Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Rob the cover boy

Monday, October 5th, 2009

I’m the cover boy on the current issue of the Thornhill Post, a monthly publication distributed for free to affluent homes and in street-corner boxes in Thornhill, Ontario. Thornhill is just north of Toronto. I don’t live there anymore, but I did when my first novel Golden Fleece came out; and I did when I […]

National Post’s "Holy Post" on Robert J. Sawyer and religion

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

See here. Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

Upcoming Canadian TV interviews

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Just recorded interviews for Bravo! Canada’s The O’Regan Files with Seamus O’Regan (above) — for a full half-hour installment of the program — and for CTV’s ETalk. Not sure when they’ll air. Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

The secret masters of Canadian SF media: Joe Mahoney and Mark Askwith

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

The CBC Book Club has interviews with the CBC’s Joe Mahoney and Mark Askwith of Space: The Imagination Station about their relationships with me, along with their recommendations for SF books by authors other than me. Check ’em out: Mark Askwith Joe Mahoney Photo above: Mark Askwith interviews Robert J. Sawyer live on stage at […]

ISFiC Press is having a sale in honor of FlashForward

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

See here. ISFiC Press is the publisher of my collection Relativity. Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

Reminder: CANADA A.M. tomorrow

Monday, September 21st, 2009

I’ll be in Canada A.M. — Canada’s most-watched morning show — tomorrow (Tuesday) at 8:40 a.m. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Hijacked Amazon review threads

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

Thanks to my friend Virginia O’Dine for this very funny link. Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

Karl Schroeder on the truth about Canadian health care

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Karl Schroeder, one of my SF writing colleagues here in Toronto, had first-hand experience with Canadian health care recently, and is blogging about it here. Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

Possible cure for colour blindness

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

This is fascinating: imagine seeing colours you have never seen before. “Gene Cure” for Colour Blindness (As some will recall, colour blindness figures in the plot of my novel Mindscan, and the plasticity of the brain is key to my novel Wake.) Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

Kayne West is a jackass

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

… and President Barack Obama was perfectly within his rights to call him that (when asked about West’s conduct). If Obama had called West an “asshole,” maybe that would be marginally newsworthy, but none of the dictionaries I’ve checked flag “jackass” as objectionable, of questionable taste, or obscene. “Jackass” refers to a donkey, not an […]

Final Draft: Good program, but, come on!

Monday, September 14th, 2009

An email I received today about Final Draft, a popular scriptwriting program. The version I use, 6, is about to have tech support discontinued, which I don’t mind. But I do mind this: Because authorizing version 6 is very much a technical matter, this service will also be discontinued on December 23rd. You will still […]

The Holographic Principle

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

At Astronomy Picture of the Day, over here. Cool! Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

There’s a Hugo Award for Best Related Book

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

… and, really, that means that each year there are two Hugos given for books, one for fiction and one for nonfiction (for instance, the year my novel Hominids won the Hugo, Better to Have Loved, the wonderful biography of Judith Merril, by Judy and her daughter Emily Pohl-Weary, also won a Hugo in the […]

And while I’m being grouchy …

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

A response to the person who decided to nitpick about one sentence in a 12-minute radio interview I did a week ago: An interview is a pop quiz — you have to answer live on air immediately, often about things you haven’t thought about for years. We who are brave enough to go on the […]

I will not read your %$#@! script

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

My great friend playwright Linda C. Carson sent me this link to an article by John Olson in The Village Voice. Given that I get asked almost every day to read someone else’s manuscript, all I can say is that Olson has nailed it exactly: it’s a terrible imposition and a no-win situation. [Update: and […]

Official Hugo Awards logo

Friday, September 11th, 2009

I missed the announcement last month, because I was traveling, but there’s now an official Hugo Awards logo (shown above), which an be used on winning books (such as — cough, cough — my own Hominids). The rocket is the one standard part of the Hugo trophy design; everything else varies from year to year. […]

SF Scope on "the Sawyer juggernaut"

Friday, September 11th, 2009

SF Scope has a roundup of RJS news here. Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

News from Science Fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer: September 2009

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

My latest email newsletter, sent out today: Hello, Robert J. Sawyer reader! Here’s the latest news from Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science-fiction writer Rob Sawyer: ==== FLASHFORWARD TV SERIES PREMIERE The TV series FLASHFORWARD, based on my novel of the same name, premieres in the United States (on ABC) and Canada (on CTV’s A channels) […]

Colombo and Savory edit Tesseracts 14

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

The editors of Tesseracts 14 will be John Robert Colombo and Brett Savory (Carolyn and I edited Tesseracts 6). Details are here. Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

The Death of Science Fiction?

