SCIENCE FICTION WRITER
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Best Novel Hugo and Nebula Award Winner

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Review Excerpts

About Robert J. Sawyer

About Books: "Sawyer is Canada's best speculative fiction writer, by far."

Amazing Stories (Wisconsin): "A skillful, even daring storyteller."

Barnes and Noble: "Sawyer's stunning thrillers have produced multiple Hugo and Nebula nominations, enough for most to recognize him as the leader of SF's next-generation pack."

Blog T.O.: "One of the finest science fiction writers in the world, on par with Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov and Bradbury, not just for his imagination but also for his interest in the human condition."

Booklist (American Library Association): "Sawyer is Canada's leading SF author."

Booklist (again): "Canada's dean of SF."

Books in Canada (Toronto): "A sense of wonder that hasn't prevailed in American SF since the days of Heinlein."

The Canadian Encyclopedia: "A passionate advocate for science fiction; reviewers praise Sawyer for his concise prose, which has been compared to that of the science-fiction master Isaac Asimov."

Hugo- and Nebula-winner Orson Scott Card: "Can Sawyer write? Yes — with near-Asimovian clarity, with energy and drive, with such grace that his writing becomes invisible as the story comes to life in your mind."

Cinescape: "Sawyer is someone who, more than most others, has the capacity to speak on behalf of SF writers everywhere. In short: When he talks about science fiction, he knows where he's coming from."

John Robert Colombo: "Robert J. Sawyer is a very talented and able writer of fiction. I could back up my enthusiasm with specific references to surprising insights and stylistic devices in his novels, but suffice it to say that here we are dealing with a creator who knows precisely what he is doing."

Charles de Lint in Science Fiction Review (Oregon): "A writer willing to take chances."

Encyclopaedia Galactica (unpublished project begun for Prentice Hall, New York): "Robert J. Sawyer is Canada's leading practitioner of hard SF. [His novels] bear comparison to the work of Isaac Asimov."

The Edmonton Journal: "Robert Sawyer can hold [his] own in SF anywhere in the world."

Contemporary Canadian Biographies: "Robert J. Sawyer is among the hottest science-fiction writers in the world today."

The Gainesville Sun (Florida): "Sawyer is a brilliant stylist who depicts daily-life events with a shattered world view."

Terence M. Green, author of Shadow of Ashland: "Perceptive, intelligent, talented and disciplined, Sawyer has spent the last decade firmly establishing himself as a distinct, important presence in the Canadian literary community. He is internationally recognized as both a talented writer of fiction and as one of Canada's foremost authorities in his field."

The Halifax Chronicle-Herald: "Robert J. Sawyer's novels — intelligent, literate, and immensely readable explorations of the biggest ideas there are — prove that science fiction is now literature."

David G. Hartwell, Rob's Hugo Award-winning editor, in Publishers Weekly: "Sawyer aspires to a transparent prose style for a large mass audience. He's the kind of writer Asimov was, and very generous to young writers."

Sunday Herald (Nevada, Missouri): "Sawyer is a crisp, incisive writer with a playful and keen imagination."

Tanya Huff, bestselling author of Blood Price: "An enviable story-telling ability."

Interzone: "Robert J. Sawyer has good things to say about the world, about people; he deals in a currency of goodwill, where the trust that we hand him at the start of the book is repaid, with interest, in the thoughtful and frequently emotional denouements."

Jacqueline Lichtenberg: "Robert J. Sawyer is a superb writer, a brilliant craftsman who turns a story on a pivotal idea and leaves you breathless. But what I like most about his writing is the characters and their dynamic, plot-driving relationships. If you need a good read, pick up one of his titles."

Lantana Forum (Lantana, Florida): "Sawyer is Canada's answer to author Michael Crichton."

Maclean's: Canada's Weekly Newsmagazine: "Sawyer, an articulate fountain of ideas, is the genre's northern star — in fact, one of the hottest SF writers anywhere. By any reckoning Sawyer is among the most successful Canadian authors ever."

Daryl F. Mallett: "Robert J. Sawyer is the dean of Canadian science fiction writers."

Glenn Grant in The Montreal Gazette: "A prolific and swiftly rising star on the SF scene. Is Sawyer Canada's answer to Michael Crichton? Very possibly yes, if he continues to churn out good, populist SF books."

Tee Morris, author of Morevi: "I'm not ashamed to tell you that every once in a while, as I'm dancing skyclad under the light of the full moon, I look up to that great ball of green cheese and thank Sirius the Dog God that I came across Robert J. Sawyer's books. I haven't been let down yet."

Mystery News: "Sawyer is a science-fiction writer — one of the most talented, by the way, on a par with giants like Asimov and Heinlein — and, perhaps more than any other science-fiction writer working today, he understands that it's a genre about ideas, not flashing lights and rayguns and take-me-to-your-leader."

The Mystery Review: "Sawyer, Canada's best known science fiction writer, planned his career as a writer very carefully, which is perhaps fitting for the son of a professor of economics. He knew early on that the odds are against any writer making money, unless the writer is both very good and has an excellent business sense. Sawyer majors in both. His success was no doubt a pleasurable surprise, but it was not by any means a mere chance."

