Robert J. Sawyer

The Age is the oldest newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, and the 20 June 2008 edition has an article about Indian-Canadian filmmaker Srinivas Kirshna. Page two of the article notes:

“Krishna’s next film project is a science fiction/fantasy epic based on Robert Sawyer’s Nebula Award-winning novel The Terminal Experiment, about monsters on the internet.”

Well, not exactly. It certainly is what Srinivas is working on (and he’s into the second year of his option on The Terminal Experiment), but the treatment he’s produced is for a very faithful adaptation of my novel, and I’m serving as a consultant on the adaptation. :)

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

This Saturday, June 21, 2008, at 7:00 p.m., Robert J. Sawyer, Nancy Kress, and Nick DiChario will be reading and signing at:

Barnes & Noble
3349 Monroe Avenue
Pittsford (Rochester), New York

After, we’ll be heading upstairs at Wegman’s to the food court along with members of the Rochester Fantasy Fans, and anyone else who’d like to join us. If you’re in the area, please come on out!

I’ll be reading from Identity Theft and Other Stories, Nan will be reading from Nano Comes to Clifford Falls, and Nick will be reading from Valley of Day-Glo.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

The American Film Institute has revealed its list of the top-ten science-fiction films:

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
3. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
4. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
5. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
6. Blade Runner (1982)
7. Alien (1979)
8. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
9. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
10. Back to the Future (1985)

It’s not a bad list at all, and I’m pleased to see 2001 in first place. And I’ll even grudgingly accept Star Wars: Episode IV.

But for my money, I’d drop E.T., Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Back to the Future, and replace them with Planet of the Apes (the 1968 version), Forbidden Planet, and either The Matrix or the Disney 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Chris Streib puts to rest Margaret Atwood’s assertion that ebooks are inferior to printed books because, she says, you can’t read an ebook in the bathtub.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

The Canadian Press wire service sent out this story entitled “Oil at $250 a barrel would transform Canada as we know it” just now, including quotes from an interview done with me.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Next month, I will be attending Readercon 19, near Boston. It’s a conference devoted entirely to the printed literature of science fiction. In their program book, they publish elaborate “bio-bibs” (biography/bibliography combos) for each program participant, with all kinds of detailed info. Since it’s a good overview of my career, I thought I’d share mine here:

Robert J. Sawyer (“Rob”) was one of only three authors included on Canadian publishing trade journal Quill & Quire‘s recent list of the “30 most influential, innovative, and just plain powerful people in Canadian publishing” (the other included authors: Margaret Atwood and Douglas Coupland).

He has sold twenty science-fiction novels, including:

Golden Fleece (Warner/Questar, 1990; revised edition from Tor, November 1999; winner of the Aurora for Best English-Language Novel; named best SF novel of 1990 in Orson Scott Card’s year-end summation in F&SF; finalist for the Seiun Award);

Far-Seer (Ace, 1992–“Quintaglio Ascension” trilogy volume 1; winner of the CompuServe Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Forum’s Homer Award for Best Novel of 1992; finalist for the Seiun Award; New York Public Library “Best Book for the Teen Age” list);

Fossil Hunter (Ace, May 1993–Quintaglio 2; Homer Award winner);

Foreigner (Ace, March 1994–Quintaglio 3);

End of an Era (Ace, November 1994; revised edition from Tor, September 2001; Seiun Award winner; Homer Award winner; Aurora Award finalist);

The Terminal Experiment (HarperPrism, May 1995 [transferred to the Avon Eos imprint with its seventh printing in 2002]; serialized in Analog as Hobson’s Choice, Mid-December 1994–March 1995; Nebula Award winner, Aurora Award winner, Hugo Award finalist);

Starplex (Ace, October 1996; serialized in Analog, July–October 1996; Aurora Award winner, Hugo and Nebula Award finalist);

Frameshift (Tor, May 1997; Hugo and Aurora finalist, Seiun Award winner);

Illegal Alien (Ace, December 1997; Seiun Award winner; Aurora Award and Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award finalist);

Factoring Humanity (Tor, June 1998; Hugo and Aurora Award finalist; Spain’s Premio UPC Ciencia Ficción winner);

