Robert J. Sawyer

Cake!

2009-11-20T20:44:00.003-05:00

My two weeks in the Writers' Room for FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on my novel of the same name, came to an end this afternoon -- and the writers and their staff very, very kindly made a cake in honor of my visit. The cake says, "He who sees story breaking suffers it twice over," a play on the opening epigram from my novel (quoted by D. Gibbons in our second episode), "He who foresees calamities suffers them twice over."

("Story breaking" is what happens in the writers' room: all the writers sit around and suggest, moment by moment, how the current script might progress.)

I've had an absolutely amazing time here. The staff writers are all incredibly talented, and the writing-office staff are all super, too.

Come see my pilot script reading next Friday

2009-11-20T19:43:00.006-05:00

Next Friday, November 27, 2009, my prize-winning hour-long science-fiction TV pilot script Earthfall will be read at the WILDsound TV and Short Screenplay Festival at the National Film Board of Canada Theatre in Toronto (150 John Street). Tickets are $6 in advance; $8 at the door.

Pauline Wong, pictured above, will be reading the main character, Toronto cop Hannah Wong (yes, they have the same last name!).

More info is here and here.

Singapore's The Straits Times on the novel and the TV show

2009-11-17T13:03:00.003-05:00

I love Singapore -- I was a guest at a writers' festival there in 2005. And now Singapore's The Straits Times has reviewed my novel FlashForward, comparing and contrasting it with the TV series based on it:

The Straits Times's review is based on the British edition of the book, published by Gollancz (pictured above). You can read the whole review right here.

Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Allan Poe

2009-11-15T03:41:00.002-05:00

If you live in Los Angeles, go see the one-man play Nevermore starring Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Allan Poe; it's at the Steve Allen Theatre.

People say I read my own fiction well, but I've never heard anyone do a better reading of a short story than Combs's rendition of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," which he does as part of this play.

I've been to lots of poetry readins with Carolyn over the years, and I've never heard any poet do a better reading than the performance of "The Raven" Combs gives as part of this play.

It's a tour de force; Combs is, by turns, funny, moving, frenetic, and melancholy; his Poe is as good as Hal Holbrook's Twain.

The venue is the Steve Allen Theatre in Los Angeles, which is an intimate setting -- just 100 seats (and tickets are just $20). We were front-row center -- about four feet from Combs for most of the performance.

Jeffrey Combs has appeared in about 50 episodes of various Star Trek series, in recurring roles such as the Andorian Shran, the Vorta Wayoun, and the Ferengi Brunt, and he also starred in the cult film classic Reanimator.

Our friend Chase Masterson got us backstage to meet Jeffrey after the show (thanks, Chase!), and afterwards, we went for drinks with Chase Masterson (Deep Space Nine's Leeta), director James Kerwin (Yesterday was a Lie), writer Andre Bormanis (Star Trek: Enterprise), and actress and chef Gen Anderson (host of Gen's Guitless Gourmet). All in all, a fabulous evening!

LASFS meeting

2009-11-14T20:38:00.003-05:00

My friend Matthew Tepper, who took the picture above, reminded me that the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (which has its own way-cool clubhouse!) meets on Thursday nights, so this past Thursday, Carolyn and I attended their meeting, since we're in L.A. so I can work on FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on my novel of the same name.

Our writing friends Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin, authors of The Unincorporated Man, were also there, as were old friends John DeChancie and Larry Niven. We all went out to dinner afterwards at the Coral Café. Larry said, "I envy you FlashForward" -- which was an amazing thing to here from one of my writng heroes. :)

Pictured: 1970 Nebula Award winner Larry Niven and 1995 Nebula Award winner Robert J. Sawyer on 12 November 2009 in Los Angeles

In Los Angeles with the FlashForward staff writers

2009-11-14T20:15:00.002-05:00

Having a blast in Los Angeles (have been here since Sunday November 8).

Spent five days last week with the staff writers for FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on my novel of the same name. The show's current staff writers are (alphabetically): Scott Gimple, David S. Goyer, Ian Goldberg, Seth Hoffman, Barbara Nance, Quinton Peeples, Dawn Prestwich, Nicole Yorkin, and Lisa Zwerling, and they're all terrific. It's been enormous fun watching them bounce ideas off each other, and getting to kick in some of my own.

Also watched some of the filming of episodes 11 and 12 this past week (watching on location with regulars Peyton List and Zachary Knighton and guest star Lindsay Crouse, and on our soundstage with regulars Jack Davenport and Dominic Monaghan, and guest star Ricky Jay), plus got to chat with John Cho when he dropped by the writers' offices, and also ran into Brannon Braga, who co-authored the pilot episode with David Goyer.

