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"A writer of boundless confidence and bold scientific extrapolation" (New York Times) concludes his mindbending trilogy.

Webmind-the vast consciousness that spontaneously emerged from the infrastructure of the World Wide Web-has proven its worth to humanity by aiding in everything from curing cancer to easing international tensions. But the brass at the Pentagon see Webmind as a threat that needs to be eliminated.

Caitlin Decter-the once-blind sixteen-year-old math genius who discovered, and bonded with, Webmind-wants desperately to protect her friend. And if she doesn't act, everything-Webmind included-may come crashing down. ... Read more

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2009 Aurora Award nominee

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

This new collection by the man Anne McCaffrey calls "an absolutely marvelous writer" includes Hugo Award nominee "Shed Skin," Nebula Award nominee "Identity Theft," and Aurora Award winner "Ineluctable." In these pages, you'll discover the dark secret of the only priest on Mars, revisit H.G. Wells's Morlocks, and learn what really happens when aliens beam us the Encyclopedia Galactica.

"Sawyer has a way of taking familiar ideas, looking at them from new angles and in greater depth than almost anybody before him, and tying them together to create extraordinarily fresh and thought-provoking stories."-Analog

"Sawyer writes my favorite kind of science fiction: interesting characters, fast-paced plotting, science threaded elegantly into the prose - he does it all with grace and style. I am constantly amazed by the depth of Sawyer's characters - their humanity, their failings and their instincts."
-Rodger Turner on SF Site

... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Collection of Futuristic Tales Focusing on New Social Problems!
This is a collection of short fiction by Sawyer with each the author giving a brief background behind the writing of each.The longest story and the best on is the title story, Identity Theft.This story as well of a couple of the others uses the basis for Sawyer's Mindscan novel, that is people decide to have their mind scanned into an automation.In some cases, the human is euthonized after the scan.In the Shed Skin tale, the human is sent to an isolated paradise to live out their remaining days (the Shed Skin tale is actually a scaled back version of Mindscan).

In Identity Theft, a man disappears (his robotic form) after he has uploads his mind.It turns out that he never entered the intended robot body but assumed the robot body that was meant for another (thus the title).This story has some tense moments making it the best of a collection of very good stories.

Some of the other stories would make excellent Twilight Zone tales such as Ineluctable, where man tries to be too "smart" communicating with the first aliens to make contact and thus ultimately sends the "wrong" message to the aliens.

In The Eagle Has Landed a bunch of astronauts travel back to Earth after more than a hundred years have passed since they left and find that the now governmentless world may not be a place where they can ever live.

The final tale Biding Time is a lot like a Twilight Zone episode that involved a male astronaut.This tale involves a woman that goes into space for over 30 years where she will only age seven years during the process and will leave her husband behind during that time.

Sawyer has an amazing gift for anticipating many of the social problems humans will face as we move into space and each one of his tales focuses on a different one of these problems.It makes this a very intriguing collection of tales from a science fiction master.

Great collection of short stories!
Let me start by saying that the titular novella that begins this book has to be the best SF/crime fiction story I've read since Asimov's "Billiard Ball" and the Caves of Steel (The Isaac Asimov Collection Edition) and is well worth the price of admission.Nor does the rest of the book disappoint.I especially enjoyed "Come Al Ye Faithful" about the 1st Catholic priest on Mars and "Mikeys" which lovingly revisits and revives the reputation of astronaut Mike Collins - the Apolo 8 astronaut who was left in orbit and didn't get to walk on the moon.There are other gems as well - "The Uploaded" which looks at the perils of humanity choosing between two paths, a new look at the Morlocks of HG Well's The Time Machine (Penguin Classics), and "Flashes" which considers the demoralizing effect of contact with a truly advanced civilization.

