Archive for the ‘Robert Sawyer’ Category
You’ve all read Robert Sawyer (right?). The WWW series, the Hominids series, Flashforward, Mindscan, Frameshift, about a 20 other novels, and his newest novel is Quantum Night.
Sawyer won his first Prix Aurora award in 1991 and has been going strong ever since. His books are accessible and easy on the eyes. He writes the kind of near future scifi thrillers that are perfect for your friends who don’t want something too weird.
Head over the Apex Magazine website to read my interview with Robert Sawyer, where we mostly talk about Quantum Night, but also talk about getting characters (and readers!) excited about science, what baseball has to do with writing hard science fiction, what BattleStar Galactica has to do with psychology, and the reason why your surgeon might have pretty crappy bedside manner.
I am very proud of this interview. Mr. Sawyer and I spoke on the phone for about 40 minutes, and then I muppetflailed around the house for about a week. I took time out from the muppetflailing to transcribe the interview. If you enjoy reading the interview as much as I enjoyed conducting it, please leave a comment over at the Apex site, so they know you enjoyed it too.
Also? If you like Jeff Vandermeer, you should read “How Lovely Is The Silence of Growing Things”, also in this issue of Apex.
Are you a YA fan who is looking for something a little grittier, a little meatier, a little SF-ier?
Are you an adult SF/F fan looking for something a little lighter, but still with the grit and humor you’ve come to enjoy from your favorite writers?
If you answered “why yes! Yes I am!” to either of those questions, allow me to introduce you to some great SF/F YA reads by authors who are known for writing for adults.
For the Win, by Cory Doctorow – American kids enjoy online games for fun. Asian and Indian kids play online games for money, more than just what gold farming can give them. When the undertrod, underpaid, undervalued child workers are taught the word union, only good can come of it. right?
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow – big brother might be watching, but what happens when little brother watches back? Of every book on this list, this was the hardest book for me to read, and I don’t mean hard intellectually. I believe Little Brother should be required reading in every high school government class, but I’m sure once it got some attention it would be banned.
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville – Part Wizard of Oz, part Alice in Wonderland, and very punny. You just can’t not like this book!
The WWW series by Robert Sawyer – the first book in the series didn’t do much for me, but as far as YA reads go, this is a contemporary SF winner. Blind teenager Caitlin can “see” the world wide web, and there is something there that can see her.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman – what can I say about this that hasn’t been said before? if you haven’t read it, you owe it to yourself to enjoy this book!
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – Ender’s Game as YA? really? hey, it’s what all the cool kids were reading when I was a teenager. It’s a SF classic.
Which of these have you read? Which of these look most promising?
WWW.Wake by Robert Sawyer
Posted on: August 31, 2010
- In: Review | Robert Sawyer
- 5 Comments
I’ll give Sawyer one thing, he knows how to grab you with some good opening chapters. He excels at moving the plot along and keeping readers interested. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have zipped through the first 200 pages of http://www.Wake in one day!
Caitlin, aged 15 is a blind math genius. She obsessively reads about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan while surfing the internet in braille and using voice recognition software to post on her livejournal. Other than that, Caitlin is your pretty average high schooler. She wants to go to college, is desperate for her father’s approval, thinks boys might be interesting, and can’t live without the internet.
When she received a communication from a Japanese doctor that technology might exist to help restore her vision, they fly to Tokyo for the operation. Dr Kuroda installs an implant behind Caitlin’s eyeball, which sends signals to a computer, which processes the signals into some thing recognizable, and the signals get sent back to the implant in the hope that Caitlin’s brain will be able to read them correctly. After a few hits and misses, they achieve success. Along with some else, something unexpected. Read the rest of this entry »
the Little Red Reviewer 
Recent Comments