I'll be here until Saturday, November 21, 2009. Next week, we begin breaking (outlining) episode 17, the one I'm writing; that episode is scheduled to air Thursday, March 18, 2010.

I'll never get around to retro-blogging everything that happened this past week, but you can get a sense of it from these updates from my Facebook wall (where I'm "Robert J. Sawyer" -- and, yes, I do accept readers and fans as friends).

FRIDAY

Wonderful five-hour dinner with consciousness researcher Stuart Hameroff (whose work is often mentioned in my novels), Deep Space Nine actress Chase Masterson, and director James Kerwin.
Cool having Dominic Monaghan tell me what his favorite part of the FLASHFORWARD novel was, and talking particle physics with Jack Davenport.
John Cho just dropped by the writers' offices at FLASHFORWARD; now, heading off to the set to watch Dominic Monaghan and Jack Davenport shoot a scene.
Watched episode 10 of FLASHFORWARD (the one that will air in two weeks' time) today with the staff writers -- it's one of our very best. Also, great meeting with my agent. And attended Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS) meeting. :)

THURSDAY
Fascinating time in the FLASHFORWARD writers' room today, plus got to meet Peyton List (Nicole) for the first time, and watched her and Zachary Knighton shoot a terrific scene. Also, met with one of the producers interested in one of my other books, and it went wonderfully. Plus: dinner with high-school buddy Asbed Bedrossian and his family. Whew!

WEDNESDAY
People's Choice Awards nominees for Best New TV drama: "Eastwick," "FlashForward," "Melrose Place," "Mercy," "The Forgotten," "The Good Wife," "The Vampire Diaries," "Three Rivers," "NCIS: Los Angeles," "V"
After the FLASHFORWARD writers' room adjourned for the day, went for coffee with Tommy Yune, who directed ROBOTECH: THE SHADOW CHRONICLES, then dinner with Eric Greene, author of PLANET OF THE APES AS AMERICAN MYTH.

TUESDAY
Nothing is cooler than being in the offices of the TV series based on one of your novels and taking calls about potential film and TV adaptations of two of your other books. :D

MONDAY
In L.A., at the FLASHFORWARD offices, hanging out in the writers' room. Having a blast!
Britain's THE TIMES reviews the FLASHFORWARD novel: "[T]he novel is an intellectual puzzle, drawing on theoretical physics to raise questions about time and space and the existence of free will, and proves once again that good science fiction does not need visual special effects to thrill."
Safe and sound in L.A. Watched TERMINATOR SALVATION on the seat-back TV during the five-hour flight from Toronto.

SciFi Wire / SciFi Weekly cancels all columns

2009-11-14T19:52:00.001-05:00

Ten years ago, I pitched an idea for a monthly column to the SciFi Channel's SciFi Weekly. They didn't buy it, and I never got around to pitching it to anyone else. But even if they had bought it, I would have been out of work today; they just dismissed all their columnists because, apparently, online columns are "passé." See this story from Locus Online.

Here's the pitch I made (by paper mail!) back on September 28, 1999; it would have been a hell of a column. :)

My condolences to the columnists who were just let go by SciFi Weekly.

The Times reviews the FlashForward novel

2009-11-09T11:09:00.002-05:00

The Times -- a major British newspaper -- reviewed my novel FlashForward (basis for the TV series of the same name) yesterday; the review is by acclaimed SF writer Lisa Tuttle, and concludes:

You can read the whole review right here.

Starplex now available from Audible.com

2009-11-08T12:45:00.005-05:00

Audible.com's unabridged reading of my 1996 novel Starplex is now available. The narrator is Mark Boyett, and the audiobook also includes an exclusive introduction read by me.

The Audible.com catalog page for Starplex is pretty bare-bones, so I'll mention a few things they fail to: Starplex was the only novel of its year to be nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards, and it won Canada's Aurora Award and the CompuServe Homer Award, both for best SF novel of the year.

In addition it was a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club, was serialized in Analog, and was a Locus bestseller.

You can get Starplex and all my other audio books from Audible.com right here.

For those who prefer print, the new trade-paperback edition is coming in March 2010 from Red Deer Press.

REVIEWS OF STARPLEX:

Science Fiction Chronicle: "Excellent hard SF, with Sawyer tossing stars, people and time travel around with reckless abandon. One of the best SF novels of the year."