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

I was asked to comment on “the death of science fiction” today; here’s what I had to say: Science fiction isn’t dead; it’s in the witness-protection program, and thriving under a new identity. The term “science fiction” is downplayed by Hollywood and American publishing, so that movies like The Time Travelers Wife, TV shows like […]

Fair Warning!

Monday, August 17th, 2009

After a Herculean effort, I am done. I critiqued 29 manuscripts when I was writer-in-residence at the Canadian Light Source, and I’ve just finished going through a dozen more (most of them 8,000 words long) for the writers’ workshop I’m running staring on Wednesday in Calgary. I’ve written the last book introduction I was committed […]

You can’t copyright ideas but …

Monday, August 17th, 2009

So a nice fellow wrote me, very politely, to say he had been working on a book and only recently was it pointed out to him that one of the core concepts was very similiar to something I’d written about, and would I sign off on him being able to continue with his project? My […]

Let Me Help

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

“‘Let me help.’ A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words even over ‘I love you.’” — James T. Kirk, “The City on the Edge of Forever” Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

Distant Early Warnings #1 Saskatoon bestseller

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

… on the McNally Robinson Saskatoon trade-paperback bestsellers list and Calculating God is #10 on the trade list. Meanwhile, Wake is #10 on the hardcover list, and Flash Forward is #5 on the mass-market list. Great way to end my residency at the Canadian Light Source! Current McNally Robinson Saskatoon trade-paperback bestsellers’ list: 1. Distant […]

Seton Hill upgrades its Popular Fiction program to an MFA

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

For many years now, Seton Hill University’s Master of Arts program in Writing Popular Fiction has been one of the few places where genre-fiction writers (including those doing science fiction and fantasy, as well as romance and mystery) have been welcome in a graduate-level program in creative writing. And now, Seton Hill has upgraded its […]

Toronto’s Tomorrows

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

An exhibition at The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy in Toronto: Toronto’s Tomorrows Celebrate the history of our city’s vibrant science fiction community! The current exhibition in the display cases of the Merril collection features examples of science fiction, fantasy and horror set in Toronto. It spotlights Judith Merril’s influential role in […]

Nice fan letter

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Always nice to hear from a satisfied customer: Hi, After having picked up The The Terminal Experiment at a used bookstore and relegating it to my “Things To Read” bookshelf for far too long, I finally picked it up and was pleasantly surprised. So it was easy for me to grab Calculating God a few […]

Yann Martel: The Three Million Dollar Man

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Yann Martel, the Mann Booker Prize-winning author of Life of Pi, and his wife Ali Kuipers very kindly had Carolyn and I over to dinner shortly after our arrival here in Saskatoon last month. The New York Times is reporting he just sold US rights to his next novel for US$3,000,000. Way to go, Yann! […]

Phyllis Gotlieb obituary in Globe and Mail

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

The obituary of Phyllis Gotlieb entitled “Canadian sci-fi novelist braved unknown in American market,” by Anthony Furey, is here. Photo: Phyllis Gotlieb and her husband Kelly Gotlieb. Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Siteand WakeWatchWonder.com

That crazy Amazon.com notice about FlashForward

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

I can’t be the only one who received this from Amazon.com this morning: Dear Amazon.com Customer, As someone who has purchased or rated books by Robert J. Sawyer, you might like to know that Flashforward will be released on August 1, 2009. You can pre-order yours by following the link below. FlashforwardRobert J. SawyerPrice: $59.99Release […]