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
It’s showtime! Today — Tuesday, April 3, 2007 — is the official publication date for my 17th novel, Rollback. It’s now shipping from online retailers, and people have reported buying it in retail stores.
On my website you’ll find the opening chapters, the dustjacket text, a book-club / reading group discussion guide, and much more.
I’ll be touring to 18 cities in support of the release — check out the tour dates here.
The early reviews have been fabulous:
“Robert J. Sawyer has a way of taking familiar ideas, looking at them from new angles and in greater depth than almost anybody before him, and tying them together to create extraordinarily fresh and thought-provoking stories. Rollback is a thoroughly engaging story, with some of the most memorable people you’ll ever meet.” — Analog
“Sawyer’s investigation of rejuvenation loads a fascinating story with difficult issues. Don makes mistakes, yet he and Sarah are good people and thoughtfully constructed characters. Rollback exploits two staple sf tropes to produce a nicely executed, human-scale story.” — Booklist
“Rollback gets my vote as SF novel of the year. A joy to read.” — Jack McDevitt, author of Odyssey
“Canadian author Sawyer once again presents likable characters facing big ethical dilemmas in this smoothly readable near-future SF novel. Sawyer, who has won Hugo and Nebula awards, may well win another major SF award with this superior effort.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review, denoting a work of exceptional merit)
“The repercussions of the rollback surgery are genuinely surprising, but rooted firmly in the skillfully crafted and realistic thoughts and emotions of Don and Sarah. When the plotlines converge late in the book, it 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.” — Quill & Quire
“A fascinating human drama, where joy and tragedy take human form, rather than apocalyptic ones. All in all, it’s a ‘skytop’ story, worth reading by genre and mainstream readers alike.” — SFRevu
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Genrecon is a one-day convention on Saturday, May 12, 2007, devoted to genre fiction: SF, fantasy, mystery, horror, romance. And it’s free! It’s in Sarnia, Ontario, just a few hours’ drive from Toronto (and near Detroit). If you’ve never been to a con, and even if you have, come on out. Guest of honour is yours truly, Robert J. Sawyer, and other guests include bestselling fantasy writer Kelley Armstrong, Penguin fantasy author Caitlin Sweet, Rick Blechta (president of the Crime Writers of Canada). Check it out!
The Slush God speaketh … to Rob!
John Joseph Adams, assistant editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, interviews Robert J. Sawyer in the current issue of SciFi Weekly, the online magazine of the SciFi Channel. The interview is here.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
The April 2007 edition of Ernest Lilley’s webzine SFRevu reviews Rollback, and features an interview with its author, Robert J. Sawyer.
The review concludes by saying that Rollback is “a fascinating human drama, where joy and tragedy take human form, rather than apocalyptic ones. All in all, it’s a ‘skytop’ story, worth reading by genre and mainstream readers alike.” The full text of the review is here, and the interview is here.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I may not have time to do a proper con report, what with Rollback officially being released in two days, so let me just say for the record that the Toronto World Horror Convention was one of the finest genre-fiction conventions ever in Toronto.
Many also said it was the finest World Horror Convention ever, and several people likened it to the best of the World Fantasy Conventions from the 1980s.
My own take: this particular convention was the closest thing to Readercon I’ve seen outside of Boston, and, frankly, was more fun and less stodgy than Readercon without in any way being less professionally focussed. A truly wonderful event. My hat is off to Amanda Foubister, Stephen Jones, Mandy Slater, and their very hard working team.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
After being on sale for just one day at the World Horror Convention, Rollback is now officially Bakka-Phoenix Books’ number-one bestselling hardcover title for the entire month of March. Woohoo!
(Bakka-Phoenix is Toronto’s SF specialty bookstore, and the principal new-book dealer at the World Horror Convention now on in Toronto; they are also one of the stores surveyed for the Locus bestsellers’ list.)