The Halifax Chronicle-Herald: "Starplex appears to be traditional science fiction — it takes place aboard a spaceship, and several characters are extraterrestrial — but it's actually a rumination on several very deep questions, including: Where did we come from? Where are we going? And the deepest of the deep, Is there a God?"

Sci-Fi Weekly: "An audacious engineering effort that makes Larry Niven's Ringworld look like a high-school science project."

About Books: "Very, very cool. This is a book not to be missed."

Andrew Weiner, author of Getting Near the End: "Mind-blowing! Who says there are no more big ideas?"

Asimov's Science Fiction: "Starplex should gladden the hearts of readers who complain that nobody's writing real science fiction anymore, the kind of story that has faster-than-light spaceships and far-off planets and interstellar combat and all the neat things they gobbled up so greedily when 'Doc' Smith was dealing them out. Here's a story with plenty of slam-bang action but no shortage of material to attract thinking readers, either. Sawyer deftly juggles half a dozen sweeping questions of cosmology (not to mention everyday ethics and morality) while keeping the story moving ahead full speed. His scientific ideas are nicely integrated into the plot, yet they also hint at larger metaphorical levels. Enjoy."

Gregory Benford, author of Timescape: "Complex but swift, inventive but real-feeling, with ideas coming thick and fast. For big-time interstellar adventure, look no farther."

Astronomer Andrew Fraknoi, co-author of Voyages Through the Universe: "Complex hard-science novel by a Canadian amateur astronomer with intriguing ideas about the nature of dark matter and even dark matter life forms. Includes more cosmological concepts than any novel we have seen."

Library Journal: "An epic hard-science adventure tempered by human concerns. Highly recommended."

Jack McDevitt, author of Time Travelers Never Die: "Starplex takes us on the ultimate grand tour: an elegant intergalactic ride with Sawyer's signature mix of cosmic concepts and solid characterization. This one is a treat for the mind; I enjoyed it thoroughly."

The New York Review of Science Fiction: "An enormous grab bag of ideas — and a whole lot of fun."

Analog Science Fiction and Fact: "Mind-boggling. A complaint often heard these days is that there's not enough 'sense of wonder' in today's science fiction. Robert J. Sawyer's Starplex ought to lay that complaint to rest for quite a while."

Quill & Quire: "A swift, inventive, enjoyable book. Unexpected twists keep the plot moving briskly, but Sawyer is able to do this while raising intriguing philosophical issues."

James Schellenberg on the Crystalline Sphere web page: "Starplex is an astonishing novel, hard science fiction with heart, with a grand overarching vision. This book contains many of Sawyer's trademarks — addictive readability, a frank engagement with ethical questions, and a fondness for Canadiana. The grand sweep of the story and Sawyer's graceful manipulation of the reader's sympathies combine to make this a fine book; Starplex outdoes any book in Sawyer's oeuvre, and the majority in the field of science fiction. Sawyer uses a heady mix of big ideas and crafty storytelling, and he challenges the reader intellectually while grabbing their emotional sympathy. Quite the accomplishment."

The Toronto Star: "Here, at last, is an ambitious attempt to exploit the possibilities that the genre is capable of."

More about Starplex is here.

Props to Gough

2009-11-07T11:00:00.002-05:00

For fans of FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on my novel of the same name, a historical note on Agent Al Gough (played wonderfully by Lee Thompson Young), who had the big story line this past week (in "The Gift").

In the actual TV series, he should be credited as the character who, in the story, coined the term "flashforward" for the event. There was a scene filmed for the pilot ("No More Good Days") in which Agent Janis Hawk (the amazing Christine Woods) appeared to coin the term (and that part of the scene was used in some of the promos), but her line was cut from the pilot as aired, so the credit for coining the term in-universe goes to Gough, who first uses it when discussing Fiona Banks with Demetri and Mark.

On Rochester, NY, NPR station on Friday

2009-11-05T13:23:00.005-05:00

I'll be interviewed about my novels Wake and FlashForward on 1370 Connection with Bob Smith, the noon (Eastern time) show on AM 1370, the NPR station in Rochester, New York, this Friday, November 6, 2009. You'll be able to listen live here, and I'll be on for most of the hour between noon and 1:00 p.m. (then it's off to Astronomicon, Rochester's SF convention, where I'm one of the guests).