The only disappointments I had were the stories "Shed Skin" and "Immortality".The former is an earlier version of Sawyer's book Mindscan and the author did a much better exploration of the philosophical and moral issues of creating a copy of one's consciousness when he used the longer form.The latter, an homage to the music of Janis Ian (which I like - ie: Between the Lines) seemed a bit forced in integrating references to her music.(She's also a hardcore SF fan and apparently she loved it, so maybe you'll disagree with me.)

Another criticism IMHO is that I find Sawyer's openings somewhat weak and rely all to much on characters talking or thinking, but he quickly picks up the pace with a strong description, plot lines and characterization.IMV good hard SF is about "what if" and following through on the implications of ideas and in that respect Sawyer is one of most reliably good writers around today.

I highly recommend Identity Theft: And Other Stories for a good dockside or snuggle up next a fireplace read as well as his other short story collection Iterations: And Other Stories ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Across the Mind
'Relativity' collects up 8 short stories, and a lot of Sawyer's non-fiction.Some of the stories are minor, but most of them are important stories proving Sawyer is among the field's top authors at any length.

But the non-fiction is also a treat.It is occasionally a little repetitive due to the nature of having been collected over many sources, and over some years.But all of it is thoughtful, interesting, and full of ideas.

In fact, the book is so full of ideas, it's best read over a few weeks rather than in one sitting.It's one to be savored.

Good Insight into a Great Writer and Interesting Guy
Given his sales, I'm sure a lot of people have read Robert J. Sawyer's novels, but unless you spend time surfing his website at www.sfwriter.com or listening to him at one of the many scifi cons he attends, you don't really get the full picture.Rather than pushing an agenda or scare-mongering, Rob is, I think, most interested in getting people to think intelligently about serious issues concerning science, humanity, and the future.This collection of stories, speeches, and articles illustrates his creativity, his impact on science fiction, his dedication to the craft of writing, and his willingness to help aspiring authors (including me:Rob provided a quote for my first scifi novel, Forced Conversion).Relativity is a worthy addition to the collection of any Sawyer fan and any aspiring scifi writer.As the first offering of ISFiC Press, there is even more reason to get your copy now. ... Read more

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The 21st Century Belongs to Canada

On a per capita basis, Canada has more world-class science-fiction writers than any country on Earth. Collected here are the best recent works by Hugo Award winners Spider Robinson, Robert J. Sawyer, and Robert Charles Wilson, Hugo nominees Paddy Forde, James Alan Gardner, Nalo Hopkinson, and Peter Watts, and Aurora Award winners Julie E. Czerneda and Karl Schroeder - 14 advance reports of wonders and dangers yet to come.

"Robert J. Sawyer is the public face of Canadian science fiction." - Quill & Quire

Robert J. Sawyer - called "the Dean of Canadian Science Fiction" by the Ottawa Citizen and "Canada's answer to Michael Crichton" by the Montreal Gazette - has published 18 novels, including the Hugo Award-winning Hominids, the Nebula Award-winning The Terminal Experiment , and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winning Mindscan.

The following is the list of contributing authors with links to a brief bio on the author:

Julie E. Czerneda,
Paddy Forde,
James Alan Gardner,
Nalo Hopkinson,
Spider Robinson,
Robert J. Sawyer,
Karl Schroeder,
Peter Watts, and
Robert Charles Wilson,
plus the poetry of Carolyn Clink.

Customer Reviews (1)

DISTANT EARLY WARNINGS: CANADA'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION EDITED BY ROBERT J. SAWYER
Readers who either don't read a lot of science fiction, or don't read a wide breadth of science fiction, may look at Distant Early Warnings and wonder: "Canada has science fiction writers?"Then they'll read down the list of the stories included in this collection by authors like Julie E. Czerneda, Nalo Hopkinson, and Robert Charles Wilson, and think to themselves: "They're Canadian?"And finally they look and see that Distant Early Warnings is edited by Robert J. Sawyer, a brilliant science fiction writer who has won just about every award possible, and think: "He's Canadian too?"Not only is science fiction alive and well and being skillfully created and written in the great country north of the United States, but it is in fact home to some of the best science fiction writers alive today.

