the wheeling and dealing. At […]
I received the page proofs from Analog today for all four parts of the serialization of my next novel, Rollback. This is my last chance to make corrections. The whole novel will be serialized in Analog‘s October, November, and December 2006 edition, and the combined January-February 2007 edition, with the hardcover following in April 2007 […]
I don’t have anything to do with these (although I do plan on attending V-Con), but my friend Clint Budd asked me to help spread the word about the Master Classes in Writing Genre Fiction on Friday, October 6, 2006, being offered in conjunction with V-Con, the Vancouver SF convention. You can read more about […]
Got asked today to submit details for the two workshops I’m going to lead at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference in British Columbia this October, and thought some people reading this might appreciate an advance peek: Mastering Point of View: Learn the strengths and weakness of first-person and third-person narration, and how to avoid point-of-view […]
More Japanese royalties showed up today, this time for Golden Fleece and End of an Era. And the May 2006 New York Review of Science Fiction arrived recently, with a nice review of my short-story collection Iterations, saying “Sawyer evokes both the classic sense of wonder and the spirit of exploration … and is capable […]
It’s just after midnight here in Toronto, on Sunday night; ToBeCONtinued, such as it was, is now over, and, had things gone according to plan, I’d have just arrived back home now from Chicago. All the troubles with ToBeCONtinued got me to thinking about just why writers go to SF conventions in the first place. […]
The wonderful SF magazine Talebones has just posted a rave review of Danita Maslan‘s Rogue Harvest, one of the books under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint for Canada’s Red Deer Press. We’ll be using this redaction on the trade-paperback edition of Danita’s book, coming this fall: “A delight, expertly crafted; a wonderful read.” You […]
As I said in this post, Bob Palmer lied to an author friend of mine whom Palmer was trying to entice to replace me as Guest of Honor about why I wasn’t attending ToBeCONtinued 5 this weekend, and my friend, knowing I am a dual US/Canadian citizen, with no travel restrictions whatsoever, asked Palmer to […]
