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Lots of people have commented on the ways in which the TV series FlashForward has deviated from my novel of the same name upon which it is based. And, indeed, in some ways it has, but, to me, it’s still very much my story, and I’m pleased with the adaptation.
For instance, last night (in North America), the third episode, “137 Sekunden,” aired, and it has a scene in which John Cho’s character receives a call from a woman with unsettling news; that scene clearly traces its roots to this scene from Chapter 5 of the FlashForward novel:
Theo returned to his office, the darkness of night visible through his window. All this talk of visions was disturbing — especially since he himself hadn’t had one. Could Lloyd be right? Could Theo be dead a mere twenty-one years from now? He was only twenty-seven, for God’s sake; in two decades, he’d still be well shy of fifty. He didn’t smoke — not much of a statement for any of the North Americans to make, but still an achievement among Greeks. He worked out regularly. Why on earth should he be dead so soon? There had to be another explanation for him having no vision.
His phone bleeped. Theo picked up the handset. “Hello?”
“Hello,” said a female voice, in English. “Is this, ah, Theodosios Procopides?” She stumbled over the name.
“Yes.”
“My name is Kathleen DeVries,” said the woman. “I’ve been mulling over whether to phone you. I’m calling from Johannesburg.”
“Johannesburg? You mean in South Africa?”
“For the time being, anyway,” she said. “If the visions are to be believed, it’s going to be officially renamed Azania sometime in the next twenty-one years.”
Theo waited silently for her to go on. After a moment, she did. “And it’s the visions that I’m calling about. You see, mine involved you.”
Theo felt his heart racing. What wonderful news! Maybe he hadn’t had a vision of his own for whatever reason, but this woman had seen him twenty-one years hence. Of course he had to be alive then; of course, Lloyd was wrong when he said Theo would be dead.
“Yes?” Theo said breathlessly.
“Umm, I’m sorry to have bothered you,” said DeVries. “Can I — may I ask what your own vision showed?”
Theo let out air. “I didn’t have one,” he said.
“Oh. Oh, I am sorry to hear that. But — well, then, I guess it wasn’t a mistake.”
“What wasn’t a mistake?”
“My own vision. I was here, in my home, in Johannesburg, reading the newspaper over dinner — except it wasn’t on newsprint. It was on this thing that looked like a flat plastic sheet; some sort of computerized reader screen, I think. Anyway, the article I was reading happened to be — well, I’m sorry there’s no other way to say it. It was about your death.”
Theo had once read a Lord Dunsany story about a man who fervently wished to see tomorrow’s newspaper today, and when he finally got his wish, was stunned to discover it contained his own obituary. The shock of seeing that was enough to kill him, news which would of course be reported in the next day’s edition. That was it; that was all — a zinger, a punch line. But this … this wasn’t tomorrow’s paper; it was a paper two decades hence.
“My death,” repeated Theo, as though those two words had somehow been missed in his English classes.
“Yes, that’s right.”
Theo rallied a bit. “Look, how do I know this isn’t some scam or prank?”
“I’m sorry; I knew I shouldn’t have called. I’ll be —”
“No, no, no. Don’t hang up. In fact, please let me get your name and number. The damned call display is just showing `Out of Area.’ You should let me phone you back; this call must be costing you a fortune.”
“My name, as I said, is Kathleen DeVries. I’m a nurse at a senior citizens’ home here.” She told him her phone number. “But, really, I’m glad to pay for the call. Honestly, I don’t want anything from you, and I’m not trying to trick you. But, well — look, I see people die all the time. We lose about one a week here at the home, but they’re mostly in their eighties or nineties or even their hundreds. But you — you’re going to be just forty-eight when you die, and that’s way too young. I thought by calling you up, by letting you know, maybe you could somehow prevent your own death.”
Theo was quiet for several seconds, then, “So, does the — the obituary say what I died of?” For one bizarre moment, Theo was kind of pleased that his passing had been worthy of note in international newspapers. He almost asked if the first two words in the article happened to be “Nobel laureate.” “I know I should cut down on my cholesterol; was it a heart attack?”
