Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

Archive for April, 2007

Happy Birthday to me!

Monday, April 30th, 2007

Sunday, April 29, 2007, was my 47th birthday, and I happened to be in Calgary, Alberta, a good waystation on the Rollback book tour (I was en route from Winnipeg to Vancouver; my actual event in Calgary is this coming Wednesday, May 2, 2007). I spent most of my birthday at the Calgary Comic and […]

Sixty-Nine!

Monday, April 30th, 2007

Check out the “The Page 69 Test” for my novel Rollback. And there’s more of interest here. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

"I love Robert J. Sawyer’s brain. Really, I do."

Saturday, April 28th, 2007

So begins the full-page article “Reeling in the years: Sci-fi hero Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback finds taint in the fountain of youth” in the Thursday, April 26, 2007, edition of FFWD (Fastforward), Calgary’s free arts and entertainment weekly. It’s a great piece — part review of Rollback, part interview with me — by Hugh Graham. […]

Winnipeg tour

Saturday, April 28th, 2007

The second phase of the Rollback book tour started yesterday (Thursday, April 26, 2007). This is the by-plane part, and I’ll be hitting these Canadian cities over the next eight days: Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Saskatoon. Details are here. The trip got off to a propitious start: the little bookstore at Lester B. Pearson […]

Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

Tee Morris’s Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy podcasts Robert J. Sawyer from Ravencon — for almost an hour! — right here. (This was in fact the Guest of Honor interview with me, conducted by Tee, at Ravencon in Richmond, Virginia, last weekend.) The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

No rest for the wicked!

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

My one day in Toronto was spent doing media — three interviews, to be precise: Sounds Like Canada on CBC Radio One, which went fabulously; a half-hour phone for KAOS-AM in Olympia, Washington, which was also great; and a really pleasant face-to-face interview with The Mississauga News, the local newspaper here. Tomorrow, I set out […]

Sailing Time’s Ocean review

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

A nice review of Terence M. Green’s Sailing Time’s Ocean, published under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint is here at Andy’s Anachronisms. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Minister Faust interviews Robert J. Sawyer

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

Minister Faust is one of Canada’s best SF authors (his latest is From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain, published by Del Rey). He’s just posted a lengthy interview with Robert J. Sawyer on his blog, The Original BRO-Log; the article also appears in the April 26 edition of Edmonton’s VUE, the weekly arts newspaper there. […]

Indigo email promotion

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

Indigo — the big Canadian bookstore chain — sent out this email to its iRewards loyalty-program members who are interested in science-fiction titles. Nice to be featured up front! (Many thanks to my high-school buddy Ted Bleaney who pointed this out to me.) The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Is speculative literature an endangered species?

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

I’m quoted in this article on that topic. Author Mike Collins quotes part of what I said in response to his email question; here’s my full response: I don’t think there is a decline in reading per se; more people are reading more books than ever before — all the stats show that. However, they’re […]

Sounds Like Canada

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

I’m going to be on CBC Radio One’s Sounds Like Canada with Shelagh Rogers tomorrow morning (Wednesday, April 25, 2007) — one of Canada’s most-popular radio programs, heard coast-to-coast in Canada. Of course, we’ll be talking about my just-released 17th novel Rollback. I’m arriving at the Toronto CBC studio at 9:45 a.m. Eastern time on […]

The Very Small Array

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

After our visit to the Smithsonian, Carolyn and I knocked 500 km off the 1,000 km of our trip home to Toronto, arriving north of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, at 8:30 p.m. at the country home of Paul Shuch and Muriel Hykes. Paul is Executive Director Emeritus of The SETI League. Paul is mentioned in Rollback, and […]

Don D’Ammassa reviews Rollback

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

Don D’Ammassa has weighed in with his review of my Rollback. Don is the long-time reviewer for Science Fiction Chronicle. Says Don, “Thoughtful, low key, and convincing. One of Robert Sawyer’s strongest points as a writer is that his characters are always real people. Sawyer has repeatedly shown that he can portray very dramatic situations […]

Smithsonian!