In Sawyer's wonderfully short and precise introduction - he knows to not bore the reader with a lengthy passage talking about what he thinks about Canadian science fiction, but lets the stories speak for themselves - he explains that the title comes from "a string of radar stations in Canada's far north designed to detect incoming Soviet bombers during the Cold War."The collection kicks off with the best story, "In Spirit," where it is the near future and a new form of technology exists where it is possible to travel back in time as a holographic image to view events of the past.While still in its testing stages, a prisoner is chosen, giving him the opportunity of freedom if he goes through all the stages of traveling into the past.What is eventually discovered is that this man was involved in the September 11th attacks and he is being punished by traveling back to the catastrophic day and being made to experience action and reaction through the eyes of those who suffered.Then there are those strange people who seem to somehow recognize him during his travels, which should be impossible.The collection features stories that work on many different levels, like "The Ray-Gun, A Love Story" by James Alan Gardner, as the reader wonders how far the character will go to protect his very special artifact.Then there is Robert Charles Wilson's haunting and disturbing tale, "The Cartesian Theatre," which explores the idea of cloning and what is the true meaning of life, living, and the idea of a soul.

Sawyer kicks it up a notch with his lightning round at the end of the book, featuring stories by himself and others in the collection that are only a couple of pages long.And when you're done with this collection, Sawyer makes sure to point out if the authors have won awards, and what other works they've published, to give the readers ideas on what to read next.If anything, Distant Early Warnings will open the mind of any reader to some of the great work and literature being produced by some of today's Canadian authors.

For more reviews, check out the BookBanter site: [...]
... Read more

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A partir de la visita de un alienígena a un museo de la ciencia, empieza una insólita investigación que pretende demostrar la existencia de Dios. El paleontólogo Tom. D. Jericó descarta, por principio, la intercesión divina en cualquier controversia científica, hasta el día en que le descubren un cáncer terminal y debe enfrentarse a su propia finitud. ¿Podrá entonces sostener sus tesis racionalistas sobre la inexistencia del Creador? / His new novel concerns the appearance at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto of a spiderlike alien paleontologist named Hollus. The alien has come to Earth to study the five great extinction events that have hit our planet over the eons, the best known being the asteroid collision that wiped out the dinosaurs. When the museum's head paleontologist, Tom Jericho, consults with the alien, he is shocked to discover that Hollus has proof that her own planet and that of another alien race suffered a similar series of five catastrophic events at virtually the same times as Earth did. ... Read more

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These 61 essays and articles include Mike Resnick's work for galaxyonline.com, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, book introductions, and much, much more! Features an introduction by Robert J. Sawyer ... Read more

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In a future Earth recovering from a devastating plague, the radical environmental group Green Splinter assassinates politician Owen Lamberin. Owen's adopted daughter, a gifted musician named Jasmine Rochelle, hires street–smart Mane Silverstar to help her track down her father's killer, and the unlikely pair are plunged into a world of genetically engineered drugs, political machinations and corporate greed leading them deep into the re–created South American rain forests, where a terrible secret is hidden.

Includes an Introduction by Robert J. Sawyer

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14 illustrious members of the Crime Writers of Canada explore what happens when people stand at the brink. ... Read more

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Robert J. Sawyer - called "the dean of Canadian science fiction" by the Ottawa Citizen and "just about the best science fiction writer out there these days" by the Rocky Mountain News - won the World Science Fiction Society's Hugo Award for his novel Hominids and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award for his novel The Terminal Experiment.

Iterations is Sawyer's first short story collection, gathering 22 fantastic tales from such diverse places as Amazing Stories, the Village Voice, the Globe & Mail, and Nature.

Among them, these stories have:

• Won the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Award ("the Aurora")
• Won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award,
• Been nominated for the Hugo,
• Nominated for and the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award,
• Been performed on CBC Radio, and
• Appeared in best-of-the-year collections.