There was silence for several seconds. “Umm, Dr. Procopides, I’m sorry, I guess I should have been more clear. It’s not an obituary I was reading; it’s a news story.” He could hear her swallow. “A news story about your murder.”
Theo fell silent. He could have repeated the word back to her incredulously. But there was no point.
He was twenty-seven; he was in good health. As he’d been thinking a few moments ago, of course he wouldn’t be dead of natural causes in a mere twenty-one years. But — murder?
“Dr. Procopides? Are you still there?”
“Yes.” For the time being.
“I’m — I’m sorry, Dr. Procopides. I know this must come as quite a shock.”
Theo was quiet for a few moments longer, then: “The article you were reading — does it say who kills me?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s an unsolved crime, apparently.”
“Well, what does the article say?”
“I’ve written down as much of it as I remember; I can E-mail you it, but, well, here, let me read it to you. Remember, this is a reconstruction; I think it’s pretty accurate, but I can’t guarantee every word.” She paused, cleared her throat, then went on. “The headline was, `Physicist Shot Dead.'”
Shot, thought Theo. God.
DeVries went on. “The dateline was Geneva. It said, `Theodosios Procopides, a Greek physicist working at CERN, the European center for particle physics, was found shot to death today. Procopides, who received his Ph.D. from Oxford, was director of the Tachyon-Tardyon Collider at —”
“Say that again,” said Theo.
“The Tachyon-Tardyon Collider,” said DeVries. She was mispronouncing “tachyon,” saying it with a CH blend instead of a K sound. “I’d never heard those words before.”
“There’s no such collider,” said Theo. “At least, not yet. Please, go on.”
“… director of the Tachyon-Tardyon Collider at CERN. Dr. Procopides had been with CERN for twenty-three years. No motive has been suggested for the killing, but robbery has been ruled out, as Dr. Procopides’s wallet was found on him. The physicist was apparently shot sometime between noon and 1:00 p.m. local time yesterday. The investigation is continuing. Dr. Procopides is survived by his …”
“Yes? Yes?”
“I’m sorry, that’s all it said.”
“You mean your vision ended before you finished reading the article?”
There was a small silence. “Well, not exactly. The rest of the article was off-screen, and instead of touching the page-down button — I could clearly see such a button on the side of the reading device — I went on to select another article.” She paused. “I’m sorry, Dr. Procopides. I — the 2009 me — was interested in what the rest of the story said, but the 2030 version didn’t seem to care. I did try to will her — to will me — to touch the page-down control, but it didn’t work.”
“So you don’t know who killed me, or why?”
“I am sorry.”
“And the paper you were reading — you’re sure that it was the then-current one? You know, the October 23, 2030, one.”
“Actually, no. There was a — what would you call it? A status line? There was a status line at the top of the reader that said the date and the name of the paper quite prominently: The Johannesburg Star, Tuesday, October 22, 2030. So I guess it was yesterday’s paper, so to speak.” She paused. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
Theo was quiet for a time, trying to digest all this. It was hard enough dealing with the fact that he might be dead in a mere twenty years, but the idea that someone might kill him was almost too much to bear.
“Ms. DeVries, thank you,” he said. “If you recall any other details — anything at all — please, please let me know. And please do fax me the transcript you mentioned.” He gave her his fax number.
“I will,” she said. “I — I’m sorry; you sound like a nice young man. I hope you can figure out who did it — who’s going to do it — and find a way to prevent it.”
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This week, Wake is the #5 bestselling hardcover fiction title at McNally Robinson’s Winnipeg stores, and FlashForward is the #3 bestselling mass-market title.
And last week — the week the TV series based on my novel debuted — FlashForward was the #2 bestselling mass-market title there.
