Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Monday Spotlight: End of an Era TV series pitch

Monday, April 24th, 2006

I spent a fair bit of time this past week on stuff related to various potential TV/film adaptations of my novels and short stories, as well as looking at a media project somebody else wanted me to be involved with. And that put me amind of a pitch I put together six years ago to […]

Talking Shop

Sunday, April 23rd, 2006

One reason I was particularly disappointed to miss Eeriecon was that I was looking forward to talking shop with colleagues I don’t see often enough, including Guests of Honor Harry Turtledove, Tanya Huff, and Esther Freisner, and other fine con-goers such as James Alan Gardner, Mark Garland, and Nancy Kress. But I did manage a […]

I missed Eeriecon, thanks to United Airlines

Sunday, April 23rd, 2006

To my considerable sadness and frustration, I didn’t make it to Eeriecon after all. My apologies to anyone who went hoping to see me there. I hadn’t planned to arrive until Saturday evening, because Saturday morning I was giving a keynote address to the annual meeting of the Federation of State Medical Boards, which was […]

Pleased as punch

Friday, April 21st, 2006

I’m always tickled pink when one of my writing students has success. Best of all was probably when my student Pat Forde was nominated for a Hugo in 2003 (for best novella, for “In Spirit,” from Analog); Pat had come to see me when I was writer-in-residence at the Richmond Hill Public Library in 2000, […]

Hominids featured in online serial

Friday, April 21st, 2006

Wow! Some major-league nice discussion of me and my book Hominids appears in the online serial “I, Death” (the link takes you to the chapter that concerns Hominids; scroll way up to the top of the page to read the serial from the beginning). The serial is dealing with rape, and Hominids is invoked for […]

Eeriecon this weekend

Thursday, April 20th, 2006

I won’t show up until Saturday evening, ’cause I’ve got a speaking gig in Boston Saturday morning, but I’ll be spending Saturday night and all day Sunday this weekend at Eeriecon in Niagara Falls, New York. It’s usually a very good convention, and I recommend it.

A writer’s life is always busy

Wednesday, April 19th, 2006

Things I’ve done in the last day and a half: Written an 1,800-word letter to my agent. Written 900 words of responses to an email interview with a major web site about a recent award nomination. Written 700 words of responses to an email interview for a Canadian computer publication about writers and blogs. Written […]

Monday Spotlight: Asimov’s Laws of Robotics

Tuesday, April 18th, 2006

Sorry this is a day late; I was in Seattle yesterday. As part of that trip, I visited (for the third time) the Science Fiction Museum, which is quite wonderful. But I was sad to see that the Robot from Lost in Space had been taken off display, and replaced with one of the robots […]

Brother Guy on Quirks and Quarks

Monday, April 17th, 2006

Vatican astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno on CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks, Saturday, April 15, 2006: I love science fiction. I love reading the stuff. And I’m fascinated because it’s a way of doing thought experiments — playing “what ifs?” One of the authors who’s done a lot of this is Robert Sawyer, great Canadian author, […]

Odyssey deadline approaching!

Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

I’m writer-in-residence at Odyssey: The Fantasy Writing Workshop this summer in New Hampshire. The applicaton deadline is just two days away, hence this reminder: Odyssey Workshop

Studying to become a writer

Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

Got asked by a friend what advice I’d give his daughter on what to study at university or college in order to become a creative writer or journalist. Here’s what I had to say: My advice for someone who wants to actually make a living in creative writing (in general) or science fiction (in particular) […]

Literary Review of Canada

Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

Those in Canada might be interested to know that my review of The Dance of Molecules, Ted Sargent’s nonfiction book about nanotechnology, appears in the April edition of Literary Review of Canada. My 1,200-word review begins: In 2000, Bill Joy, the chief scientist for Sun Microsystems, published his now-famous anti-technology manifesto entitled “Why The Future […]

Terminal Experiment on audio

Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

Got asked today about the availability of my books on audio. Only one has been released so far, the Nebula Award-winning The Terminal Experiment, and you can find the audio version right here. Also, my Hugo-nominated short story “Shed Skin” is available as an MP3 here.

