2010 Hugo Nominee: Robert J. Sawyer - Happy Birthday!!!

 Happy 50th Birthday to Robert J. Sawyer

Robert J. Sawyer is one of the six nominees for the 2010 Hugo Award in the Best Novel category for "Wake."

Excerpt from Chapter one:  

Not darkness, for that implies an understanding of light.

      Not silence, for that suggests a familiarity with sound.

      Not loneliness, for that requires a knowledge of others

But still, faintly, so tenuous, that if it were any less it wouldn't exist at all: awareness

     Nothing more than that.   Just awareness - a vague, ethereal sense of being.

Being...but not becoming.  No marking of time, no past or future --- only an endless, featureless now, and, just barely there in that boundless moment, inchoate and raw, the dawning of perception...

Makes me want to go out and buy "Wake" right now.  Wake is book one in the WWW trilogy: Wake, Watch, and Wonder.  The first two are available now and you can read first chapter excerpts on the www trilogy web site. 

Sawyer, born April 29, 2010 in Ottawa Canada, sold his first short science fiction story in 1979 to the Strasenburgh Planetarium which they produced as part of a dramatic starshow trilogy called "Futurescapes" in 1980.   While attending Ryerson University and working on his Bachelor of Applied Arts in Radio and Television Arts, he had his first story published in  Ryerson's 1980 Literary Annual - White Wall Review.  

The story "The Contest" was included in the anthology 100 Great Fantasy Short Stories released in 1984.  After graduating from Ryerson, he spent the next six years writing mainly non fiction freelance articles for various American and Canadian magazines.   His true love however was writing science fiction and he decided to concentrate on writing novels full time.   


His debut novel was Golden Fleece published in 1999

The story is unique in that is it told from the viewpoint of the Starcology Argo's ship's computer, Jason. One of the ship's crew is murdered and the finger points straight at the artificially intelligent computer.  



After that he wrote Farseer, book 1 in the  Quintaglio Ascension series which revolved around the world of a group of intelligent dinosaurs.

His next book, End of an Era continued with the dinosaur theme but took us back through time travel to the beginning of the world to find out what really happened to the dinosaurs. 


Sawyer explored many interesting themes in his books including SETI, artificial intelligence, time travel, dinosaurs, psychology, murder and the nature of consciousness to name a few.  


In his Neanderthal Parallax series, he explored the question:  what would have happened if there was another world in which the neanderthals have survived and became the dominant species.   How would their world differ from ours?  He won the 2003 Hugo award for Hominids.

In his next standalone book, he went on to explore in Mindscan what would happen if in order to avoid suffering an inherited  debilitation disease that would turn you into a vegetable, if you could have your mind scanned and assume an android body while your body is shipped off to the moon.   Would the people you know accept you?  If a cure was discovered, could you be scanned back into your body?   




Which brings us to his WWW trilogy.  WWW.Watch was just released on April 6th and continues Caitlin's story from WWW.Wake.    He is currently working on Wonder and I'm not sure when it will be released. 



Sawyer has also written a number of short stories which are available to read online.  He has won many awards and accolades for his work over the years.   According to the Ottawa Citizen he is the "Dean of Science Fiction."   If you'd like to know more about Robert J. Sawyer, check out his autobiography on sfwriter.com


I have a mini challenge for you all - read all six hugo nominees this year.   I'm looking forward to reading WWW.Wake as *gasp* I haven't read any of his books yet.  


Join me in wishing Robert J. Sawyer a wonderful and joyous Happy 50th Birthday!

Mind Voyage Flight Status!

Time for a flight status check.  How are you progressing with your voyages?    I didn't have enough fuel to get beyond earth's atmosphere and have been orbiting earth for a while.   I'm coming back in to refuel and make sure I have enough fuel this time to get beyond earth's atmosphere.  Plus ground control has been monitoring my activities, telling me I've missed a few in flight procedural and checklist reports and I need to improve my job performance as commander. 