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
“Are We Alone?” — the SETI Institute’s Weekly Science Radio Program (podcast) — features Robert J. Sawyer on his SETI related novel Rollback, in the episode “Array of Hope,” which went online on March 29, 2007. Host is Seth Shostak. The segment with me runs starts at 32:45, and goes to 41:13.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I do a newsletter for booksellers and media whenever I have a new book, and the latest issue — number 23 — is going in the mail starting today. You can get a PDF of it here, if you’re curious, and if you’d like to see back issues going back several years, they’re all here.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
By special arrangement with H.B. Fenn, Tor’s Canadian distributor, my new novel Rollback will have its world debut tomorrow at the World Horror Convention in Toronto. Bakka-Phoenix Books will have the first copies on sale anywhere at their table in the dealers’ room. Carolyn just got back from the Fenn warehouse, where she picked up the copies. I’ll be at the convention all weekend, and will be happy to sign copies.
For those not going to World Horror, don’t forget that the public book-launch party is 17 days away, on Saturday, April 14, at 3:00 p.m., at Bakka-Phoenix Books in Toronto.
Official pub date is Tuesday of next week, April 3.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Just got a phone call from a producer at The Gill Deacon Show. Everyone there was delighted with the interview I did yesterday on the suburbs, but after the show was in the can someone higher up the food chain at the CBC looked at the program and decided that it had too many men on it. Gill’s show is aimed at housewives, in this person’s estimation, and so the guests should be the same. They recorded a new segment responding to the film Radiant City today with three suburban housewives, and that’s what will air in place of me talking to the two filmmakers tomorrow.
I must say, the producer I was dealing with at the CBC was a total pro about this, and they’re sending me a cheque to compensate me for my time, so that’s nice.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Months ago, I ordered a limited-edition 33-inch reproduction of the U.S.S. Enterprise from the original Star Trek TV series from Master Replicas, and it arrived today. I must say, it’s gorgeous.
The attention to detail in making this model is very good, and the lighting effects are terrific: the warp nacelle domes spin just like in the original series, the port and starboard navigation lights blink on and off, and so on.
I’ve yet to find the perfect place to display it; as you can see, right now, it’s on my desk in my office.
I bought the “Limited Edition,” and got number 206 of 1250. And, I must say, I was very pleased with the arrival of the parcel in Canada: DHL charged only Cdn$7 in brokerage fees, and there was no duty, just 6% GST to be paid. (UPS could take a lesson from this.)
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
As I mentioned back in December, Carolyn and I are going to Dawson City, the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush, in Canada’s far-north Yukon Territory for the months of July, August, and September on a writing retreat at Berton House, the childhood home of famed Canadian writer Pierre Berton.
Well, the Designer Guys — who have a show on the Canadian cable channel HGTV (Home and Garden Television) — recently did a remodelling on Berton House, and the episode of their program that debuts tomorrow will take you inside. So, if you’re curious about where I’ll be this summer, tune in! The program airs at the following times:
Tuesday, March 27
10:00 PM EST
Wednesday, March 28
1:00 AM EST
Wednesday, March 28
4:00 AM EST
Saturday, March 31
4:30 PM EST
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Recognize her? That’s Gillian Deacon, former co-host of @discovery.ca, the nightly science program on Discovery Channel Canada. I used to be a regular columnist for them in the 1997-98 season, doing a segment called 2020 Vision, and on January 2, 2000, Gill and I co-hosted a two-hour prime-time documentary for Discovery Channel Canada called Inventing the Future: 2000 Years of Discovery.
After that, Gill took a hiatus from being on TV (and no, smartypants, it wasn’t because she was traumatized by working with me — she took a break to start a family), but now she’s back hosting a daily show on CBC Television called — appropriately enough — The Gill Deacon Show.
Gill and I had a reunion today, as I taped an appearance for that show, which will air this Wedensday, March 28, at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. coast-to-coast in Canada.
Although Gill very nicely plugged my upcoming novel Rollback, this was actually more a Rob-as-citizen piece. I was on defending the notion of suburban living against a couple of filmmakers who have produced a mockumentary about the horrors of living in the suburbs. (I live in Mississauga, which, although a city of 650,000 in its own right, abuts Toronto’s western border, and is often thought of as a Toronto suburb.)