In Iterations, you'll:

• See Sherlock Holmes solve the problem of the missing aliens,
• Find out what really happened to the bones of Peking Man,
• Learn the truth about the alligators in the sewers of New York,
• Visit a future Toronto sealed inside a steel dome,
• Encounter pure evil aboard the Russian space station Mir,
• Follow a serial killer as his consciousness is transferred into a Tyrannosaurus rex, and
• Meet a man doomed to commit murder over and over again because of the pressures of Canadian publishing.

Each story is accompanied by Sawyer's own commentary, and the collection is introduced by award-winning SF author James Alan Gardner.

Customer Reviews (2)

Most of the Stories are Good!
I am not usually a big fan of the short story. There are some really good ones in this collection by Sawyer who in my opinion is the current best at the scifi novel. Each tale is presented with an introduction as to how Sawyer came up with the idea for the tale.

There is an excellent tale involving Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson being drawn into the future to solve a puzzling riddle. There is also a tale about high school student who is kind of nerdy but smart. He is always the last one picked (or not even picked) for sports teams in school. He gets the ultimate revenge against the jocks that wronged him.

There is are several tales that deal with parallel universes and dinosaurs. All in all I really enjoyed about half the tales and the other half were just so-so. Since you can skip over the tales that you don't care for, I give the book 4 stars based on the really good ones.

Science Fiction fans everywhere will find something to enjoy
Science Fiction fans everywhere will find something to enjoy in "Iterations and Other Stories", a collection of short stories from Hugo and Nebula award winner Robert J. Sawyer. With a vast array of subjects, the short stories range in perspective from that of a T-Rex to that of the pope, and many of the tales are award winners or finalists in their own right. "Iterations and Other Stories" is a fine addition to any short fiction collection focusing on science fiction.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch ... Read more

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These are stories of the men and women of this new Free Space era, visions of adventure, social speculations, and downright arguments about freedom and responsibility. Free Space fiction, from Hugo and Nebula Award winners such as Poul Anderson, Gregory Benford, and Robert J. Sawyer, and particularly from winners of the Prometheus Award of the Libertarian Futurist Society, such as Victor Koman, Daffyd ab Hugh, and L. Neil Smith. Free Space is a big, rich, varied compendium of politically-engaged science fiction adventure.Amazon.com Review
This is a libertarianist anthology of (mostly) originalstories that, depending on your tastes, can be too narrowly focused orwonderfully concentrated. The "Free Space" in the title is just that:a loose federation of space habitats that has no centralgovernment. Free enterprise rules, and the editors let 20 authorsranging from William F. Buckley Jr. to William F. Wu have their waywith it. The result is mixed, but on the whole successful, and itdefinitely makes for interesting reading. Several of the writers arewinners of the Libertarian Futurist Society's Prometheus Award. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Lame
I'm a great fan of L. Neil Smith's and bought the book for that story alone.I shouldn't have bothered.His story made a good philosophical point about the peace process, but was lacking in terms of the apparent theme of the book.The other stories left me cold, and didn't sustain even a single reading.

At least I bought it used so I wasn't out much cash.

Not Free SF Reader
This anthology shows that good libertarian SF stories written by Prometheus award winners are pretty thin on the ground. A very ordinary collection. Don't get it unless you are super-keen on the theme.

Free Space : Crisis in Space - William F. Buckley Jr.
Free Space : Nerfworld - Dafydd ab Hugh
Free Space : Day of Atonement - J. Neil Schulman
Free Space : No Market for Justice - Brad Linaweaver
Free Space : Kwan Tingui - William F. Wu
Free Space : Madam Butterfly - James P. Hogan
Free Space : Early Bird - Gregory Benford
Free Space : Tyranny - Poul Anderson
Free Space : The Killing of Davis-Davis - Peter Crowther
Free Space : Demokratus - Victor Koman
Free Space : The Hand You're Dealt - Robert J. Sawyer
Free Space : If Pigs Had Wings - William Alan Ritch
Free Space : A Matter of Certainty - L. Neil Smith
Free Space : Planet in the Balance - John DeChancie
Free Space : The Performance of a Lifetime - Arthur Byron Cover
Free Space : The Last Holosong of Christopher Lightning - Jared Lobdell
Free Space : Between Shepherds and Kings - John Barnes


Soyuz defection

3 out of 5


Laser launch job.

