Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

Archive for the 'Watch' Category

WWW trilogy wins MIFRE Media Award

Tuesday, April 19th, 2022

I am pleased as punch to have just won the 2021 Media Award from the Machine Intelligence Foundation for Rights and Ethics (MIFRE) for my WWW trilogy of Wake, Watch, and Wonder. The award trophy is truly gorgeous, consisting of layers of laminated wood under glass — I just love the look of it. machineintelligencefoundation.org/mifreAward.html […]

A good day for Shoshana and Max

Friday, June 26th, 2015

A good day for Shoshana and Max, two characters from my 2010 novel Watch. Sho is a primatologist, working with a chimpanzee-bonobo hybrid named Hobo who paints representational art. This scene about marriage equality is from Chapter 30: Shoshana spent the next couple of hours with Hobo; he did seem to be back to his […]

Helen Keller paper

Wednesday, October 30th, 2013

The 1996 paper “Helen Keller as Cognitive Scientist” was one of my inspirations for writing my WWW trilogy of Wake, Watch, and Wonder, about a formerly blind girl gaining sight via a post-retinal implant — while a nascent consciousness evolving on the World Wide Web learns to see the world through her. The paper’s author […]

History-making Aurora Award win

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

To my absolute astonishment and delight, my twenty-first novel, Wonder, has just won the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Award (“the Aurora”) for Best Novel of the Year. This means that each of the three volumes in my WWW trilogy have each now separately won the Aurora Award for Best Novel of The Year (in […]

Watch wins Aurora Award!

Sunday, November 20th, 2011

Robert J. Sawyer‘s novel Watch, the second volume of his WWW Trilogy, won the Aurora Award today — Canada’s top honour in science fiction and fantasy — for Best Novel of the Year. The award was presented at the 31st annual Canadian National Science Fiction Convention, SFContario 2, in Toronto. The vote ranking: 1st: Watch […]

Finished with the WWW books

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

Just sent corrections for the paperback of Wonder to Ace and Penguin Canada — the very last work I’ll ever do on the WWW trilogy books. It’s the end of an era that began getting on to nine years ago, on Friday, January 10, 2003, when I wrote this in my journal:Wrote 300 words explaining […]

CBC Radio One Spark interview

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

Here’s the full 18-minute interview with me on CBC Radio One’s Spark, with host Nora Young (pictured above). Lots of stuff about Wake, Watch, and Wonder, plus some discussion of Mindscan. God, I love the CBC. Who else let’s you answer questions at such length? Robert J. Sawyer online:Website • Facebook • Twitter • Newsgroup […]

Three titles in the top ten on the Edmonton Journal bestsellers’ list

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Wonder is #4, Watch is #6, and Wake is #8 on the Edmonton Journal fiction bestsellers’ list, published in the April 17, 2011, edition; Edmonton is the capital of the province of Alberta, and the Journal is the largest-circulation newspaper there. Here’s the he full list. Robert J. Sawyer online:Website • Facebook • Twitter • […]

Spectacular Toronto Star ad for the WWW trilogy

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

On Sundays, The Toronto Star — the largest-circulation newspaper in Canada — contains a version of the New York Times Book Review. Last Sunday, March 6, 2011, the entire back cover was devoted to this terrific ad produced by Penguin Group (Canada) for my WWW trilogy of Wake, Watch, and Wonder. I’m absolutely thrilled! You […]

Best fan letter ever

Monday, December 13th, 2010

Recently received:This is a heart-felt “thank you” arriving seven months late. It took months of reading and re-reading WWW: Watch to put together words that can express my moment of ecstasy of reading that book, and the warmth that has stayed with me since. Upon absorbing the conversation between Dr. Kuroda and Caitlin pertaining to […]

Happy Birthday, Caitlin Decter

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

Fourteen years ago today — October 6, 1996 — in Houston, Texas, a girl named Caitlin Doreen Decter was born to parents Barbara and Malcolm Decter. Sadly, mom and dad soon discovered that young Caitlin is blind. But my flashforward — an appropriate thing to have on October 6! — tells me that in just […]

Interview on “Think” on Dallas’s KERA

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

When I was in Dallas on Wednesday, September 15, 2010, to give a major public address for the Center for Values in Medicine, Science and Technology at the University of Dallas at Texas, I was interviewed for an hour on KERA-FM, the local NPR affiliate, for a wonderful program called Think, hosted by Krys Boyd. […]

Awesome book trailer for Watch

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

Check out this awesome book trailer for my novel Watch — it’s like a mini-movie, with a full cast. Way, way cool! (Also available on YouTube.) Robert J. Sawyer online:Website • Facebook • Twitter • Newsgroup • Email

Audiobooks of Wake and Watch

Friday, June 25th, 2010

I’m lovin’ my associating with Audible.com and Brilliance Audio. The former offers a bunch of my novels as audiobooks for download; the latter offers some of the same productions on traditional audio CD and also on MP3 CD. I just got copies of the 12-disc CD version of WWW: Wake and WWW: Watch, and each […]

Upcoming Canadian events for Watch

Monday, April 19th, 2010

All events are free and open to the public. I’ll be reading from Watch, doing a Q&A, and signing books at each one: # Vancouver, British ColumbiaVancouver Public Library Central BranchAlma VanDusen Room on the lower level350 West Georgia StreetIn conjunction with (but not at) White Dwarf BooksWednesday, May 5, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. # […]

Watch subway ads

Monday, April 12th, 2010

As they did for Wake (see here), Penguin Canada is advertising Watch in Toronto subway cars — and I happened to be on the subway today, and managed to get these shots. (Thanks also to my friend Lance Sibley, who also sent me a photo that he took.) This is made out of awesome! Robert […]

WWW: Watch now out!