So far I have finished:

The Demolished Man (review) by Alfred Bester 

Dune by Frank Herbert  (review)  (1966 Hugo winner)

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (2006 Hugo Winner)  Review will be forthcoming

Under the Dome (review) by Stephen King (side trip)

Eye of the World (review) by Robert Jordan (side trip)

Now that I've refueled, will be taking off and shooting for the moon again.  The following books are waiting for me onboard.

Moon Voyage:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury(1954 Hugo)

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (1960 Hugo)

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller (1961 Hugo)

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein (1967 Hugo)

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer (1972 Hugo)

The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold (1991 Hugo)

Shoot to Mercury to complete the Robert Heinlein Quest and read:

Friday

Glory Road 

On to Uranus and Side Trip through the 70's

A Choice of Gods by Clifford Simak

Unclassified side trips

Bearing an Hourglass by Piers Anthony

Death Dream by Ben Bova

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind

There are so many other books I want to read on my wishlist including the 2010 Hugo nominees along with Philip Dick's The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I have the your eyes are bigger than my stomach syndrome when it comes to books.   The plan is to get through the books on my nightstand before buying anything else.  Easier said than done, but I will be strong.  I hear the whisper Resistance is futile being whispered in my ear.  

I promised ground control I would check in on a regular basis so will be reporting in at least once a week.  Ground control told me to take advantage of my flight crew, fellow mind voyagers and passengers in order to remain on schedule.   I would appreciate any suggestions you have, plus authors or books you like to see spotlighted, or if you would like to take control for a day and be a guest poster,  please let me know.   

"Think left and think right and think low and think high.  Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!  ~Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!"

How are you progressing with your voyages?

Poetry and Science Fiction

 Poetry and Science Fiction

We are stepping into the twilight zone for a time because after all, this is National Poetry month.   Are there any science fiction authors who write poetry.  Are any of our hugo winners poets?  Surprisingly, yes.  I did find several including Ursula Le Guin, Neil Gaiman and Joe Haldeman.  Plus I discovered the Science Fiction Poetry Association.  

Locks

by Neil Gaiman

We owe it to each other to tell stories,

as people simply, not as father and daughter.

I tell it to you for the hundredth time:

"There was a little girl, called Goldilocks,

for her hair was long and golden,

and she was walking in the Wood and she saw — "

"— cows." You say it with certainty,

remembering the strayed heifers we saw in the woods

behind the house, last month.

"Well, yes, perhaps she saw cows,

but also she saw a house."

"— a great big house," you tell me.

"No, a little house, all painted, neat and tidy."

"A great big house."

You have the conviction of all two-year-olds.

I wish I had such certitude.

"Ah. Yes. A great big house.

And she went in . . ."

I remember, as I tell it, that the locks

Of Southey's heroine had silvered with age.

The Old Woman and the Three Bears . . .

Perhaps they had been golden once, when she was a child.

And now, we are already up to the porridge,

"And it was too— "

"— hot!"

"And it was too— "

— cold!"

And then it was, we chorus, "just right."

The porridge is eaten, the baby's chair is shattered,

Goldilocks goes upstairs, examines beds, and sleeps,

unwisely.

But then the bears return.

Remembering Southey still, I do the voices:

Father Bear's gruff boom scares you, and you delight in it.

When I was a small child and heard the tale,

if I was anyone I was Baby Bear,

my porridge eaten, and my chair destroyed,

my bed inhabited by some strange girl.

You giggle when I do the baby's wail,

"Someone's been eating my prridge, and they've eaten it —"

"All up," you say. A response it is,

Or an amen.

The bears go upstairs hesitantly,

their house now feels desecrated. They realize

what locks are for. They reach the bedroom.

"Someone's been sleeping in my bed."

And here I hesitate, echoes of old jokes,

soft-core cartoons, crude headlines, in my head.

One day your mouth will curl at that line.

A loss of interest, later, innocence.

Innocence; as if it were a commodity.

"And if I could," my father wrote to me,

huge as a bear himself, when I was younger,

"I would dower you with experience, without experience."

and I, in my turn, would pass that on to you.

But we make our own mistakes. We sleep

unwisely.

It is our right. It is our madness and our glory.

The repetition echoes down the years.

