Robert J. Sawyer

The British edition of FlashForward (pictured above), the novel by Robert J. Sawyer upon which the new TV series is based, is a bestseller at Amazon.co.uk, the British version of Amazon.com.

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:

1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
4. The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell
5. The Shack by William P. Young
   
6. FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer
7. Hard Girls by Martina Cole
8. Scarlet Women by Jessie Keane
9. A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
10. Dissolution by C.J. Sansom

And it’s currently #1 on the science-fiction bestsellers list:

1. FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer
2. Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
4. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
5. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli,
6. High-Rise by J.G. Ballard
7. Batman: The Killing Joke (Deluxe Edition) by Moore & Bolland
8. Batman: Dark Knight Returns by Miller & Janson
9. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
10. Batman: Year One by Miller and Mazzuchelli

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

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.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

The TV series FlashForward, made by ABC Studios in Los Angeles, and based on Robert J. Sawyer‘s novel of the same name, has now sold to a staggering 100 territories worldwide.

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:

• “Great storytelling” —Boston Globe
• “Fresh and startling” —Library Journal
• “Intellectually and dramatically satisfying” —Orlando Sentinel
• “Sawyer manipulates an intricate plot brilliantly” —Denver Rocky Mountain News
• “Unbelievably cool” —SciFi Weekly
• “A gripping novel” —SciFi Wire
• “An excellent novel” —Starlog
• “An utterly fascinating premise and hard questions about free will and determinism” —Winnipeg Free Press

More reviews of the novel are here, and more about the book is here.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

I’m the cover boy on the current issue of the Thornhill Post, a monthly publication distributed for free to affluent homes and in street-corner boxes in Thornhill, Ontario.

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.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

See here.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

People keep asking me if they should read my novel FlashForward, or whether doing so will spoil the fun of watching the new TV series based on it.

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.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

In the Literary Review of Canada. Check it out.

Pictured: Robert J. Sawyer and Robert Charles Wilson with their Hugo trophies.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

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

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

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!

More info

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Just recorded interviews for Bravo! Canada’s The O’Regan Files with Seamus O’Regan (above) — for a full half-hour installment of the program — and for CTV’s ETalk. Not sure when they’ll air.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

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!

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

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.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

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.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.ca

My novel FlashForward, the basis for the ABC TV series of the same name, is largely set at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

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]

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

The first episode, “No More Good Days,” is legally online for American and Canadian viewers.

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!

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

The CBC Book Club has interviews with the CBC’s Joe Mahoney and Mark Askwith of Space: The Imagination Station about their relationships with me, along with their recommendations for SF books by authors other than me. Check ’em out:

Mark Askwith

Joe Mahoney

Photo above: Mark Askwith interviews Robert J. Sawyer live on stage at the launch party for Rob’s latest novel, Wake, April 30, 2009.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

On Saturday, September 26, 2009, I was interviewed on CBC Radio One’s pop-culture program Definitely Not the Opera, hosted by Sook-Yin Lee (above in 2007, with Robert J. Sawyer), in an interview recorded at Thin Air: Winnipeg International Writers’ Festival.

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:

• CBC Radio’s DNTO interviews Rob (6 minutes)
• CBC Radio’s Q interviews Rob (14 minutes)
• CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter interviews Rob (12 minutes)

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Blackstone Audiobooks has a wonderful unabridged reading of FlashForward, the Robert J. Sawyer novel that the hit ABC TV series is based on. The reader is Mark Deakins, and he does a fabulous job (I recently listened to the whole thing during my morning treadmilling sessions).

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.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Woohoo! On September 26, 2009, the Tor mass-market paperback of my novel FlashForward, basis for the ABC TV series of the same name, hit “Amazon.com Sales Rank: #164 in Books” — the highest I’ve ever been. (It’s currently #424). Not bad for a ten-year-old book!

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

I’m very briefly in the first scene of the third act of the first episode of FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on my novel of the same name.

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.

Rob to the left of Sonya

Rob to the right of Sonya

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

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. Sawyer

Costume Designer
Kathleen Detoro

Costume Supervisor
Robyn Williams

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

The Canadian Press has a video interview with Robert J. Sawyer about FlashForward, the TV sereis based on his novel of the same name, over at the website for The Globe and Mail: Canada’s National Newspaper. You can watch it online here.

(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.)

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

See here. ISFiC Press is the publisher of my collection Relativity.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

ABC did a squeeze-and-tease on the ending credits of FlashForward, the TV series based on my novel of the same name, devoting most of the screen to a promotion for future episodes of the series. But CTV’s /A\ in Canada ran the credits full screen. Here are screen captures from the streaming-video version of the first episode (which Canadian viewers can watch on the CTV.ca website). This will presumably be the DVD/Blu-Ray version of the credtis, as well.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Yesterday’s National Post — a major Canadian daily newspaper available coast-to-coast — ran a great interview with Robert J. Sawyer about FlashForward (accompanied by a great photo!)

You can read the article online here; the author is Mark Medley and the photographer is Peter J. Thompson.

Below is how the article appeared in the printed newspaper.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

The overnight Nielsen TV ratings are in — and FlashForward, the TV series based on Robert J. Sawyer’s novel of the same name, is a hit!

Detailed ratings info, courtesy of The Futon Critic.

More info, from TV By The Numbers.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Cool call-out above the fold on page 1 of the Ottawa Citizen, the largest-circulation newspaper in Canada’s capital city:

Even nicer article inside by Tom Spears, the Citizen‘s science reporter inside. The article begins: “That there’s fiction in science fiction is pretty obvious. But Canadian author Rob Sawyer also wants you to remember the science half, especially with one of his 20 novels coming out as a televised series.”

You can read the whole article right here.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Today’s National Post — a major Canadian daily newspaper, available coast to coast — interviews me about tonight’s debut of the TV series FlashForward, based on my novel of the same name.

The terrific photo above, taken by Post photographer Peter J. Thompson, accompanies the article, which was written by Mark Medley.

FlashForward premieres tonight — Thursday, September 24, 2009 — at 8:00 p.m. / 7:00 p.m. Central on ABC in the US and CTV’s /A\ in Canada.

Those darned timezones! Thin Air: Winnipeg International Writers Festival, in conjunction with CTV, is hosting a public viewing of the pilot episode of FlashForward, the TV series based on my novel, as it airs on Thursday, September 24, 2009. The event will be held at McNally Robinson Polo Park in Winnipeg, with me doing commentary before the show, during the commercial breaks, and afterwards.

But the start time for this event is 6:30 p.m. (not an hour later as previously announced), because FlashForward airs at 7:00 p.m. Central Time — including Winnipeg. D’oh!

Details are here.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com

Click this text for full-size video at TIME.com
It doesn’t get much better than this! TIME.COM — the website of Time magazine — has just posted a 6-minute video profile of me and the science behind my novel FlashForward.

(Indeed, right now, it’s promoted on top of the the main page of TIME.com, which is as close as I’ll ever get to being on the cover of Time!)

The interview with me was done Thursday, August 27, 2009, in Los Angeles, at a location shoot for FlashForward. It’s terrific!

The interview is hosted by Brian Malow. Special thanks to Nicole Marostica of ABC Studios for facilitating the shoot.

Watch the interview right here.

Visit The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
and WakeWatchWonder.com