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Today is the official publication date for WWW: Watch, second volume in my WWW trilogy. The US edition is out in hardcover from Ace Science Fiction, and the Canadian edition is out in hardcover from Viking Canada (Penguin). Sawyer shows his genius in combining cutting-edge scientific theories and technological developments with real human characters. —The […]

Toronto book-launch party for Watch

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Join me for the Toronto book-launch party for Watch, the second book in the WWW trilogy, this Tuesday, Apirl 6, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. at The Dominion on Queen pub, 500 Queen Street East (East, not West), Toronto, with book sales by Bakka-Phoenix Books, and the unveiling of the new Watch book trailer! Admission is […]

Another Kuroda

Monday, March 15th, 2010

I revealed in this blog post that the character of Kuroda, the information theorist from my WWW trilogy consisting of Wake, Watch, and Wonder, is named for the PROBE Control telemetry specialist Kuroda from the 1972 TV series Search, which had a big influence on me. But I should note that there’s another Kuroda in […]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture 30 years on

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Today, December 7, 2009, is the 30th anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. TrekMovie.com has a nice appreciative essay. In tribute, I offer this sneak peek at a scene from Watch, the second volume of my WWW trilogy, coming in April 2010 from Ace (US), Penguin (Canada), and Gollancz (UK); in […]

Canadian booktour for Watch starting to shape up

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Had a fabulous meeting with Adrienne Kerr, my new editor at Penguin Canada, yesterday, followed by an amazing meeting with the whole marketing team there. We’re definitely going to have a cross-Canada book tour for Watch next spring. Anchor points will include Ad Astra in Toronto (at which I’m guest of honour); Keycon in Winnipeg […]

First look at Watch cover

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Click for a larger version.Click again if your browser reduces image to fit your screen.Here’s the first look at the cover for Watch, second volume of my WWW trilogy. This is the American version for Ace Science Fiction; the Canadian version for Penguin Canada will be similar, but will lack the “WWW:” in front of […]

Wake in major computing publication

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

I worked very hard to come up with a plausible scenario for the World Wide Web gaining consciousness for my novel WWW: Wake, and I’m thrilled to have a chance to share some of that background with the members of the Association for Computer Machinery, the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society. The last […]

Podcast: Sawyer neurosciences talk at Penn

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

On Wednesday, May 6, 2009, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer gave an invited 90-minute talk at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience [pictured] at the University of Pennsylvania (“Penn”). Sawyer was the first science-fiction writer ever invited to speak at the Center. Sawyer’s talk delved into the cognitive science, neuroscience, and other […]

WakeWatchWonder.com is now live!

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Penguin Group (Canada) has created a gorgeous, Flash-content rich web site to promote my WWW trilogy (the novel Wake, and its forthcoming sequels, Watch and Wonder). Check out WakeWatchWonder.com for a nifty book trailer, Wake wallpapers, FAQs, and much more. It’s a work-in-progress — Penguin will be tweaking, expanding, and updating the site continously — […]

WWW milestones

Saturday, April 11th, 2009

Yesterday, Wake started showing up in Canadian bookstores (and I myself saw the nice display of copies at the Indigo on Yonge Street just north of the 407 in Greater Toronto). And I got to do something that’s very special: I got to autograph the first copy of the finished book. I always annotate that […]

Penguin Canada accepts Watch

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

I have separate editors in New York and Toronto. Ginjer Buchanan, my New York editor at Ace, accepted Watch on Tuesday, March 17, and today Laura Shin, my editor at Penguin Group (Canada), accepted it, too, saying, “Watch is wonderful!” Yay! The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Nice!

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

So, I spent a lovely afternoon here in Orlando, in the shade by the pool, working on revisions to Watch, the second volume of my WWW trilogy. My beta-test readers have been getting back to me, and I must say the response has been extremely positive, but these comments from one particular reader made my […]

Watch

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

Ginjer Buchanan, my editor at Ace Science Fiction in New York, just emailed me to say she thinks Watch, the second volume of my WWW trilogy, is “even better than Wake.” W00t! As Caitlin woud say, “I am made out of awesome!” :D The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

To serialize a sequel?

Friday, February 27th, 2009

Over in my Yahoo! Groups newsgroup, Martin Bennedik wrote: I read Wake on my phone by downloading the ebook version of Analog from Fictionwise. Not only was the novel excellent, but I found this was a good way to get the book early and in a format which allowed me to take it with me […]