I’m pleased to announce that film rights to my Hugo Award-nominated novel Calculating God have been optioned by Rampage Entertainment in Vancouver.
For those who are curious, my properties currently under option are Hominids, Mindscan, The Terminal Experiment, the novella “Identity Theft” and its sequel “Biding Time,” and now Calculating God.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
No sooner am I set up on MySpace than people start telling me Facebook is where all the really cool folks hang out now! Well, I’m happy to be both places. On MySpace, I’m here, and on Facebook I’m here.
Facebook asked for a favourite quote, and I always think this is good advice, so it’s what I listed:
Beware the beast Man, for he is the devil’s pawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport, or lust, or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him. Drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.” — Planet of the Apes
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I’ve been doing a lot of by-email interviews with newspapers and magazines to help promote Rollback. Most of these are done in a single, quick session at the keyboard. Here’s a sample one I did last week for a paper in Richmond, Virginia (tying in to my appearance as Guest of Honor at Ravencon there, starting nine days from now).
How do you balance your creative writing life with the demands of marketing and book tours such as your planned 18-city tour this spring? Will you need a rollback when it’s finished?
Totally! It’s going to be an exhausting trip. But, then again, this is my 17th novel, so I’m sort of used to it by now. I write one book a year, on average, and end up spending one month out of that year on promoting the newest book. In no way is a book tour a vacation — the itinerary is just crammed with bookstore and media events — but it actually is something I look forward to. Writing is a lonely profession — just you and the keyboard — and touring gets me out of the house once a year to remind myself that there are people who care about my books; it’s my time for being super-social, and I find it simultaneously exhausting and invigorating — a strange combination!
Can you tell a little about creating your new book, Rollback? What sort of research and background reading did you do before sitting down to write it?
Rollback is about rejuvenation — about making people physically young again. As a science-fiction writer, I’m constantly doing research, and I typically spend four months doing nothing but research for each new novel. I already knew a lot about genetics from writing a previous novel, Frameshift, so I didn’t have to research that aspect, but I did read everything I could find on programmed cell death, telomeres (the little endcaps on chromosomes that grow shorter each time a cell divides — when they’re reduced to nothing, the cell dies), oxidation and free radicals (a couple of the things that cause aging), and so on. This actually hearkens back to the very first science fiction novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Victor who wanted to reverse death, says, “To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.” Well, I wanted to reverse aging, so first I had to understand it.
Rollback is also a novel about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Again, that’s something I’ve written about before, including in my novel Factoring Humanity, but I did a lot of research about possible ways of encoding information into complex messages, and that was quite fascinating.
Are there any social issues of the day that you think speculative fiction writers should be willing to take on?
You’ve got it exactly backwards! There are no social issues of the day that speculative fiction writers should not be willing to take on. In my own books, I’ve dealt with abortion issue, capital punishment, racism, sexism, affirmative action, gay rights, recovered memories of childhood abuse, corruption within the church, the politics of war, 9/11, creation vs. evolution, government funding for culture, and many others. Science fiction is a way of looking at our society through a distorting lens that lets us see truths that otherwise might remain hidden. Despite what people think they know about science fiction from watching Star Wars — which is really fantasy, not SF, and unambitious fantasy at that — good science fiction, starting right with H.G. Wells, has always been about social comment.
Have you started on your next book — can we have a hint?
I’m working on a trilogy about the World Wide Web gaining consciousness, and the relationship it develops with humanity. The overall trilogy will be called the WWW series, and the three books will be titled Wake, Watch, and Wonder. These won’t be the computer-takes-over stories or we-upload-into-the-computer stories; rather, I’m trying to work out a realistic way in which flesh-and-blood human beings might actually co-exist peacefully with advanced artificial intelligence.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Okay, yes, of course, I want you all to buy Rollback at my book launch at Bakka-Phoenix Books this Saturday, April 14, at 3:00 p.m. in Toronto.
But Bakka-Phoenix is one of the only places in all of Canada where you can also get Relativity: Essays and Stories, my small-press hardcover collection put out by Chicago’s ISFiC Press. The book won the Aurora Award, and is reviewed very favourably here.
