The Winnipeg Free Press, the major daily paper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, ran a brief review of Mindscan yesterday; the review is by David Pitt: Once again Ontario’s Robert J. Sawyer takes something that seems wildly improbable — the notion of transferring human consciousness to an artificial body — and uses it as a jumping-off point […]
Just after midnight here in Toronto, meaning it’s time for another RJS Monday Spotlight! I’ve long had a great relationship with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, going back to 1985, when I wrote and narrated three hour-long documentaries on SF for their venerable Ideas series. More recently, I did a series of brief commentaries on cutting-edge […]
My brother Alan dug this up going through some old audio tape. It’s from February 13, 1968, when I was seven years old. The first voice you’ll hear is my father … The clip runs 45 seconds, and you’ll need Windows Media Player, or something else that plays WMA files, to hear it …
Here’s a look at the cover for Boarding the Enterprise: Transporters, Tribbles, and the Vulcan Death Grip in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek, edited by David Gerrold and Robert J. Sawyer, coming this fall from BenBella Books to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the debut of Star Trek. It’s a terrific collection of essays; I’ll post […]
A fabulous week on the road come to an end. On Friday, January 27, 2006, I flew to Edmonton, Alberta, courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts. That afternoon, I had a terrific get-together with Diane Walton and Danica LeBlanc, both of On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic, at the magazine’s offices […]
People often ask me to recommend other authors, and I’m always happy to do so. One of my all-time favorites is Jack McDevitt. Locus unveiled its current bestsellers list today, and the paperback of Jack’s Polaris is number one on the list. Congratulations, Jack!
It’s Monday morning: time for another RJS Monday Spotlight, calling attention to one of the 500+ documents on my website at sfwriter.com. As it happens, I’m in Alberta right now. Yesterday, I did a reading from Mindscan at the Edmonton Public Library, which went over very well. Indeed, people often compliment me not just on […]
I’ll be in Edmonton, Alberta, this weekend. If you’re in E-town, come and see me signing and reading Saturday at 5:00 p.m. at the Chapters bookstore in St. Albert, or Sunday at 2:00 p.m. at the Stanley A. Milner Branch of the Edmonton Public Library downtown.
Received my contributor’s copy of the handsome new anthology FutureShocks, edited by Lou Anders and published by Roc. It contains my story “Flashes,” which begins thus: My heart pounded as I surveyed the scene. It was a horrific, but oddly appropriate, image: a bright light pulsing on and off. The light was the setting sun, […]
Today is a day for work on Robert J. Sawyer Books, the line of SF books I edit for Calgary’s Red Deer Press. Had to do cover copy for the trade-paperback reissues of Marcos Donnelly’s Letters from the Flesh and Andrew Weiner’s Getting Near the End, plus cover copy for our newest title, Nick DiChario’s […]
My friend Mark Leslie tagged me in his blog to talk about books, so here goes: Total number of books I’ve owned: A trickier question than it might seem. I’ve divested myself of a lot of books over the years, and besides all the ones in my bookcases I still have many hundreds in unopened […]
My website at sfwriter.com contains 530 documents totaling over one million words of text. Although a few pages there are hit frequently, lots of the stuff only attracts an occasional visitor. I thought it would be fun to start each Monday by spotlighting what I think is an interesting, but seldom-looked-at, document on my site. […]
I have two appearances coming up on TVOntario’s More 2 Life with Mary Ito. TVOntario is the educational broadcaster in Ontario, Canada. This Thursday, January 26, 2006, at 2:00 p.m., horror writer Edo van Belkom and I will be on talking about books that really frightened us (my picks are Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi, […]
A sad truth about writing short fiction is that the work is so rarely reviewed. So imagine my delight on discovering a site that has reviews of six of my short stories (all of which are available through Fictionwise.com via links on the reviewer’s site). Over at Rainbow Dragon, you’ll find reviews of: “The Abdication […]
My favourite magazine, New Scientist, has just published some fascinating research related to who is telling more lies among the Canadian candidates in the election coming up next week. (Personally, I’m voting Liberal despite Martin.)
Wow! I’m very pleased to see that this blog is currently #1 on the Blogger “Blogs of Note” list, on the Blogger home page. Thanks to those who pointed that out to me — and welcome to all the new visitors!
To my delight, Janis Ackroyd, my wonderful publicist at H.B. Fenn, Tor’s Canadian distributor, has just informed me that last week the mass-market paperback of Mindscan was number 10 on the BookManager New Releases bestsellers list, compiled by BookManager, the company that makes the point-of-sale software program used by the majority of independent bookstores in […]
I think this is the coolest thing: Mark Kelly of the Locus website has compiled a directory showing just about every SF&F book and magazine cover from the last year (the wonderful Stephan Martiniere did the cover for my Mindscan, and you can see five more covers he had published in 2005).
The open party Carolyn and I threw yesterday went fabulously! We had about 120 people go through our doors, and peaked at about 100 people present. Folks started showing up around 6:30 p.m. and the last ones left at 2:00 a.m. Much food was eaten, much beer and soft drinks were drunk, and everyone seemed […]
If you’re flying American Airlines between now and the end of this month, have a look a their inflight magazine, American Way. The current issue (dated January 15, 2006) is supposed to contain a little write-up in their books section about Robert J. Sawyer Books, the line of science-fiction books I edit for Red Deer […]
My newsgroup at Yahoo! Groups just signed up its one thousandth member! Woohoo! Come join us!
I’ve always been a fan of Tom Lehrer, and was delighted to see that there’s a new play about him. Just bought tickets; looking forward to it!
For those of you who can nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards (everyone who had a membership in last year’s World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow or in this year’s World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles), may I politely draw to your attention my novella “Identity Theft,” first published in Down These Dark Spaceways, […]
Scored five — five! — high-capacity lithium-ion batteries, all in great shape, for my trusty Compaq Armada M300 notebook computers (I have two of them), for US$60 total, less than half the price of just one new battery. And — bonus! — turned out the guy selling them lives two kilometers from my home, so […]
I’ve been blogged! A fellow named Justin B. Maltais has a very nice and thoughtful entry on his blog about my novel Mindscan.
An online exclusive, from the website of The Globe and Mail: Canada’s National Newspaper. The author is Roger Martin, the dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto; my father is professor emeritus there.
Solstation.com has some great resourses for hard-SF writers. As the site says, “SolStation.com provides information and software for those interested in astronomy and in writing, education, or entertainments related to science or speculative fiction.” Solstation’s database of stars is tremendously useful; my current novel involves Sigma Draconis, and I got a lot of the info […]
The French SF magazine Phenex (number 7, just out) has a long interview with me, in French, conducted and translated by Marc Bailly; the issue is available online in PDF format.
Nebula Award winner Bruce Holland Rogers, who does a nifty by-subscription short-story service, is featured in today’s Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper; the article has a couple of quotes from me, and is by the redoubtable Bert Archer.
My novella “Identity Theft” deals in part with the trade in illegal fossils (albeit, Martian fossils), so this story from today’s Globe and Mail caught my eye: “Beijing — A Chinese-Canadian academic and five other people have been sentenced to prison for trafficking nearly 3,000 dinosaur and other fossils from China, some up to 200 […]