3.5 out of 5


Jewish Liberation hologram revelation.

3.5 out of 5


Departure diatribe.

2 out of 5


Family explanation.

2.5 out of 5


Asteroid bootleggers blinded.

3 out of 5


Repayment refly refry risk.

4 out of 5


Freedom infiltration.

3 out of 5


Bridge redeal time.

3 out of 5


Groundhog day vote.

4 out of 5


Copshop finds incest foretold.

3.5 out of 5


Reading escape.

3 out of 5


War reasons.

2.5 out of 5


Terraforming, nanoforming, don't think so.

3 out of 5


Disease execution.

3 out of 5


Ship war.

2 out of 5


Writing problems.

3 out of 5

Not just a book of libertarian stories...
This is a book of some of the BEST Sci-Fi stories ever.With such authors as Poul Anderson, James P. Hogan, Ray Bradbury, Gregory Benford, L. Neil Smith and Dafydd ab Hugh you can't lose.The stories don't just focus on freedoms and rights, but also deal with time travel, murder and some are in the form of poems.So, come, visit Free Space and enjoy the future of mankind.Just make sure to leave your hang-ups behind and bring lots of money!

Thanks for holding out!
This book combines two things I really love:short stories and science fiction...with an added bonus - libertarian themes!Stephen King once said that if novels are like long romances, then short stories are like a briefkiss.'Free Space' gives you tongue. ... Read more

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Includes the story The Helper and His Hero, nominated for a Nebula Award - Best Novella, 2007

For years now, 40,000 readers of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction have been reveling in the adventures of Matt Hughes's Guth Bandar, the hero of this novel. Hughes is one of the top voices in modern SF, and this book has a huge audience waiting for it.

For 100,000 years, Old Earth's Institute for Historical Inquiry has mapped the collective unconscious of the human race. They have encountered all the archetypal figures - the Wise Man and the Fool, the Destroyer and the Redeemer - the "usual suspects" that populate the myths and legends at the back of the human mind.

And now young Guth Bandar suspects the collective unconscious has become aware of itself. Worse, it has an agenda. And worst of all, it can force Bandar to go deep into the darkest forests of the mind, where the only escape from madness is death.

"A fascinating premise. There is interest for the reader here on several levels: in following Guth Bandar's adventures, in the various archetypical personality types he encounters, in his reflections on the more philosophical questions of the nature of consciousness. In The Commons, Hughes has created a universe with particularly fertile prospects for speculative activity."
-- Tangent

"Irresistibly good reading."
-- Booklist on Black Brillion

"Hughes's boldness is admirable."
-- The New York Review of Science Fiction ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A Second Telling of Black Brillion
This novel tells another version of the story told in Black Brillion, here focussing on Guth Bandar instead of Baro Harkless and Luff Imbry.I found the novel well written but, unfortunately, I don't find Guth Bandar as interesting a character as Luff Imbry.Also missing is the entertaining dialog between the main characters of Black Brillion.

My rating here may be unfair, if not compared to the other works of Hughes, I would rate this book a 5.Since I cannot help but compare this to his other novels I ended up rating it a bit lower.It might be better to pick up The Gist Hunter and Other Stories which contains a couple of the stories told here plus some great stories surrounding Hengis Hapthorn (see Majestrum and The Spiral Labyrinth).

Great short-story compilation of Gath Bandar
This book contains many short stories of Gath Bandar, some of which are in book form elsewhere (The Gist Hunter and others has a few), and chains them together with slight modifications into a book.