So, if picking up a copy of Rollback doesn’t leave you feeling strapped, think about Relativity, too — it’s a book I’m very proud of, and this will be one of your few chances to get an autographed copy.
The publisher’s catalog page for Relativity is here.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Blog T.O. — the number-one blog about Toronto — has just put a great interview with me online, conducted by Ryan Oakley.
Here’s a bigger view of the Quill & Quire issue with Robert J. Sawyer on the cover, as discussed in the preceding blog entry.
UPDATE: And see here for the full text of the profile of Rob that appeared in that issue.
Photo by Kevin Kelly; art direction by Gary Campbell.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Woohoo! I’m a cover boy! :)
Quill & Quire is the Canadian publishing trade journal — the bible of the book trade in Canada — and, to my delight, I’m on the cover of the May 2007 issue, which has just started shipping to subscribers and bookstores. The cover photo is by Kevin Kelly.
The issue features a profile of me by Gary Butler; a round-up article about 10 other Canadian SF author by Bakka-Phoenix manager Chris Szego; and an article by Scott MacDonald interviewing me, Robert Charles Wilson, Julie E. Czerneda, Karl Schroeder, and Cory Doctorow called “The Great SF Brain Drain: Why Do Canada’s Science Fiction Authors Have to go South to get Published?”
Read all about the issue here, on Quill & Quire‘s official blog.
(Something not in this issue is a review of my Rollback; that’s because Quill already ran their review last month. You can read it here.)
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Part two of the podcast interview with me at Adventures in SciFi Publishing is now online here.
And part one is still available.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
This ad for the science-fiction novel Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer took up two-fifths of a page in the Books section of The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, on Saturday, April 7, 2007. The ad was placed by H.B. Fenn, Tor’s Canadian distributor, and was designed by Nicole Simmons.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
A little request for the upcoming book tour. Please, if I know you, remind me of who you are when you come up to say hello. I’ll be exhausted, jet-lagged, and seeing lots of people out of context, and I’m personally just not that good with faces (I almost never remember someone’s face after the first time I meet them).
So, come up and say, “Hi, Rob — it’s John Smith, you taught me at Banff a few years ago,” or, “Hi, Rob — it’s Jane Doe, we were at Ryerson together.” (The hardest ones are people I know online who I’ve never seen in the flesh before — honestly, I have no idea what you look like, and can’t identify you in a police line-up … or a bookstore signing!)
Really, I probably do remember you, and want to make the connection, but I’ll need a gentle reminder.
I felt lousy all through a recent con I was at in the U.S. because someone said hi to me, and I didn’t immediately place them. Turns out it was someone I’d met six months earlier at a Writers of the Future event: I knew I knew the person, but out of context, and out of the blue, thousands of kilometers away, I couldn’t place him immediately. So, do us both a favor! And, yes, please, please, do come up and say hello!
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
In honor of the 40th anniversary of the original Star Trek series, CBS — the current owner of the series — has been digitally remastering the classic episodes … and completely redoing most of the special effects as computer-generated imagery. Each week, a new episode is released to syndication.
The best source of information about all this is The Trek Movie Report website. Every week, that site posts a featured review of the current episode, and this week, Robert J. Sawyer (that’s me!) was the special guest reviewer. Read what I had to say about that giant-amoeba-in-space classic, “The Immunity Syndrome.”
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Scott Edelman — the editor of SciFi Weekly — has posted his photos from the Toronto World Horror Convention, including the one above of yours truly. (Scott may also have the only picture ever of book collector Dave Willoughby in which Dave is not smiling.)
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
In the early years, B.C., the daily comic strip by Johnny Hart, was pure genius — one of my absolute favourites. I also think it was what first introduced me to the notion of meta-fiction. Peter says to Curls, I think, one day: “I’ve discovered there’s a pump inside us that makes us go! I’m going to call it a ‘hart.'” The response from Curls: “Bootlicker.”
Hart’s Christianity came to the fore to the detriment of the strip in later years, sadly. The definition for “Science Fiction” in Wiley’s Dictionary was, “Any scientific account that omits God.”