When your children grow; when your dark locks begin to silver,

when you are an old woman, alone with your three bears,

what will you see? What stories will you tell?

"And then Goldilicks jumped out of the window and she ran —

Together, now: "All the way home."

And then you say, "Again. Again. Again."

We owe it to each other to tell stories.

These days my sympathy's with Father Bear.

Before I leave my house I lock the door,

and check each bed and chair on my return.

Again.

Again.

Again..

And I was fascinated to find that Ursula Le Guin has translated the poems of the Latin American Poet I am studying for my Nobel Literature class - The Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral.  Gabriela is the first and only Latin American woman to win a Nobel prize for Literature for her writings. 

Canto que Amabas

Yo canto lo que tú amabas, vida mía,

por si te acercas y escuchas, vida mía,

por si te acuerdas del mundo que viviste,

 al aterdecer yo canto, sombra mía.

Yo no quiero enmudecer, vida mía.

¿Cómo sin mi grito fiel me hallarías?

¿Cuál señal, cuál me declara, vida mía?

Soy la misma que fue tuya, vida mía.

Ni lenta ni trascordada ni perdida.

Acude al anochecer, vida mía,

ven recordando un canto, vida mía,

si la canción reconoces de aprendida

y si mi nombre recuerdas todavía.

Te espero sin plazo y sin tiempo.

No temas noche, nebline ni aguacero.

 Acude con sendero o sin sendero.

Llámame adonde tú eres, alma mía,

y marcha recto hacia mí, compañero.

Translation 

What You Loved

Life of my life, what you loved I sing.

If you're near, if you're listening,

think of me now in the evening:

shadow in shadows, hear me sing.

Life of my life, I can't be still.

What is a story we never tell?

How can you find me unless I call?

Life of my life, I haven't changed,

not turned aside and not estranged.

Come to me as the shadows grow long,

come, life of my life, if you know the song

you used to know, if you know my name.

I and the song are still the same.

Beyond time or place I keep the faith.

Follow a path or follow no path,

never fearing the night, the wind,

call to me, come to me, now at the end,

walk with me, life of my life, my friend.

And Joe Haldeman, whose poem won the Rhysling Award for the best science fiction poem of the  year.  Unfortunately I don't know which year. 

Eighteen years old, October eleventh

Drunk for the first time in her life,
she tossed her head in a horsey laugh
and that new opal gift sailed off her sore earlobe,
in a graceful parabola,
pinged twice on the stone porch floor,
and rolled off to hide behind the rose bushes.

It gathered dust and silt for two centuries.
The mansion came down in a war.

For twelve thousand years
the opal hid in dark rubble, unmoving.
An arctic chill worked down through it, and deeper,
and glaciers pushed the rubble thousands of miles,
very fast, as opals measure time.

After millions of years (the Sun just measurably cooler)
a female felt the presence of a stone,
and waved away yards of snow and ice;
waved away dozens of yards
of frozen dirt and crushed rock,
and held, in what resembled a hand,
this bauble of gold and rainbow stone:

felt the sense of loss in that silly girl,
dead as a trilobite;
felt the pain that had gone into penetrating
the soft hyperbolic paraboloid of cartilage
that then displayed the decoration;
felt its sexual purpose:
to attract a dissimilar pattern of genes
to combine and recombine a trillion trillion times,
and become herself.

She briefly cherished the stone,
and returned it to its waiting.

 

 

Interested in finding out more about Science Fiction Poetry.   Head on over to the Science Fiction Poetry Association  and find more.  

We know return you to our regular programming -- Imagine twilight zone

2010 Hugo award nominees have been announced!

The 2010 Hugo nominees were announced at the Eastercon Convention and released on Twitter

Best Novel

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

The City and The City by China Mieville

Julian Comstock: A Story of a 22nd Century American by Robert Charles Wilson 

 Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Wake by Robert J. Sawyer 

 

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

 The rest of the nominees for best novella, novelette, short story, etc. can be found here.   Certainly an interesting assortment of books that I haven't read yet and look forward to checking them out. Congratulations to all the nominees.

What do you all think?