Flashforward (Tor, July 1999; Spain’s Premio UPC Ciencia Ficción winner, Aurora Award winner);

Calculating God (Tor, June 2000; Hugo, Aurora, Homer, and John W. Campbell Memorial Award finalist);

Hominids (Tor, May 2002–“Neanderthal Parallax” trilogy volume 1; serialized in Analog, January–April 2002; Hugo winner; Aurora, John W. Campbell Memorial Award, Seiun, and Spectrum finalist);

Humans (Tor, February 2003–“Neanderthal Parallax” trilogy volume 2; Hugo finalist; Aurora finalist);

Hybrids (Tor, September 2003–“Neanderthal Parallax” trilogy volume 3; Spectrum finalist);

Mindscan (Tor, April 2005; John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner);

Rollback (Tor, April 2007; serialized in Analog, October 2006-January/February 2007; Hugo, Aurora, and John W. Campbell Memorial Award finalist; included on the American Library Association’s list of the top 10 SF novels of the year);

and Wake (Ace, April 2009– “WWW” trilogy volume 1; serialized in Analog, November 2008-March 2009).

Rob’s short fiction, collected in two volumes as Iterations (Quarry Press, 2002; reissued by Red Deer Press, 2004) and Identity Theft and Other Stories (Red Deer Press, April 2008), includes:

“Fallen Angel” from Strange Attraction, edited by Edward E. Kramer (ShadowLands, 2000; Bram Stoker Award finalist);

“Just Like Old Times” from Dinosaur Fantastic, edited by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW, 1993; Aurora and Arthur Ellis Award winner);

“You See but You Do Not Observe” from Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, edited by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW, 1995; winner of Le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, France’s top SF award, for best foreign short story of the year);

“Above It All” from Dante’s Disciples, edited by Peter Crowther and Edward E. Kramer (White Wolf, 1996; winner of the Homer Award for Best Short Story of 1995);

“Peking Man” from Dark Destiny III: Children of Dracula, edited by Edward E. Kramer (White Wolf, October 1996, Aurora Award winner);

“The Hand You’re Dealt” from Free Space, edited by Brad Linaweaver and Edward E. Kramer (Tor, July 1997, Hugo Award finalist, Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award winner);

“Ineluctable” from Analog, November 2002 (Aurora Award winner);

“Shed Skin” from Analog (Analog Analytical Laboratory winner, Hugo finalist);

and “Identity Theft” from Down These Dark Spaceways, edited by Mike Resnick (Science Fiction Book Club, May 2005, Premio UPC de Ciencia Ficción winner, Hugo finalist).

Other short fiction by Rob has appeared in Amazing Stories (March 1987, September 1988, and January 1989); TransVersions 3 and 12, and The Village Voice (14 January 1981).

Rob used to work at Bakka, Toronto’s SF specialty store, is a regular commentator on the Canadian version of Discovery Channel, and has appeared on Rivera Live with Geraldo Rivera. Rob’s “On Writing” column ran for three years in On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of Speculative Writing; those columns and other nonfiction about SF are collected in Relativity (ISFiC Press, 2004, Aurora Award winner).

He edits Robert J. Sawyer Books, the science-fiction imprint of Canadian publisher Fitzhenry & Whiteside; is a contributor to The New York Review of Science Fiction; has taught SF writing at Toronto’s Ryerson University, the University of Toronto, the Banff Centre, and the Humber School for Writers; has been Writer-in-Residence at the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy (the only person to hold that post besides Judith Merril herself) and the Odyssey workshop; and is a judge for the Writers of the Future contest.

Rob and his wife Carolyn Clink edited the Canadian SF anthology Tesseracts 6 (Tessearct Books, December 1997), and Rob co-edited the anthologies Crossing the Line: Canadian Mysteries with a Fantastic Twist (with David Skene-Melvin, Pottersfield Press, October 1998), Over the Edge: The Crime Writers of Canada Anthology (with Peter Sellers, Pottersfield Press, April 2000), and Boarding the Enterprise: Transporters, Tribbles, and the Vulcan Death Grip in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek (with David Gerrold, BenBella, August 2006).