New York Times bestselling author Anne McCaffrey in an interview in Locus: "There are some absolutely marvelous new writers coming up — Mercedes Lackey, Lois McMaster Bujold, Robert Sawyer. They're so imaginative, and they really are coming to terms with a lot of philosophical statements."

The New York Review of Science Fiction: "Sawyer's books have become both popular successes and fixtures on the yearly awards lists."

The New York Review of Science Fiction (again): "One of the big names in hard sf in the 1990s."

The New York Review of Science Fiction (yet again): "A gentle giant of a writer."

The New York Review of Science Fiction (one more time): "Robert J. Sawyer is a highly successful and accomplished novelist."

NorthWords: The Journal of Canadian Content in Speculative Literature (Ottawa): "If there was a picture in an encyclopedia beside the entry for `Professional Canadian SF Writer,' Sawyer's picture would be the one chosen. His success was hard-won and well deserved."

Now: Toronto's Weekly News and Entertainment Voice (1999): "Sawyer is this decade's most honoured, if not yet most famous, science-fiction writer. The Ontario author is a Nebula winner (sci-fi's Oscar), a five-time Hugo finalist and has won Japan's Seiun prize, le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in France and the Spanish UPC de Ciencia Ficción. He is, in other words, one of the most festooned writers in his field."

The Ottawa Citizen: "Sawyer is the dean of Canadian science fiction."

Steve Paikin on TVOntario's The Agenda: "The foremost science-fiction writer in this country, Robert J. Sawyer ..."

Prairie Dog: Regina's News and Entertainment Voice: "Sawyer is a devout unbeliever, a professional skeptic, a Socrates for the high-tech age."

Publishers Weekly: "Sawyer is one of contemporary SF's most consistent performers."

Quill & Quire (on naming Sawyer to "The CanLit 30: The most influential, innovative, and just plain powerful people in Canadian publishing"): "When Penguin Canada snatched up domestic rights to science fiction giant Robert J. Sawyer last year, it felt like the Canuck industry was finally waking up to an entire genre. Not that Sawyer really needed the nod: he already sells more than respectably and has a shelf full of major sci-fi prizes. As a generous mentor to other writers, the proprietor of his own eponymous imprint at Red Deer Press, and a frequent media pundit, Sawyer is the public face of Canadian sci-fi."

Quill & Quire: "A polished, exciting writer. Sawyer writes with the scientific panache and grandeur of Arthur C. Clarke [and] the human touch of Isaac Asimov."

Quill & Quire (again): "Canada's premier science fiction writer."

Darrell Schweitzer writing on Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show: "All you have to do to introduce Rob Sawyer and show why he's an important science fiction writer is to cite his awards. His credits give new meaning to the phrase `a list as long as your arm.' ... It is clear that the Canadians regard Robert J. Sawyer as a national treasure, as well they should."

Spider Robinson: "If Robert J. Sawyer were a corporation, I would buy stock in him. He's on my (extremely short) Buy-On-Sight list, and belongs on yours."

The Rocky Mountain News: "Robert J. Sawyer is fast becoming one of the most important names in science fiction."

The Rocky Mountain News (again): "Robert J. Sawyer is just about the best science fiction writer out there these days: compelling stories, believable scenarios, science and fiction that really interact."

Science Fiction Quarterly: "Robert J. Sawyer is quite literally the dean of Canadian science fiction and a publishing machine."

SFRA Review: "Sawyer writes sharp, clear, seemingly effortless prose."

SF Site: "Sawyer has undoubtedly cemented his reputation as one of the foremost science fiction writers of our generation."

The Sudbury Star: "Robert J. Sawyer is the standard bearer for the SF genre in Canada."

Toronto Life: "Sawyer is a master of his craft. He's deft with the science, has a light touch with the big questions and is even occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. His books do what good science fiction should: force you to think laterally, abstractly — big."

The Toronto Star (1990): "Science-fiction fans, take note of this name: Robert J. Sawyer. He's one of the brightest newcomers to the field, with a fresh and engaging storytelling style."

The Toronto Star (1996): "It's hard to think of a modern science-fiction author with dreams as vast as those of the internationally acclaimed Robert J. Sawyer."

Andrew Weiner: "Sawyer's strong grounding in science allows him to write convincing `hard' science fiction in the classic tradition of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. At the same time, he writes fluent, literate prose about believable and interesting characters. There are many SF writers who draw on science, many more who write and characterize well. But the combination of the two qualities is extremely unusual in modern SF; in the Canadian SF field, it is unique."

The Washington Post (2002): "No reader seeking well-written stories that respect, emphasize and depend on modern science should be disappointed by the works of Rob Sawyer."

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SCIENCE FICTION WRITER ROBERT J. SAWYER Best Novel Hugo and Nebula Award Winner

Review Excerpts

About Robert J. Sawyer

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SCIENCE FICTION WRITER
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Best Novel Hugo and Nebula Award Winner