Anyway, if you’re in Canada, check it out on Wednesday! Given that I’ve had a miserable cold for the last few days, I think I acquitted myself all right, but you can be the judge of that … :)
Here’s a picture of Gill and me, from back in the day …
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
To my astonishment (and delight!) I stumbled on the fact this evening that Wikipedia has an entry on “Quintaglio,” the species of intelligent dinosaurs that feature in my novels Far-Seer, Fossil Hunter, and Foreigner. There’s also an entry on the “Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy”, and one on the main character of the trilogy, “Afsan”. Cool!
The Quintaglio article is accompanied by the above very nice picture drawn (according to the caption) by the original author of the articles, who, judging by his list of other contributions to Wikipedia has a special fondness for reptiles in science fiction.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Phyllis Gotlieb, Jay Lake, and I have stories in the anthology Fall and Rise edited by Ahmed A. Khan. My contribution, “The Shoulders of Giants,” is a reprint — but also, I think, one of my very best stories.
The anthology’s theme is instriguing:
There have been anthologies of post-apocalyptic fiction ,but none such as this one. When it comes to post-apocalyptic survival, the paradigm is the usual “survival of the fittest.” “Fittest” is taken to mean the meanest, the most unethical, the most selfish. Is it possible to survive apocalypse without giving up one’s ethics?
You can get the book from the publisher, Whortleberry Press.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Stumbled across a wonderful little article about me on a web site called LabLit.com: The Culture of Science in Fiction & Fact.
The (pseudonymous) author is a scientist in Philadelphia, according to the bionote. The article concludes:
If this doesn’t sound like your father’s science fiction, it isn’t. Sawyer’s novels are thought-provoking, literate, erudite and often thrilling. They manage to appeal to both the heart and the mind. Those are considerable accomplishments, and not something your average adolescent-aimed space opera or even Crichton-esque thriller can hope to achieve. This is lab lit writ large and executed with style.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Last week I noticed for the first time that Nebula Awards Showcase 2007, edited by Mike Resnick, is now out. Although I didn’t win the Nebula last year, I was nominated for it — and this anthology includes my nominated novella “Identity Theft.” It also includes a non-fiction piece by me on the state of Canadian science fiction.
It’s a very beautiful book, I must say, and I’m proud to be in it.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
I’m pleased to report that The Easton Press has renewed its license on my 1995 Nebula Award-winning novel The Terminal Experiment; they’ve been producing a beautiful leather-bound edition with a great introduction by James Gunn (this year’s SFWA Grand Master), and now they get to continue to do so (they license five-year periods).
(This means I get a new advance for the book from them — yay!)
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
An innovative program, offered by the Kitchener Public Library, where I was writer-in-residence last year: Book Club in a Bag. A set of ten copies of the same book, plus a book-club discussion guide, all circulating from the library as a single item, nicely packaged in a canvas bag. My Hominids is one of the titles offered under this program.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Twenty years ago, back in 1987, I used to write for Playback, a Canadian trade publication about the broadcasting and production industries — although I’m sure no one at Playback today has any idea about that.
But today, the tables were turned and Playback wrote about me. In its coverage of the ICE 07 conference, at which I gave the keynote this morning, it said:
Gaming is just one hot button topic at ICE, a two-day conference organized by the New Media Business Alliance that has drawn more than 400 delegates and speakers from the creative and business sides of North American new media.
In his keynote speech Wednesday morning, Canadian sci-fi author and furturist Robert Sawyer took attendees on a trip to the not-so-distant future, where he predicted a blurring of the line between the online and offline worlds, and the further rise of streaming media, within the next five years.
Sawyer says the most interesting challenge of the next 10 years will be the role played by online content creators in the industry’s monetization. Branding, he suggests, will drive consumers from new products such as an online video or games to older products and increase overall brand loyalty.
“New things drive always the sales of older things,” said Sawyer.
At least for the moment, the article is online here.
From Playback to Rollback … it’s been an interesting journey. :)
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