Still, as the Spencer Tracy character says in Inherit the Wind of his late fundamentalist opponent, “A giant once lived in that body!”
Johnny Hart died over the weekend, while drawing. May he rest in peace.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
:)
Locus Online has upcoming author events listed, including a good summary of the book tour for Rollback, showing 18 events for me over the next six weeks.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Hey, PocketDirectory.com! Update your DataViewer software, for Pete’s sake. It’s been OVER TWO YEARS since you updated it (on February 23, 2005), and it really does need work; the Palm OS version has a truly crappy display and lousy interface. You’ve got some great text databases — like the Concise Encyclopaedia Britannica — available, but the software to read them with is in desperate need of an overhaul. I see you’ve been just as lazy with other platforms — Pocket PC, Symbian OS have all gone over two years without an update. Are you serious about retaining customers and staying in business? Just askin’.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Blog T.O. — the most popular blog about Toronto — raves today about Sailing Time’s Ocean by Terence M. Green, published under my Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint, calling it “a wonderful, wise and emotional novel by one of Toronto’s finest writers.” The full review is here.
ZtreeWin is a Windows clone of the old DOS Xtree program, fully updated to support modern operating systems and hardware. Way more powerful and easier to use than Windows Explorer; I use it all the time. I’ve been a registered user since 1997 — and the program is regularly updated, and all those updates for a decade now have been free.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
This might be of interest for those in the Greater Toronto Area:
Defenders of Gravity
Thursday, April 12, 2007 to Friday, April 27, 2007
Defenders of Gravity is a new play written by Jeff Pearce and directed by Tom McHale. The play is a comedy-drama about a group of science fiction writers in New York in 1955. On a long weekend in the summer, the whole gang – Walter, Jack, Rachel, Fred, Benny and his new girl, Teresa – get together to write, talk, drink, flirt and think big. Their heads may often be up in the clouds, but they all have problems that will bring them crashing down to Earth.
Defenders of Gravity is a love letter to science fiction – minus aliens, spaceships, and atomic mushroom clouds. The play will open the new Playwrights of Spring Festival being produced by Theatre Aurora and Shadowpath Theatre Productions.
Theatre Aurora
150 Henderson Drive, Aurora ON
http://www.shadowpaththeatre.ca
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
The Books section of today’s (Saturday, April 7, 2007) Globe and Mail: Canada’s National Newspaper devotes 2/5ths of a page (two of the five columns of text on the page, top to botoom) to a fabulous ad for my new book, Rollback. I shudder to think how much it cost — but I’m very, very grateful to my Canadian distributor, H.B. Fenn and Company, for placing this beautiful ad. Woohoo! The ad is on page 7 of the Books section.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
The nifty podcast Adventures in Scifi Publishing from San Diego has part one of a new interview with me online now. Of course, the interview focuses on Rollback. The interviewer is Shaun Farrell.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
… will be at The Write Book and Gift Shop in Honeoye Falls, New York (Finger Lakes region, near Rochester). Why there? ‘Cause the co-owner of the store is Nick DiChario, Hugo and World Fantasy Award finalist.
The launch part will be held Sunday, April 15, at 3:00 p.m. Details are here. It’s a great shop in a beautiful location.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I’ll be an in-studio guest on CBC Radio One’s Here and Now this Monday, April 9, starting at 4:50 p.m. Eastern time, talking about Rollback. Here and Now is heard throughout southern Ontario
CBC Radio One in Toronto is 99.1 FM; you can also listen online here.
This mailing went out today to all the people on my email list. If you’d like to be added directly to my email list — I only send out notices once or twice a year — drop me a note at: sawyer@sfwriter.com
Hello, Robert J. Sawyer reader!
I’m delighted to announce the release of my 17th novel, Rollback, which has just been published by Tor. Rollback is a novel about rejuvenation and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. You’ll find oodles about the book here.
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BOOK TOUR!
The book is already out, but the official Canadian launch party in Toronto is Saturday, April 14, at 3:00 p.m. at Bakka-Phoenix Books, which is now at 697 Queen Street West (just west of Bathurst).