A wise and intelligent blogger

Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

Michael A. Burstein pointed out this wise and intelligent blogger on LiveJournal to me: Glishara

Neanderthals nominated for Seiun Award

Monday, April 10th, 2006

Courtesy of Toshiko Shichiri, Chair of The 45th Japan Science Fiction Convention, known as “Michinoku SF Festival ZUNCON,” and Hirohide (Jack R.) Hirai, Staff/Overseas Relations for that convention, here are this year’s nominees for the Seiun Awards in the translated categories. Often called “the Japanese Hugos,” the Seiuns are Japan’s top honor in science-fiction writing. […]

Monday spotlight: Frameshift structural analysis

Monday, April 10th, 2006

Just finished a wonderful weekend in Calgary, attending the Spring 2006 Write-Off weekend organized by Danita Maslan for the Imaginative Fiction Writers’ Association (IFWA). I knew it was going to be a great trip, ’cause I got recognized by the staff in the bookstore at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, and asked to sign stock, which […]

My blog is now syndicated on LiveJournal

Wednesday, April 5th, 2006

Some kind soul has arranged for this blog of mine to be syndicated to LiveJournal. If you prefer to read it there, add this page to your LJ Friends List.

Too true, too true …

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

My friend Andrew Weiner forwarded this bit of humor to me from The Onion: Science-Fiction Novel Posits Future Where Characters Are Hastily Sketched

1-2-3-4-5-6

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

From my friend bookseller Dan Foster: “On Wednesday of this week at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.” (Dan’s an American; in Canada and most of the rest of the world, which logically writes dates as day/month/year, the magic date will be May […]

Jean-Pierre Normand

Tuesday, April 4th, 2006

Woohoo! I just got the go-ahead to commission an all-new cover painting by five-time Aurora Award-winning artist Jean-Pierre Normand for the trade-paperback reissue of Karl Schroeder’s The Engine of Recall, which we published last year in hardcover under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint. Jean-Pierre has done covers for Analog, Asimov’s, and On Spec. You […]

Planet of the Apes ultimate DVD collection

Monday, April 3rd, 2006

Got it! The ape head package is quite large; maybe 3/4 lifesize. Look at the picture above, with the DVDs in front — that gives you an idea of the scale. The head is well made, but to me it just doesn’t look like Caesar; the likeness in the much, much smaller (6″ body height) […]

Monday Spotlight: What’s wrong with the Auroras?

Monday, April 3rd, 2006

Just got back from Ad Astra, Toronto’s annual SF convention. As usual, there was much SMOFing about the Aurora Awards (SMOF: Secret Master of Fandom, a person who is influential behind the scenes in fanish activities), and so I thought it might be time to dust off this piece I wrote back in 1997 entitled […]

Ad Astra

Monday, April 3rd, 2006

Ad Astra — Toronto’s science-fiction convention — celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary this past weekend. I had a terrific time. Highlights included the launch of Nick DiChario’s book A Small and Remarkable Life, a wonderful lunch with members of my Yahoo! Groups discussion group, another wonderful lunch with Del Rey editor-in-chief Betsy Mitchell, seeing old friend […]

MobileRead Network

Saturday, April 1st, 2006

Curious about the future of ebook-reading devices? This is the site you should read.

Nick DiChario’s book launch

Saturday, April 1st, 2006

We had the launch party tonight for Nick DiChario‘s first novel, A Small and Remarkable Life, the latest (and fifth) title under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint. Damn, but the book looks gorgeous — and we had cover flats for the new trade-paperback editions of Marcos Donnelly’s Letters from the Flesh and Andrew Weiner’s […]

Surrey International Writers’ Conference

Friday, March 31st, 2006

I’m delighted to have accepted an invitation to be a presenter at this year’s Surrey International Writers’ Conference, being held just outside Vancouver, British Columbia, October 19-22. Also on the program: Donald Maass, who is one of the top agents in the science-fiction field. The page about me at the Surrey website.

Video of a party at my place

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

(UPDATED: Thanks to my friend H. Don Wilkat for reprocessing the videos into smaller files.) For those of you with entirely too much bandwidth on your hands, Marcel Gagne has provided me with two video recordings from the most recent open fandom party we held at Carolyn and my place, on Saturday, January 14, 2006. […]

"Identity Theft" as a web page

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

In addition to the other formats I’ve previously had my current Hugo and Nebula Award finalist “Identity Theft” available in, I’ve now added it as a plain, ordinary HTML web page, for those who like to read in a web browser: http://www.sfwriter.com/identity.htm All the available formats can be accessed here: http://www.sfwriter.com/it.htm

SciFi Wire on Rollback and Analog

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

SciFi Wire, the news service of the SciFi Channel, has a nice write-up about the sale of serialization rights for my upcoming Rollback to Analog: Analog serializing Rollback

Speakers’ bureau

Wednesday, March 29th, 2006

The speakers’ bureau I work with — the wonderful Speakers’ Spotlight — has updated their page about me.