Here are the full lists (PDFs):
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My novel FlashForward is set at CERN — the European Organization for Nuclear Research — and deals specifically with the Large Hadron Collider, so the breaking news — just this past hour — that a particle physicist working on the LHC at CERN has just been arrested as a possible terrorist with links to al-Qaeda has caught my interest, to say the least. See the Associated Press and the BBC.
Nobel prizes also figure prominently in my novel, so the news today that Barack Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize also is of interest.
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First half-hour:
Lawrence Hill
Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
Second half-hour:
Will Ferguson
Robert J. Sawyer
(My novel FlashForward was the CBC Book Club choice last month.)
Tune in and enjoy, or listen online as streaming audio on Monday here.
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Star Trek History is an amazing site, now new and improved, with all sorts of things I’d never seen before from behind-the-scenes of Star Trek: The Original Series.
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Fascinating stuff from The Paleoantrhopology Society:
Dear Fellow Paleoanthropologists:
We write to bring your attention to a matter which impacts strongly on all our research. You may be aware that in recent years, there has been a push by some Quaternary stratigraphers to redefine the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary from its accepted position at ca. 1.8 Ma (the start of the Calabrian Stage of the Mediterranean stratigraphic sequence) to a level close to 2.6 Ma (start of the Gelasian Stage), 800,000 years older. This increases the length of the Pleistocene by 45% and makes the Early Pleistocene 70% of the epoch. The argument for this change was that it is a better fit to the paleoclimatic conception of the Quaternary. The International Commission on Stratigraphy ruled in favor of the change, and it was formally approved by the parent body of ICS, the International Union of Geological Sciences.
This change moves into the “Early Pleistocene” numerous important paleoanthropological horizons and events, such as Gona (with the earliest known stone tools); levels between 2.6-1.8 Ma at Hadar, the Middle Awash and the Turkana Basin; Kanjera; and some South African site units [e.g., Sterkfontein, Taung and perhaps parts of Swartkrans and Kromdraai], rendering all recent literature (including our textbooks) at odds with the new definition. Concomitantly, the Olduvai paleomagnetic subchron would no longer lie near the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary, which would instead correlate closely to the Gauss-Matuyama geomagnetic boundary. This action violates 60 years of consistent terminology, based on the 1948 decision by the International Geological Congress to equate the base of the Pleistocene to the base of the Calabrian (since dated to ca. 1.8 Ma).
Stability is the watchword of global accord in chronostratigraphy, as it is in zoological nomenclature, but this action will cause massive instability in our field, among others.
Our view is two-fold:
1) there was no attempt to obtain feedback from the paleoanthropological (or really paleontological) community, although we use the concept of a Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary constantly (and consistently); it really was pushed through quickly by INQUA representatives who acted politically but not collegially.
2) there has been a definition in place for 60 years which included historical, paleontological and climatological underpinnings; the proposed change is comparable to changing the holotype of a species (e.g., Homo habilis) because the original was not perfect, and a better one has been found later; definitions are fixed, and we work around them. Moreover, the IUGS has ruled that no further discussion of this problem may be heard for 10 years, thus undemocratically preventing any response.
We have prepared a formal petition to the IUGS and other international scientific bodies, which a number of colleagues have already “signed” (electronically). We submit this petition for your consideration here. If you wish to sign it, you may do so by clicking on the “I agree to sign” button on the Paleoanthropology Society website, where we have also posted a number of publications related to this situation. Note that the Society is not taking a position on this argument, merely offering a means for us to contact and inform you.
Thank you for your consideration of our request.
Sincerely, Eric Delson and John Van Couvering
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It’s reached at least as high as sales rank #66 of all titles in the store (and, at this moment is #81).
More: it is currently the #6 best-selling genre-fiction title in the entire store:
And it’s currently #1 on the science-fiction bestsellers list:
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A query I received in my capacity as an editor for Red Deer Press this morning began thus:
I’ve got a Fiction Novel of 40,000+ words which I am trying to find a publisher for. Front cover has been designed already and it’s on it’s way for professional editing.
I stopped reading after that, and sent this reply:
I’m very busy, so consider it a kindness that I’m replying at all.
