Robert J Sawyer

Robert J SawyerRobert J Sawyer (born 1960, Ottawa) is a Canadian science fiction writer, dubbed "the dean of Canadian science fiction" by the Ottawa Citizen in 1999. He describes himself as a "hard science-fiction writer", but he is more concerned with characterization and human psychology than many other practitioners of that subgenre. His work often delves into metaphysics, à la Arthur C. Clarke, and philosophy; he very much comes from the school that says science fiction is the literature of ideas.

In 1995, Henry Mietkiewicz of The Toronto Star dubbed him "Canada's only native-born full-time science fiction writer," but with the explosion of Canadian SF later in that decade that ceased to be true; Julie E. Czerneda and Karl Schroeder are among the handful of full-time SF writers born in and still living in Canada. Sawyer remains, however, Canada's most prolific and most honored writer in the genre.

Robert James Sawyer was born in Ottawa, grew up in Toronto, and now lives in Mississauga, Ontario. He attended Ryerson University in Toronto, where he received a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in Radio and Television Arts (RTA) in 1982. Entirely coincidentally, he was in the same graduating RTA class as Tanya Huff who would later become a noted author in the field of contemporary fantasy; Sawyer and Huff also both used to work at Bakka, Toronto's science-fiction specialty store.

Stylistically, Robert J Sawyer is known for simple, clear prose, in the mode of Isaac Asimov; this perhaps comes from Sawyer's original career in the 1980s as a writer of nonfiction for magazines (his specialties were personal computing, personal finance, and the broadcasting industry). He also has a tendency to include pop-culture references in his novels (his fondness for the original Star Trek and Planet of the Apes is impossible to miss), and he is unusual even among Canadian SF writers for the blatantly Canadian settings and concerns addressed in his novels, all of which are issued by New York houses.

He holds citizenship in both Canada and the United States, and has been known to criticize the politics of both countries. Robert J Sawyer often has American characters visiting Canada (such as Karen Bessarian in Mindscan) or Canadian characters visiting the U.S. (such as Pierre Tardivel in Frameshift and Mary Vaughan in Humans and Hybrids) as a way of comparing and contrasting the perceived values of the two countries.

Robert J Sawyer's work frequently explores the intersection between science and religion, with rationalism always winning out over mysticism (see especially Far Seer, The Terminal Experiment, Calculating God, and the three volumes of the Neanderthal Parallax [Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids], plus the short story "The Abdication of Pope Mary III," originally published in Nature, July 6, 2000). He also has a great fondness for paleontology, as evidenced in his Quintaglio Ascension trilogy (Far-Seer, Fossil Hunter, and Foreigner), about an alien world to which dinosaurs from Earth were transplanted, and his time-travel novel End of an Era. In addition, the main character of Calculating God is a paleontologist, and the Neanderthal Parallax novels deal with an alternate version of Earth where Neanderthals did not go extinct.

Robert J Sawyer wrote the original series bible for Charlie Jade, an hour-long science-fiction TV series that first aired in 2005-2006, and he did conceptual work in 2003 for reviving Robotech. He has also written and narrated documentaries about science fiction for CBC Radio's Ideas series. He provided analysis of the British science fiction series Doctor Who for the CBC's online documentary The Planet of the Doctor, frequently comments on science fiction movies for TVOntario's Saturday Night at the Movies, and co-edited an essay collection in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Star Trek with David Gerrold, entitled Boarding the Enterprise.

Robert J Sawyer has taught science-fiction writing at the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, Humber College, and the Banff Centre. In 2000, he served as Writer-in-Residence at the Richmond Hill, Ontario Public Library. In 2003 he was Writer-in-Residence at the Toronto Public Library's Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy (the first person to hold this post since Judith Merril herself in 1987). In 2006, he was Writer-in-Residence at the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Also in 2006, he was the Edna Staebler Writer-in-Residence at the Kitchener Public Library in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, following on the Region of Waterloo's choice of Sawyer's Hominids as the "One Book, One Community" title that all 490,000 residents were encouraged to read in 2005.

Robert J SawyerRobert J Sawyer has long been an advocate of Canadian science fiction. He lobbied hard for the creation of the Canadian Region of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The Canadian Region was established in 1992, and Sawyer served for three years on SFWA's Board of Directors as the first Canadian Regional Director (1992-1995). He also edited the newsletter of the Canadian Region, called Alouette in honor of Canada's first satellite; the newsletter was nominated for an Aurora Award for best fanzine.

In 1998, Robert J Sawyer was elected president of SFWA on a platform that promised a referendum on various contentious issues, including periodic membership requalification and the creation of a Nebula Award for best script; he won, defeating the next-closest candidate, past-SFWA-president Norman Spinrad, by a 3:2 margin. However, Sawyer's actual time in office was marked by considerable opposition to membership requalification and negative reaction to his dismissing, with the majority support of the Board of Directors, one paid SFWA worker and one volunteer.

Robert J Sawyer resigned after completing half of his one-year term, and was automatically succeeded by then-incumbent vice-president Paul Levinson. Prior to resigning, Sawyer's promised referendum was held, resulting in significant changes to SFWA's bylaws and procedures, most notably allowing appropriate non-North American sales to count as membership credentials, allowing appropriate electronic sales to count as membership credentials, and creating a Nebula Award for best script.

Selected Bibliography
Complete Bibliography

Series

  • Neanderthal Parallax
    • 1 Hominids (2002)
      • Magazine/Anthology Appearances:
      • Hominids (Part 1 of 4) (2002)
      • Hominids (Part 2 of 4) (2002)
      • Hominids (Part 3 of 4) (2002)
      • Hominids (Part 4 of 4) (2002)
    • 2 Humans (2003)
    • 3 Hybrids (2003)
  • The Quintaglio Ascension
    • 1 Far-Seer (1992)
    • 2 Fossil Hunter (1993)
    • 3 Foreigner (1993)

Novels

  • Golden Fleece (1990)
  • End of an Era (1994)
  • The Terminal Experiment (1995)
    • Variant Title: Hobson's Choice (1995)
  • Starplex (1996)
    • Magazine/Anthology Appearances:
    • Starplex (Part 1 of 4) (1996)
    • Starplex (Part 2 of 4) (1996)
    • Starplex (Part 3 of 4) (1996)
    • Starplex (Part 4 of 4) (1996)
  • Frameshift (1997)
  • Illegal Alien (1997)
  • Factoring Humanity (1998)
  • Flashforward (1999)
  • Calculating God (2000)
  • Iterations (2004)
  • Mindscan (2005)
  • Rollback (2007)
    • Magazine/Anthology Appearances:
    • Rollback (Part 1 of 4) (2006)
    • Rollback (Part 2 of 4) (2006)
    • Rollback (Part 3 of 4) (2006)
    • Rollback (Part 4 of 4) (2007)

Serials

  • Hobson's Choice (Part 1 of 4) (1994)
  • Hobson's Choice (Part 2 of 4) (1995)
  • Hobson's Choice (Part 3 of 4) (1995)
  • Hobson's Choice (Part 4 of 4) (1995)

Anthology Series

  • Tesseracts: Canadian Science Fiction
    • 6 Tesseracts 6 (1997) with Carolyn Clink

Anthologies

  • Boarding the Enterprise: Transporters, Tribbles, and the Vulcan Death Grip in Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek (2006) with David Gerrold

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Image #1 from kurzweilai.net #2 from sfwriter.com taken by Carolyn Clink

This article uses some information from sfwriter.com


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