He has a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in Radio and Television Arts from Toronto’s Ryerson University (which gave him its Alumni Award of Distinction in 2002) and an Honorary Doctorate (Doctor Litterarum, honoris causa) from Laurentian University, the largest university in Northern Ontario.

Rob lives in Mississauga, Ontario. Visit his web page at www.sfwriter.com.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

It delights me that my books are widely taught — and it’s always a special thrill when I get to visit a class that’s studying one of them.

Yesterday, I went to the University of Toronto at Mississauga and spoke to Chet Scoville’s class for two hours about my 2000 novel Calculating God. Lots of great questions from the students, and lots of fun for me.

Mine is the final and most recent book on Chet’s course list. Other titles include Wells’s The Time Machine, Clarke’s Childhood’s End, Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, and Gibson’s Neuromancer.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Woohoo! Just received copies of the 6th printing of the mass-market paperback of Hominids from Tor. Book got legs!

And, in at least some acknowledgment of the fact that the US and Canadian dollars are now worth about the same, Tor has changed the cover price from US$7.99/Cdn$10.99 to US$7.99/Cdn$9.99.

I’m glad to see Hominids still going strong. Besides winning the Best Novel Hugo Award, the book’s other honors include:

• John W. Campbell Memorial Award Finalist
• Aurora Award Finalist
• Seiun Award Finalis
• Gaylactic Spectrum Award Finalist
• Three Months on the Locus Hardcover Bestsellers List (prior to winning the Hugo)
• Year’s Best List: San Francisco Chronicle
• Year’s Best List: Borders Books

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

I ran into my friend Nalo Hopkinson at BookExpo Canada, and she was carrying a backpack with the Alphasmart Dana logo. I’ve always been intrigued by these dedicated writing machines, and asked her what she thought of hers. Her answer: she’d sold it, and bought a real laptop (but kept the backback!). Me, I’ve got my eyes on an Asus Eee PC right now, but Alphasmart is continuing to sell the Dana — and at the same price they’ve sold it at for years. The window of opportunity for such a device at a $400 price point seems to be closing.

Anyway, this evening, I happened to come across a letter I’d sent to Alphasmart about the Dana in February 2004 — over four years ago. There’s been no change to their product since then; the 2004 (and earlier) Dana is still what’s on the market — same hardware, same price … and that’s too bad.

Here’s what I had to say in that letter to Alphasmart back in 2004:

As a professional writer, I had been contemplating buying an Alphasmart Dana, and now, after trying one that belongs to a friend, I have decided not to. But because I am intrigued by your product, I thought I would tell you why, in hopes that you might consider these suggestions for future versions.

Ultimately, three things disappointed me. First, was the display. Now, yes, indeed, you do offer a lot more screen real estate in terms of square inches than does a typical Palm. But for a couple of years now, almost no new low-resolution Palm OS PDAs have been sold; modern units use four times the pixel density. Your 560×160 display has 89,600 pixels, and you splay them over 3.5 times as much space as a standard 320×320 palm, which displays 102,400 pixels.

If you were to offer a model that used modern, high-resolution screens, that would be fabulous. But after having used WordSmith on a high-resolution Clie, I couldn’t see myself going to the low-resolution display, with the jagged fonts, available on the Dana.

The second issue, for me, was the backlight, which, again, is reminiscent of the backlights on Palms from a few years ago: fine if you need to write in darkness, but adding no boost to readability in normal lighting conditions. Again, on a modern Palm (say, the Zire 71) or Clie, the backlight is so much more robust. It was clear that I would encounter ambient lighting conditions during my normal workday in which the Dana would be hard to read; I never have trouble reading my Clie under any conditions.

The final issue for me was the lack of handwriting recognition when not in the dedicated opening screen Graffiti area. I applaud you decision to use Graffiti 2 with a Palm OS 4 device, but when trying editing in AlphaWord, I was frustrated at not being able to highlight with the stylus, and then delete the marked passage with a Graffiti backspace gesture, as I would, say, in WordSmith on my Clie. Ironically, despite the Dana’s [wonderful] keyboard, I was finding it slower going doing some kinds of editing on a Dana than performing similar tasks on a keyboardless Clie.

