So, Norman Spinrad just confirmed me as a friend on Facebook. Early next month, David Gerrold and I are giving joint keynote addresses at a conference in Istanbul. A little while ago, George Clayton Johnson left a message on my answering machine to say how much he loved one of my stories. Oh, and every […]
Details are here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Toronto’s annual general-interest SF convention Ad Astra is looming: it takes place March 27-29, 2009. I’ll be there, of course, and so will the multitalented Joanne Ellen Hansen (pictured), who is the artist guest of honour this year. She’ll be joined by writer GoHs David Drake, Tamora Pierce, and Timothy Zahn, plus an amazing roster […]
Once again, I’ll be one of the authors at the Book Lover’s Ball, the Toronto Public Library’s annual black-tie fundraiser. Tickets are $500. This is the fourth annual event; at the second one, I received the $2,500 Toronto Public Library Celebrates Reading Award; this year’s winner will be announced at this year’s ball, which takes […]
The redoubtable John Joseph Adams just bought reprint rights to my 2000 short story “The Shoulders of Giants” for his upcoming anthology Federations (Prime Books). I’m absolutely thrilled, because “Shoulders” is, I think, one of my very best stories. It was originally published as the lead story in the DAW anthology Star Colonies, which also […]
Louis Braille, who invented the writing system for the blind that bears his name, was born 200 years ago this week. Caitlin Decter, the main character in my upcoming novel Wake, is blind, and uses Braille. And BBC has a really good article about what it’s like to be a Braille user here. (Oh, and […]
From Clint Budd, Aurora Award administrator (with a big shout out of congrats to Clint for getting nominations rolling so early!): THE AURORAS! — This year at Worldcon! Aurora Awards website Nominations open January 1st, 2009, and close February 28th, 2009. An on-line and a printable nomination form is at here. Partial list of eligible […]
Welcome to 2009, the International Year of Astronomy! Things are looking up already! :) I’m amused that “Yours to Discover,” the slogan for the IYA, is the same as that for the province of Ontario, where I live: (And, yes, that’s my real license plate.) The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Yes, I know Open Office is free, but here’s another excellent choice, also free: SoftMaker Office 2006 for Windows. Included are a Microsoft Word-compatible wordprocessor called TextMaker and a Microsoft Excel-compatible spreadsheet called PlanMaker. And for WordStar users like me, TextMaker optionally supports the WordStar keyboard interface. Just select Extras, Customize, Keyboard Mappings and switch […]
It’s a no-win scenario for authors to talk about the impact the used-book trade has on their livelihood, so I won’t. But The New York Times had an interesting article entitled “Bargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It” recently. All right, I’ll make one comment. One of the standard arguments you hear is […]
Christmas has come and gone, and Carolyn and I had pleasant times visiting both her family (on the 25th) and mine (on the 26th). For those who are curious, among the goodies we got were: DVDs: Casino Royale Cloverfield The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (special edition) Ironman Sex and the City, the movie […]
I had a chance to play extensively today with eReader 1.3 on an iPhone, and I must say I am very, very impressed. The iPhone version is a terrific implementation of the eReader software (much, much nicer, say, than the version of Mobipocket on the iRex iLiad). eReader is my favorite e-reading software, in part […]
My friend Berry Kercheval drew this article entitled “2008: A good year for Neanderthals” from New Scientist to my attention. Cool! The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
In the Planet of the Apes movies, the reigns of power in the far future are held by orangutans. And now we know why. Dr. Zaius: Tell me, why are all apes created equal? Taylor: Some apes, it seems, are more equal than others. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Bill Anders: We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the […]
Ron Howard’s new film adaptation of Peter Morgan’s stage play Frost/Nixon is absolutely terrific. Frank Langella and Michael Sheen reprise their Broadway roles as Richard M. Nixon and David Frost. It’s an amazing piece of filmmaking, and the performances by the two leads are Oscar calibre. The film is only in limited release right now […]
I had a need to pull together a document covering my professional achievements over the last 10 years. If anyone’s interested, that document is here as a PDF. A few highlights: In March 2008, Canada’s publishing trade journal Quill & Quire names Robert J. Sawyer one of the 30 “most influential, innovative, and just plain powerful […]
Every year since 1947, with the exception of 1950, the mayor of Hiroshima, Japan, has issued a Peace Declaration on the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on that city. This is the text of the 2008 Peace Declaration: [Hibakusha: victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including those who survived […]
This stuff is important, but here’s how it reads on the Weather Network website: A COMPLEX LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL TRACK ACROSS SOUTHERN ONTARIO SUNDAY BRINGING A VARIETY OF ADVERSE WEATHER TO THE REGIONS. SNOWFALL WARNING..SNOW WILL DEVELOP NEAR LAKE ONTARIO OVERNIGHT AND OVER EASTERN ONTARIO SUNDAY MORNING. GENERAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS NEAR 15 CENTIMETRES ARE […]
My father, John A. Sawyer, is an economist — so, not surprisingly, he reads The Economist every week. And my dad just dropped me an email to say: The Economist, which has a worldwide circulation, publishes a year-end edition in which there is a calendar of 4 or 5 events in each month of 2009. […]
Received today copies of the Spanish edition of my novel Rollback, pubished by Ediciones B. The Spanish title is Vuelta Atrás. What a terrific cover! The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
The study of law is something new and unfamiliar to most of you — unlike any other schooling you have ever known before. You teach yourselves the law, but I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush, and, if you survive, you leave thinking like a lawyer. —Professor Charles […]
From the people who brought you Lost-TV.com, there’s now a site devoted to the Flash Forward TV series — that was fast! Among other things, it’s aggregating news coverage from other places, including my own blog, and I’m sure it’ll grow over time. Check it out at FlashForwardTV.com. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Nurse Christine Chapel in the original Star Trek; Dr. Chapel in the Star Trek movies; Number One in the first pilot “The Cage;” Lwaxana Troi in The Next Generation; the voice of the Enterprise‘s computer, including in the upcoming J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie; and the voice of Chapel, Lt. M’Ress, and countless guest roles […]
So join now! Also, Hugo nominating will begin next month, and you need to be a member to nominate. (Your membership must be processed online or postmarked before December 31, 2008, to get the current rates.) The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Hee hee! Bundoran Press, the wonderful SF&F publisher in Prince George, British Columbia, has just put the above photo of me on the main page of their website. It was taken November 10, 2007, at Sentry Box, Calgary’s great science-fiction store. The book I’m looking at is the terrific anthology The Best of Neo-Opsis, culling […]
Got my quarterly royalties today from Fictionwise.com, which reminds me to remind y’all that a whole mess of my short stories are available in every standard ebook format (eReader, Kindle, Mobi, Abode, Sony, PDF, you name it — all formats for one price, with no DRM) over there. Have a look. (Also available are ebook […]
Or, at least, he was until yesterday morning. Dave, who is a senior editor at Tor Books, comes to Toronto every December to speak at the sales conference for H.B. Fenn and Company, Tor’s Canadian distributor. He stayed over Monday night at our place and we threw a reception in his honour — and also […]
My most popular novel seems to be Calculating God, and ten years ago today is when I came up with the idea for it. On Thursday, December 17, 1998, I was down on the shore of Canandaigua Lake in Upstate New York, borrowing my father’s vacation home there. I had a contract to write a […]
CIO, a publication for Chief Information Officers, interviews Larry Niven, Robert J. Sawyer, Nancy Kress, and Charles Stross in this terrific article by Daniel Dern (which you can read here as a single page). The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