Five years of working on the WWW books

2009-11-05T12:22:00.004-05:00

Holy cow! It was five years ago today -- Friday, November 5, 2004 -- that I wrote the first words of what went on to become my WWW trilogy. Back then, it was only going to be a single book (to be called Webmind). I began writing that first book at a Write-Off writing retreat sponsored by Calgary's Imaginative Fiction Writers Association (IFWA). The first words I wrote were:

Not one word of that draft survived to the final, published version of Wake, which begins like this:

Still, that passage I wrote five years ago today was the start of the trilogy.

Of course, I haven't spent five years solid on this trilogy; I took time off to write Rollback, for instance, among many other interesting things. :)

Anyway, enough reminiscing! Time to get back to work on Volume 3, Wonder, which today passed the 50,000-word mark.

Come see prize-winning Sawyer script performed

2009-11-03T14:37:00.005-05:00

On Friday, November 27, 2009, Robert J. Sawyer's television pilot script for Earthfall will have a staged reading by professional actors at the National Film Board of Canada's Theatre at 150 John Street, in the Entertainment District in downtown Toronto.

I wrote Earthfall as a pilot for an hour-long episodic science-fiction TV series; it's not currently sold to anyone, but I'm proud of it. The pilot episode is called "Vanguard," and here's a little synopsis:

(Actually, there's a lot more to it than that!)

The script will be read using some of the top actors working in Toronto, and after the performance a moderated discussion about the script will be held, with audience participation welcomed.

The Earthfall pilot script beat over 150 TV pilot-script submissions in the WILDsound Screenplay Festival.

I'm delighted to have won this competion, but I'd also like to tip my hat to the other finalists. The six pilot-script finalists were:

COMPUTER GUY
by Rich Hynes
Ronkonkoma, NY

EARTHFALL
by Robert J. Sawyer
Mississauga, ON

EXPRESSIONS
by Shawand McKenzie and Steven Van Patten
Hackensack, NJ

THE FILTHY STINKIN TRUTH
by Will Phillips
San Francisco, CA

HUMOR ME
by John Betz, Jr. and Randy Reese
Rochester, NY

TRAFFICKING
by Clark McMillian
Bowie, MD

Tickets for the evening -- which will also include readings of two other short scripts -- are just $6 in advance, or $8 at the door. More info is here.

This is a good month for me for scriptwriting (thirty years after I started my degree in Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson!). On Sunday, I head down to L.A. to spend a week at the FlashForward offices, gearing up to write my own episode of the TV series based on my novel of the same name

Guest Editorial in On Spec

2009-11-01T00:57:00.003-04:00

I've long been associated with On Spec, English-Canada's leading SF magazine. My short story "Just Like Old Times" first appeared there in 1993 (and went on to win both the Aurora Award and the Crime Writers of Canada's juried Arthur Ellis Award for best short story of the year, as well as being reprinted in the best-of anthology On Spec: The First Five Years), and for three years (1995-1997), my "On Writing" column ran in the magazine.

This is On Spec's 20th anniversary year, and I am very proud to have been called upon to write a Guest Editorial for the Fall 2009 issue. For the time being, you can read that editorial right here.

Rollback gets a FlashForward boost

2009-11-01T00:14:00.002-04:00

It's always nice when a novel goes into a new printing. My most-recent mass-market paperback is the Hugo Award-nominated Rollback (which had a very successful run in hardcover prior to that). Tor Books has gone back to press for another printing -- which gave them the chance to mention that I'm also the author of FlashForward, the novel behind the ABC TV series of the same name.

More about Rollback.

And where do the main characters on FlashForward live? Why, on Sawyer Court, of course!

2009-10-31T19:22:00.003-04:00

This week's episode of FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on my novel of the same name, not only added a whole lot of physics to the show but also revealed where Mark Benford and Dr. Olivia Benford live: at 25696 Sawyer Court. We see the above address label in the flashforward vision of Dylan Simcoe, son of Lloyd Simcoe, in episode 6, "Scary Monsters and Super Creeps," and the street name is spoken repeatedly in dialog.

Cool! Almost as cool, in fact, as my cameo in the first episode, "No More Good Days" (below).

NaNoWriMo begins tomorrow

2009-10-31T14:13:00.002-04:00

I won't be a formal participant in National Novel Writing Month -- indeed, I'll be spending much of November working on my script for FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on my novel of the same name. But I do think NaNoWriMo is a cool idea. Check it out.

David S. Goyer discusses Robert J. Sawyer's upcoming FlashForward script

2009-10-30T14:37:00.004-04:00

David S. Goyer, executive producer and showrunner of FlashForward, the ABC TV series based on my novel of the same name, discusses (among other things) my involvement with the series and the episode that I'll be writing (episode 17) in this 1 minute 46 second YouTube interview.