You’re doing everything wrong.
First, you don’t query editors en masse — or, if you do, you don’t let us all see each others’ names in your “To:” field.
Second, you don’t say “fiction novel” — there’s no other kind of novel.
Third, 40,000 words in barely a novel by today’s standards; most publishers won’t touch anything less than 80,000 words.
Fourth, the job of creating the cover belongs to the art director at the publishing company; it’s not your job, and, frankly, you are utterly clueless about what will appeal to the buyers at Borders and Barnes and Noble, which are the ones who the cover is created for. Don’t have your own cover designed; leave it to the publishing company.
Fifth, if you need an editor to polish your prose before you submit it, fine — it means you’re not good enough to be a writer on your own, and that is indeed an impediment to a writing career, but, as you’ve found, you can hire professional help. But, for God’s sake, keep that dirty little secret to yourself; don’t brag about it in your cover letter. If your book is bought by a publisher, the publisher will assign — and pay for — an editor to work with you.
Sixth, never query a publisher until you are ready to submit; you said you’re not — you’re still having your work edited. When your book is as perfect as you can make, then query editors one at a time, explaining in your cover letter why specifically you’ve chosen to approach that publishing house (that is, demonstrate that you’ve done some market research — you clearly haven’t, as they only thing I publish is science-fiction novels by Canadians, and yet you scattershot queried me, wasting your time and mine).
Seventh, you have to be letter-perfect in what you submit. If you don’t know the difference between “it’s” and “its,” you’re not ready to be a professional writer, and if you do know the difference, and just couldn’t be bothered to proofread your query letter carefully, then you really aren’t being respectful of the people whose time you are wasting.
I wish you the best of luck — but you need more than that; you need to do your homework before bothering editors again.
Please take this in the spirit it’s intended — one of helping you; I rather suspect just about every one of the 46 other editors you addressed your message to won’t bother to reply at all.
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Recent additions: AXN (Central and Eastern Europe), AXN (Japan), Channel 1 (Russia), Fox International Channels (Russia), M-Net (Africa), Orbit Showtime (Middle East), ProSieben (Germany),TF1 (France) and TV4 (Sweden) have all acquired the series.
More information in this article.
Translation rights to the novel FlashForward have sold in numerous languages. but we’re always looking to add more. Author Sawyer controls all non-English-language rights; publishers can contact him at sawyer@sfwriter.com and he’ll put you in touch with his agents who handle his foreign rights, translation rights, and overseas sales.
The novel won Canada’s top SF award and Europe’s top SF award, and received a starred review, denoting a work of exceptional merit from Publishers Weekly.
Other reviews of the novel FlashForward:
More reviews of the novel are here, and more about the book is here.
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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 won the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Nebula Award for Best Novel of the Year (for The Terminal Experiment), and it’s where I wrote FlashForward, the basis for the ABC TV series.
You can read the article here, or browse the digital edition (exactly matching the print one) here (see the cover, plus pages 30 and 31).
The cover caption reads:
THE WRITE STUFF
ROBERT J. SAWYER
This Sci-Fi Shakespeare on his hot new TV show,
his love of Thornhill and why our area is the
best outpost this side of the galaxy
The Thornhill Post is one of the PostCity magazines; I was also on the cover back in 1996, on the occasion of my Nebula win.
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Rather than answer that myself, I’ll just repeat what FlashForward showrunner Marc Guggenheim says in the October 1, 2009, edition of The Age, a daily newspaper in Melboure, Australia:
Guggenheim hopes the show’s fans will pick up Sawyer’s book. “That’s part of the fun, trying to figure out what has happened, and I really encourage people to play along, pick up the novel, you never know what inspired us, what we used, or whether I’m misdirecting you by saying we didn’t take anything from the novel. As for the show, record it, pause it, glean through it for hidden clues. That’s part of the experience for some people.”
You can read the full interview with Marc here, and more about the novel is here.