And the US launch party is Sunday, April 15, at 3:00 p.m., at Write Book and Gift — the store co-owned by Hugo Award-finalist Nick DiChario — in Honeoye Falls, NY.
In addition, I’ll be traveling to 20 cities in the United States and Canada to promote the release of the ROLLBACK:
USA: Denver, CO; Orlando, FL; Honeoye Falls, NY; Albany, NY; Richmond, VA; Alexandria, VA; Washington, DC; Camp Hill, PA; Milford, NH
CANADA: Vancouver, BC; Edmonton, AB; Calgary, AB; Saskatoon, SK; Winnipeg, MB; Sudbury, ON; Sarnia, ON; London, ON; Woodbridge, ON; Toronto, ON; Oshawa, ON
The tour schedule, with dates, times, and venues, is here.
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The early reviews for ROLLBACK have been great:
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: “Sawyer, who has won Hugo and Nebula awards, may well win another major SF award with this superior effort.” (starred review, denoting a work of exceptional merit)
QUILL & QUIRE (the Canadian publishing trade journal): “ROLLBACK is a reminder of why Sawyer is one of our most highly regarded writers of speculative fiction, able to handle the demands of the heart and the cosmos with equal skill.”
ANALOG: “Extraordinarily fresh and thought-provoking. ROLLBACK is a thoroughly engaging story, with some of the most memorable people you’ll ever meet.”
SCIFIDIMENSIONS: “ROLLBACK is a shoo-in to be short-listed for next year’s major awards.”
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Ellen Datlow has put up a selection of photos from the Toronto World Horror Convention on Flickr.
Her whole album is here.
This one, which is particularly nice of me, shows me and fellow Canadian writer Steve Erickson.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
The blog “My Book, The Movie” invites authors to daydream about who they’d like to see in a big-screen adaptation of one of their books. My musings on casting a Rollback movie are here.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
The cover story in the current Publishers Weekly is about science fiction publishing, and it leads with a short interview with me, then goes into discussions of specific lines — and in that section, I’m quoted again discussing Phyllis Gotlieb’s Birthstones, the latest book under the Robert J. Sawyer Books imprint. A quote from the aritcle:
When asked if traditional SF has “jumped the shark,” Robert J. Sawyer responds, “If it had just jumped the shark, that would be fine—at least people would understand what that means. But no. SF has instead executed a parabolic maneuver with an exemplar of the cartilaginous order Selachii at its focus, which amounts to the same damn thing, but in modern SF fashion it is said in such a jargon-laden, exclusionary and unwelcoming way that newcomers simply aren’t let in.”
The full text of the article is here.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Today’s edition — Wednesday, April 4, 2007 — of The Ottawa Citizen contains an op-ed piece by Robert J. Sawyer on atheism and the Modern Skeptical Movement, which the paper is calling “Unhealthy Skepticism” (my original title was “A Bright Idea for Atheists”). It takes up most of a page (page 17).
The Ottawa Citizen is the largest circulation newspaper in Canada’s capital city; an op-ed piece is an opinion article that appears opposite the editorial, and is written by someone other than the newspaper’s usual staff.
My piece is an expansion of the comments I made at the grand opening of the Centre for Inquiry, Ontario.
The full text of the article is online here.
Pictured above: The Flying Spaghetti Monster; the Citizen ran the full version of this picture, which also shows Adam off to the left, and is captioned “Touched by his Noodly Appendage,” with the article in the print version, as you can see below.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
So says SciFiDimensions in their review of Robert J. Sawyer’s Rollback. Who am I to argue?
The full review is here.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer is the SciFi Essential Book for April 2007, in Tor’s cross-promotion program with SciFi Channel. Woohoo!
(If you want to read a longer excerpt than the one on the SciFi Channel website, look here.)
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Tomorrow’s Ottawa Citzien — Wednesday, April 4, 2007 — will carry my op-ed piece, which I entitled “A Bright Idea for Atheists.” It’s an expanded version of comments I made at the grand opening of the Centre for Inquiry, Ontario last month.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