For a larger picture or HD version, go here.

Toronto subway posters advertising Wake

2009-10-29T12:47:00.005-04:00

They're finally up! Penguin Canada's subway poster advertisements for my novel Wake are now up on some subway cars on the Yonge-University-Spadina (main north-south) route in Toronto.

Toronto's subways are operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). I'm in Calgary right now, but sightings of the ads this week have been made by longtime SF fan Hope Liebowitz, Romanian SF writer Costi Gurgu, and Kari Trogen, sister of former Asimov's SF intern Brittany Trogen. That's Kari's snapshot below; click it for a slightly larger version.

R.I.P., Made in Canada

2009-10-28T15:46:00.003-04:00

The Aurora Award-winning webiste MADE IN CANADA -- Don Bassie's elaborate and detailed repository of information about Canadian science fiction and fantasy -- is no more. It had been hosted on Yahoo's Geocities service, and, in a spectacular act of online genocide, Yahoo wiped out all free Geocities sites on 26 October 2009.

Don's site had been an enormous asset to us all, and it's terrible that it's gone. For the record, the URL for it was www.geocities.com/canadian_SF.

Don had stopped updating the site -- which won Auroras in 2000, 2003, and 2004 -- some time ago, but it was still an enormously valuable historical resource.

Thank God for the Internet Archives. The most recent version from there, dated August 2004, can be accessed here. Sadly, it only contains bits and pieces of the now-gone full site, though.

Warning: if you're a complete Star Trek geek like me ...

2009-10-28T12:12:00.003-04:00

... reading this discussion thread will eat hours of your time. It's a fascinating, hyper-detailed look at every prop that ever appeared more than once in classic Star Trek. Tons of great pictures and screen captures.

Covers for new Canadian editions of The Terminal Experiment and Illegal Alien

2009-10-26T11:29:00.003-04:00

Coming December 1, 2009, from Penguin Group Canada: new premium mass-market editions of two of my novels: The Terminal Experiment, which won the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award for Best Novel of Year for 1995, and Illegal Alien, which the Globe and Mail's mystery-fiction reviewer Margaret Cannon said was "the best Canadian mystery of 1997."

Premium mass-market is the format used for most bestselling fiction paperbacks these days; it's about an inch taller than regular mass-market (and has bigger type); Penguin Canada's paperback edition of my latest hardcover, Wake, coming in March 2010, will also be done in premium mass-market.

Ace Science Fiction in the United States has separately acquired US rights to these titles, and will be producing their own editions, with their own covers, later.

Jessika Borsiczky on adapting my novel

2009-10-22T12:32:00.003-04:00

A nice video interview with Jessika Borsiczky, executive producer of FlashForward, the TV series based on my novel. (Jessika's last name is pronounced Bor-shees-key.)

Tune in tonight for episode 5, "Gimme Some Truth." I was on the set for much of the filming of this one, and enjoyed having lunch with guest star Glynn Turman. (I'll be watching it in a hotel room in Winnipeg.)

Why I'm not going to the World Fantasy Convention this year

2009-10-21T15:39:00.003-04:00

Answer: because they don't sell memberships at the door, and they cap sales for pre-registration.

This weekend, I have to be in Vancouver, British Columbia, as a presenter at the Surrey International Writers Conference. Sometime shortly after that -- but the date is yet to be precisely nailed down, but it might be Friday, October 30, and it might be Monday, November 2 -- I have to go to Los Angeles, to do some work on FlashForward, the TV series based on my novel of the same name.

So, what's in between Vancouver and Los Angeles, and is taking place between the dates I have to be in those two places? Why, San Jose, and this year's World Fantasy Convention, which is being held there.

But I can't buy a ticket now, unless I hunt around to find someone who isn't going and is willing to sell theirs, and I can't buy one at the door at any price. I understand that World Fantasy wants to keep out last-minute local goths and vampire-junkies who might get wind of the convention through the media as it's happening, but the effect of their membership-cap and no-at-the-door-sales policies is to keep me away.

Surely the same effect of keeping outsiders out could be accomplished by limiting at-the-door sales to publishing professionals (employees of publishing companies, active members of SFWA, etc.)? And surely a handful of at-the-door sales to people who obviously belong couldn't really overrun the convention's capacity?

Flashing back to FlashForward

2009-10-21T14:40:00.002-04:00

In honor of the release of the new tie-in editions of my 1999 novel FlashForward, which is the basis for the hit ABC TV series, I wrote a little essay about the book for Tor.com. Here it is.