I do think your choice of a monochrome screen is fine (my own favorite of the various PDAs and palmtops that I own is a Sony Clie SJ-20, which was the last monochrome model made by Sony). Color isn’t crucial for word processing. And I think your keyboard is excellent. I’ll be watching your website as time goes by to see what Dana Next has to offer.

All best wishes!

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

… was small. Smallest I’ve seen. Don’t get me wrong: I had a great time, and saw lots of old friends and colleagues.

But still.

One major player said to my wife he thought this might be the last year for BookExpo Canada (just his opinion, not inside scoop or anything).

Of course, the point of BookExpo Canada (formerly known as the Canadian Booksellers Association trade show) is for publishers to show their wares to buyers from chains and independents. But Canada’s lost a lot of its great independent bookstores, and is down to one national chain.

Still, my signing (along with Nick DiChario and Kristyn Dunnion) at the Fitzhenry & Whiteside booth went well, and the Penguin Canada champagne reception was wonderful.

I was surprised to see how many self-published authors had taken booths (not a cheap thing to do). Most of them were ignored by passers-by.

I was also surprised to not see a single ebook vendor there. Yes, the Amazon Kindle is not available in Canada, but Sony has launched its reader here — but no electronic book manufacturer (or ebook content retailer) was present.

Don’t get me wrong: Canadian bookselling and publishing are doing not badly, and, in some cases, spectacularly well (Penguin Canada had a record-setitng $100,000,000 year last year). But this particular tradeshow may have outlived its usefulness.

(My colleague Brian Hades, who runs Canada’s largest SF publisher, Edge, was at BookExpo America this year … but gave BookExpo Canada a miss.)

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Baby, if you’ve ever wondered,
Wondered whatever became of me,
I’m living on the air in Cincinnati.
Cincinnati, WKRP.

Got kind of tired of packing and unpacking,
Town to town, up and down the dial.
Baby, you and me were never meant to be,
But maybe think of me once in a while.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

The tradeshow part of BookExpo Canada 2008 runs Sunday, June 15, and Monday, June 16, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

On Sunday at 1:00 p.m., look for Hugo winner Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo nominee Nick DiChario, and Kristyn Dunnion signing at the Fitzhenry & Whiteside booth; I’ll be signing Identity Theft and Other Stories.

And at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, Writers of the Future Judge Robert J. Sawyer and recent winners Tony Pi and Stephen Kotowych (last year’s Grand Prize winner) will be signing at the Galaxy Press / Bridge Booth.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

In the introduction to my short story “Star Light, Star Bright,” which appears in my first collection, Iterations, I wrote:

In 1997, I happened to run into WKRP in Cincinnati star Gordon Jump at a deli in Los Angeles; I introduced myself by saying I wanted to shake the hand of the man who had uttered the funniest line in sitcom history — a line that was echoing gently in my mind as I wrote this story.

Sometimes, people send me emails asking just what the heck was the line I was referring to. It was, of course, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly,” and it comes from the WKRP episode “Turkeys Away.”

The man who penned that line, Bill Dial, has just passed away, as SF Scope reports. He also wrote for the later Star Trek series, and appeared twice on WKRP (very memorably uttering the line “Speed kills, Del” in another episode) as dour radio-station engineer Bucky Dornster.

R.I.P., Bill Dial.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

How’d it get so late? Well, I had a nice lengthy phone call from my buddy Jack Dann down in Australia (a terrific SF writer and editor).

And I had to go over the final typesetting corrections for The Savage Humanists edited by Fiona Kelleghan for my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint (which is a tricky book, because the introduction contains footnotes, and those present typesetting challenges).

And I did an interview with the Canadian Press new service about how high energy prices will change Canadian society.

And I had a long phone consultation with fellow writer Dean Lewis, who gave me great feedback on a project I’m working on.

Plus, plus, plus. Suddenly, half the day is gone! To the keyboard, Batman!

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

The full list of nominees is here.

The Campbell jurors are:

• Nebula-winning physicist Gregory Benford, author of the classic SF novel Timescape
• Historian Paul A. Carter, author of The Creation of Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Magazine Science Fiction
• Hugo-winning author and scholar James Gunn, past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and SFWA Grand Master Award recipient
• Elizabeth Anne Hull, past president of the Science Fiction Research Association
• Christopher McKitterick, associate director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction
• Hugo-winning scholar Farah Mendlesohn, editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction
• Nebula-winning author and editor Pamela Sargent, editor of the Women of Wonder anthologies
• T.A. Shippey, editor of The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories

The winner will be announced at the joint Campbell / Science Fiction Research Association conference in Kansas City, July 10-13, 2008.