The noosphere is a fascinating concept, and it lets the author introduce pretty much any fantastic or mythological setting he wants.In some cases he introduces fables/stories/myths the reader is familiar with (though the protagonist is not, which leads to some amusing predicaments), and in others the reverse holds true.I have read that the last story tied into another story the author has written as well (I have ordered it used, don't have it yet).

The tone of the stories is quite distinct from his vance-style Hapthorn stories - the protagonist is more serious, and the dialogue is as well.In terms of dialogue, these are not funny stories, though funny things DO happen.

Overall, a very entertaining way to spend a few hours.This author is very readable, and I recommend this, or any of his Night Shade publications.

The Helper's Call to Adventure
The Hero's Call to Adventure, primarily defined by Joseph Campbell is a familiar trope in myth and archetype. Here we have something a little different, a talented individual groomed to be, not willingly, not the hero but the hero's helper.

This novel contains a few short stories originally published elsewhere as well as a novella detailing the events of Black Brillion from Guth Bandar's viewpoint. In my opinion, this version makes more sense than the same story portrayed in Black Brillion.

The short stories, which now take up the first few chapters of the book serve the purpose of introducing the main character Guth Bandar, the idea of the noosphere-the collective unconscious of the human race where dreams, mythical archetypes and important events occur and appear over and over as well as the development of Guth Bandar to be a helper. Bandar starts as being one of the most promising and talented explorers of the collective unconscious, talented enough to realize something is amiss in this world which is supposed to be entirely explored and nothing new should happen. We see the rules of the noosphere broken down and Bandar is cast into the archetypical role of helper against his will.

The major portion of the book, the aforementioned novella, deals with the events from Black Brillion. A now much older Guth Bandar travels to a great wasteland and encounters 2 other travellers, one of which has an unheard of talent for exploring and manipulating the noosphere. He is the one Bandar has been groomed to help. From this point we explore the noosphere of other races and learn of a long term plot of a defeated alien race that is about to culminate.

Hughes prose is as urbane as ever, and the idea of the noosphere is unique and interesting, allowing for the portrayal of many different characters and events for the purpose of story telling. Hughes world is well created, being the last age of earth before Jack Vance's Dying Earth era.

Those looking for something beyond the typical fiction of the various series or franchises would do well to look at this book, and Hughes' other works. They are different and will reward the discerning reader.

a new perspective
This book contains a number of stories which were originally published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, some of which were also collected in the book "The Gist Hunter."In the later part of the book there is a story which shows the events and plots told in Hughes's book, "Black Brillion" from a new perspective: the viewpoint character in "The Commons" meets the viewpoint characters from "Black Brillion" in an episode told in the latter book, and experiences many of the same events as them.

However, while the plot and events have a lot in common, the parts played by the various characters and their knowledge of what it all means are quite different.The story, if you will, is different because the protagonists portray different people with different histories and different futures.

The approach Matthew Hughes takes here is clearly not to everyone's taste, but I found it entertaining and very worthwhile reading.If all you care about is the twisting and turning of the plot or new and shiny plot coupons, read "Black Brillion" and perhaps leave "The Commons" aside.If character and story beyond plot are the reason you read, or even if you just love Hughes's Jack-Vance-informed writing style, read both for maximum enjoyment. ... Read more

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Word count: 5812. ... Read more

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A diverse and surprising collection of crime fiction stories with elements of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Writers include: Spider Robinson,, Terence Green, Tanya Huff, Andrew Weiner, and more. ... Read more

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A collection of stories and poems from such authors as Robert J. Sawyer, Bruce Holland Rogers, John Park, Ursula Pflug, Eileen Kernaghan, Nancy Bennett, William Laughlin, Rebecca M. Senese, Stephanie Bedwell-Grime, Don Hornbostel, Denise Dumar, John Everson, and many more. 186 pages, illustrated. ... Read more

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Washington Univ., St. Louis, MO. Explores the connections between creativity and development. Drawing on decades of research, discusses the creativity of children's play, the creative aspects of children's thinking process, and the role of multiple intelligence in both creativity and development. Hardcover, softcover available. ... Read more