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Pictured: Robert J. Sawyer and Robert Charles Wilson with their Hugo trophies.
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Splurged on a nice new Blu-ray DVD player yesterday (Sony BDP-S560, recommended by my video-guru friend H. Don Wilkat); also, got the lovely boxed set of the Planet of the Apes films on Blu-ray; quick check shows the first film looks stunning.
Next purchase: the remastered original Star Trek episodes on Blu-ray. The Canadian website DVDBeaver has a wonderful detailed review of the first season on Blu-ray, with amazing screen captures showing the improvement in quality over standard DVD. See here
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I’ll be at Vancouver’s science-fiction convention VCON this weekend. If you’re in the area, come on out — it’ll be a blast!
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The British edition of FlashForward — my novel which is the basis of the TV series of the same name — published by Orion’s Gollancz imprint, is due to hit stores in the UK next week. My UK editor, Simon Spanton, just wrote to say they’ve already gone back to press for a second printing, because new bookstore orders keep pouring in. Woohoo!
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A nice interview, by Christopher Olson, mostly about my novel Wake. You can read it online here.
And The Link has a brief review of the anthology Distant Early Warnings I edited here.
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For the next four weeks, Penguin Canada will be advertising my new novel Wake in subway cars in Toronto. The ads will appear randomly in cars on the Yonge-University-Spadina line. (Wake is called WWW: Wake in the United States.)
I’m going to be traveling for all of October, and won’t get a chance to go snap pictures of these on the subway trains myself. So, if any of you happen to see one and have a camera or a camera-phone with you, I’d love it if you emailed me a copy at sawyer@sfwriter.com.
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CERN now has a video interview with me, conducted by horror writer Stacey Cochran, and a print interview with me, conducted by CERN’s Antonella Del Rosso, on the CERN website. How cool is that?
Watch and read here.
[Photo caption: CERN / In his own words: Robert J. Sawyer on FlashForward]
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Americans can watch it at ABC, and Canadians at CTV.
Info about the novel by Robert J. Sawyer that it’s based on his here.
Enjoy!
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Photo above: Mark Askwith interviews Robert J. Sawyer live on stage at the launch party for Rob’s latest novel, Wake, April 30, 2009.
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On Monday, September 28, 2009, I was interviewed on CBC Radio One’s Q, hosted by Jian Ghomeshi (below, photographed today with Rob).
And earlier this month, on Saturday, September 5, 2009, I was interviewed on CBC Radio One’s The Next Chapter, hosted by Shelagh Rogers.
All three interviews were about my novel FlashForward, and the hit ABC TV series based on it — and all three interviews are now online as MP3 files:
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You can download it from Audible.com or Amazon.com, or buy it on CDs from Amazon or anywhere else that sells audiobooks.
All of my Audible.com titles are here.
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Remember the scene that ends with the guy watching the TVs through the store window with Joe Fiennes’s character, and the guy says, “It’s the whole world.” Then there’s a commerical break, and when we come back, Joe’s character gets a call from Sonya Walger’s character; I’m in the background of two of the shots of Sonya, talking on a cellphone.
Here are two wide-screen screen captures of Robert J. Sawyer’s cameo in the FlashForward pilot, courtesy of FlashForwardTV.com.
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Here are screen captures of the credits for Robert J. Sawyer from the ABC TV series FlashForward, as it first aired on Thursday, September 24, 2009.
The card “Based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer” is the first card in the closing credits; the closing credits aired over scenes of upcoming epsisodes of FlashForward, and the shared cared “Consultant: Robert J. Sawyer” happened to have the series logo in the background.
Other credit screen captures are here and here.
The credits read:
Based on the Novel by
Robert J. Sawyer
and a bit later in the closing credits I also share this card:
Consultant
Robert J. SawyerCostume Designer
Kathleen DetoroCostume Supervisor
Robyn Williams
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(Interview recorded at CTV‘s Queen Street facility in Toronto on August 11, 2009, and posted on the Globe‘s site on September 24, 2009.)
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