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

Why my life rocks: We stayed overnight Sunday, April 22, 2007, at the country home of Smithsonian paleontologist Mike Brett-Surman and Smithsonian exhibit designer Kim Moeller. On Monday morning, April 23, 2007, we got up at 5:45 a.m., and were out the door by 6:20 a.m., in hopes of beating the bulk of the traffic […]

Ravencon / Barnes and Noble

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

Carolyn and I had a great time at Ravencon in Richmond, Virginia. The convention is only in its second year, but it is clearly on its way to being one of the great regionals. I heard various attendance figures quoted; something approaching 700 people seems to be the right number (although, as is often the […]

Jamie Rubin’s Ravencon report

Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

New writer Jamie Rubin had a great time at Ravencon, and I’m thrilled that I was part of it. Read Jamie’s con report here.

"An early candidate for sci-fi book of the year"

Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

… says The Kansas City Star of Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback in this review. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Ravencon rocks!

Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

Ravencon, in Richmond, Virginia, is excellent — a great science-fiction convention. I’m Author Guest of Honor here, and am being treated like royalty; it’s very nice. :) A few images: My Kaffeeklatsch at noon today in the hotel restaurant. At left, Larry Hodges, one of my students from last year’s Odyssey workshop Guest of Honor […]

Library of Congress

Friday, April 20th, 2007

My talk at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., went well yesterday (Thursday, April 19) — Carolyn said I was on fire. There’s lots of security for federal buildings in Washington, but we were on the appropriate lists, and indeed had a parking space waiting for us, once we got through the very intimidating […]

QuillBlog has photo of Rob’s hand

Friday, April 20th, 2007

… as you can see here. :) There’s also a link there to more photos from the Bakka-Phoenix launch for Rollback. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

40-minute radio interview online tonight

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

I will be interviewed tonight (Thursday, April 19) about Rollback for 40 minutes live (via phone) on CHED AM630 radio in Edmonton, Alberta, on the Lesley Primeau show. You can listen in real-time live on the internet. Just go to the CHED page, and click on “Listen Live.” The interview will run live starting at […]

SciFi Wire interview

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

Rollback is the SciFi Channel’s “SciFi Essential Book” for the month of April. And today, SciFi Wire, the news service operated by the SciFi Channel, put up a new interview with me about the book. Check it out! The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Hominids film option

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

I’m delighted to announce that Pebblehut Productions of Toronto has renewed their option on the film rights to my novel Hominids through to the end of a third year. Yay! Hominids won the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novel of the Year. The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Barnes and Noble event

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

Carolyn drove us 650 km today to get from New Hampshire to the Barnes and Noble in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, while I poked at my next novel Wake on my laptop. It was a day of tight schedules, so it was just fast food: Wendy’s for lunch (their new chicken salad sandwich is quite good); […]

Toadstool, ho!

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007

The book tour for Rollback continues. Carolyn and I drove from Albany, New York, to Milford, New Hampshire, today. We’d been worried about the weather, but although we got a lot of rain, we didn’t run into anything nasty, even as we went through the Berkshires; indeed, we got within 10 km of our destination […]

Off to New Hampshire …

Tuesday, April 17th, 2007

… despite the flooding! Tour update: the hour-long interview yesterday on WXXI 1370 AM in Rochester, New York, was great, as always. The drive from Rochester to Albany, New York, was a bit hairy, with lots of snow, but we made it in plenty of time for my evening reading at Flights of Fantasy. A […]

Rob to receive honourary doctorate

Monday, April 16th, 2007

Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, has announced its 2007 list of recipients of honourary doctorates. I’m thrilled to be on the list, and will receive my honorary doctorate of letters on Saturday, June 2, 2007. I’ve known about this since January 23 of last year, but only now am I seeing who else is getting […]

CJAD interviews Rob

Monday, April 16th, 2007

By kind permission of Peter Anthony Holder, the host of Holder Tonight on CJAD, Montreal’s number-one newstalk radio station, here’s a 20-minute interview with me talking about Rollback that first aired on Saturday, April 14, 2007. I think it’s a terrific interview. Peter is a big SF fan, and asked wonderful questions. Peter has been […]

U.S. Book Launch for Rollback

Monday, April 16th, 2007

The drive down to the United States from Canada was fine and fast, with no hassles at the border. And the U.S. launch party for Rollback at Write Book and Gift in Honeoye Falls, New York, went really well — in some ways better than yesterday’s Bakka-Phoenix event. The store is co-owned by Hugo finalist […]

Free Wifi on the New York State Thruway

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

Cool! The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site