Other honors to date for Rollback include its current Hugo Award nomination, a nomination for the Aurora Award, starred reviews (denoting a book of exceptional merit) in both Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, being included on the American Library Association’s list of the year’s 10 best SF novels, and being a Main Selection of the Science Fiction Book Club.

This is my fourth Campbell Memorial Award nomination. I won the award in 2006 for Mindscan, and was previously also nominated for Calculating God and Hominids. That’s my trophy for Mindscan pictured above.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Now, if that isn’t a cool-sounding title! On the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Admiral Adama refers to himself on the wireless as “Galactica Actual.” After failing to find any reference to this being an actual bit of military protocol — referring to a vessel’s commander as its “Actual” — I asked my friend Kirstin Morrell, who knows all things about the military, to see if it’s a real term. And she found this reference, that says “Actual” was a radio-talk term used by Marines in Vietnam for Unit Commander. Here’s the link.

Just don’t be surprised if next time you phone me, I answer the phone by saying, “SFWRITER.COM Actual.” :)

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

I’m delighted to see John Joseph Adams interviewing Nick DiChario about his Valley of Day-Glo, the latest novel under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint, over at SciFi Wire, the news service of the SciFi Channel.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Woohoo! Over at SFFaudio, Scott D. Danielson has reviewed Audible.com’s new unabridged recording of my Hugo Award-nominated Calculating God, and given it their highest distinction: an SFFaudio Essential! Yay!

The reviews says in part, “Sawyer presents, in a very entertaining and interesting way, arguments for and against God’s existence. I can think of no better way to present these topics than this lively novel, and I’ll recommend it to anyone interested in thinking about these things, no matter which side of the fence they are on.”

And narrator Jonathan Davis gets praised, too: “He is one of our very best narrators and this is a fine performance. I was rapt the entire time, and even near tears at one moment in the book.”

Check out the whole review right here — and you can get Audible’s version of Calculating God right here.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

My friends John Robert Colombo, Lorna Toolis, Judith Merril, and Jon Lomberg created an anthology of Mars-themed science fiction that is now, in fact, on Mars!

Read all about it on John’s website right here.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

I’m very fond of butterfly conservatories — and the Smithsonian has a new one, so on my way to the airport in Washington yesterday, after the Gartner IT Security Summit, I took a detour to visit the National Museum of Natural History, where my friend paleontologist Mike Brett-Surman (pictured with a butterly on his sleeve) showed me around the butterfly conservatory there.

(The night before, Mike and his wife, exhibit designer Kim Moeller, came out to visit me at the fabulous Gaylord National where we had a terrific Italian buffet dinner.)

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

I’m very pleased to note that Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer is #3 this month on the paperback bestsellers’ list published by Locus, the trade journal of the science-fiction field.

I’m particularly pleased because #1 and #2 are fantasy, making Rollback the top-selling SF title for the month.

And I’m even more pleased that this is Rollback‘s second month on the list — it’s very rare for a novel to appear on the list for more than one month. Last month (data period: February 2008), Rollback was #7; this month (data period: March 2008), as I said, it’s #3.

(There are only two other repeaters this month, and both are fantasy.)

Here’s the paperback list. Figures following publisher’s name are: months on list / position last month. The asterisk next to the last entry means it tied with the book above it:

1) White Night, Jim Butcher (Roc) 2 1

2) Into a Dark Realm, Raymond E. Feist (Eos) 1 –

3) Rollback, Robert J. Sawyer (Tor) 2 7

4) Grimspace, Ann Aguirre (Ace) 1 –

5) No Humans Involved, Kelley Armstrong (Bantam Spectra) 1 –

6) Madhouse, Rob Thurman (Roc) 2 8

7) Goblin War, Jim C. Hines (DAW) 1 –

8) Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card (Tor) 20 –

9) Dead to Me, Anton Stout (Ace) 1 –

*) Von Neumann’s War, John Ringo & Travis Taylor (Baen) 1 –

The full list is also online at Locus‘s site here.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Coming home from Washington yesterday took forever.

My flight was to leave at 5:59 p.m. The plane scheduled for the incoming flight (as it happens, from Toronto) was delayed in Toronto because of mechanical difficulties — and they spent too long (two hours) trying to fix it before abandoning that and ordering up another plane.

It was too long because by the time they got the replacement plane, the original crew was over their legal/contractual hours-served-per-day limit, so there was another delay while a new crew was found, and then once they finally found that crew, an electrical storm had begun in DC, so they wouldn’t let the plane take off from Toronto (because they didn’t know if a ground crew could go out on the tarmac when it arrived in DC).

Of course, Air Canada should have known about the length of time their crew could serve, and the potential bad weather brewing in DC, and so the decision to swap planes should have been made earlier; if it had been, the original crew could have been used, and they would have made it to DC long before the bad weather.

Air Canada did not handle it well at Reagan; communication from their gate clerks was spotty most of the time (and for long periods we were abandoned with no Air Canada representative at the gate). Passengers got justifiably pointed in their comments (although no one got out of line), and one of the clerks made it worse by twice calling over police officers, as if asking questions were a criminal offense.

At least we were waiting in the departure lounge. The poor guys coming to DC from Toronto spent two hours in the replacement plane on the tarmac in Toronto before they got the go-ahead to take-off.

We weren’t in the air until after midnight. Total delay: over six hours.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Thanks heaps, Air Canada. My flight home from Washington, DC, was delayed six hours today at Reagan. But I’m finally home …

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Classic Star Trek has lost some of its most influential behind-the-scenes people this past month: director Joe Pevney, composer Alexander Courage, and now producer Robert H. Justman. All the Justman obits are talking about Trek, but I want to mention one of his other genre connections: he was a producer on Search, the high-tech detective series from 1972 starring Burgess Meredith overseeing operations from PROBE Control. R.I.P, Bobby Justman.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Robert J. Sawyer moderated a panel with fellow science-fiction writers Greg Bear and Arlan Andrews today at the Gartner IT Security Summit just outside Washington, DC. PC World reports on the panel here.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

SF Crowsnest reviews Rollback right here, saying:

“The sensitivity of the issues involved here is likely to get this book up for awards in the coming months and you might as well be in on the ground floor and say you’ve got there before the judges. A compelling read.”

The review is by Geoff Willmetts.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

… right here.

Identity Theft and Other Stories by Robert J. Sawyer. Red Deer Press, 2008. Buy an autographed hardcover from the author here.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

Working furiously on a bunch of projects, including Watch, the sequel to Wake. I’ve been using the index-cards feature of Celtx, a way-cool open-source free media preproduction package, to plot it out. Celtx is a Canadian project (yay, team!), based in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The index-card feature is the closest simulation to actually using 3×5 cards on a physical bulletin board that I’ve seen for Windows (and, yes, I like it better than the Scene Navigator in FinalDraft, which I also own).

And on another project — one about which I’ll say more later — I’m collaborating for the first time with Google Docs, which I must say is also way cool. (The team members are also doing their scheduling with Google Calendar.)

Tomorrow, I’m off to Washington, DC, for three days to chair a keynote panel at the Gartner IT Security Summit.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

There are many hundreds of Star Trek books, but Roddenberry.com — the official website, run by Gene Roddenberry’s son Rod — has chosen to stock only two commercially published bookstore-distributed books.

One of them is the (excellent) Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenbery.

And the other is Boarding the Enterprise, edited by David Gerrold and Robert J. Sawyer.

You can see it at Roddenberry.com here, and read my introduction to the book here.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site

… was Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s UFO, filmed in 1969, but set in 1980. YouTube’s got the opening credit sequence (with Barry Gray’s wonderful theme music) here.

NOTE: Click on the “Watch in high quality” link just below the “Views” hit counter.

Really, quite an ambitious undertaking: cars, fashions, hairstyles, all created for a coherent future (and not using the usual SF-show copout of having everyone wear the same basic uniform).

(Barry Gray also did the theme song to Fireball XL5, which you can hear here.)

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site