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Robert J. Sawyer

Goodreads Author

Born

in Ottawa, Canada

Website

http://www.sfwriter.com/index.htm

Twitter

RobertJSawyer

Genre

Science Fiction & Fantasy, Mystery & Thrillers

Member Since

March 2013

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/robertjsawyer

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Robert J. Sawyer is one of Canada's best known and most successful science fiction writers. He is the only Canadian (and one of only 7 writers in the world) to have won all three of the top international awards for science fiction: the 1995 Nebula Award for The Terminal Experiment, the 2003 Hugo Award for Hominids, and the 2006 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Mindscan.
Robert Sawyer grew up in Toronto, the son of two university professors. He credits two of his favourite shows from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Search and Star Trek, with teaching him some of the fundamentals of the science-fiction craft. Sawyer was obsessed with outer space from a young age, and he vividly remembers watching the televised Apollo missions. He claims to Robert J. Sawyer is one of Canada's best known and most successful science fiction writers. He is the only Canadian (and one of only 7 writers in the world) to have won all three of the top international awards for science fiction: the 1995 Nebula Award for The Terminal Experiment, the 2003 Hugo Award for Hominids, and the 2006 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Mindscan.
Robert Sawyer grew up in Toronto, the son of two university professors. He credits two of his favourite shows from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Search and Star Trek, with teaching him some of the fundamentals of the science-fiction craft. Sawyer was obsessed with outer space from a young age, and he vividly remembers watching the televised Apollo missions. He claims to have watched the 1968 classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey 25 times. He began writing science fiction in a high school club, which he co-founded, NASFA (Northview Academy Association of Science Fiction Addicts). Sawyer graduated in 1982 from the Radio and Television Arts Program at Ryerson University, where he later worked as an instructor.

Sawyer's first published book, Golden Fleece (1989), is an adaptation of short stories that had previously appeared in the science-fiction magazine Amazing Stories. This book won the Aurora Award for the best Canadian science-fiction novel in English. In the early 1990s Sawyer went on to publish his inventive Quintaglio Ascension trilogy, about a world of intelligent dinosaurs. His 1995 award winning The Terminal Experiment confirmed his place as a major international science-fiction writer.

A prolific writer, Sawyer has published more than 10 novels, plus two trilogies. Reviewers praise Sawyer for his concise prose, which has been compared to that of the science-fiction master Isaac Asimov. Like many science fiction-writers, Sawyer welcomes the opportunities his chosen genre provides for exploring ideas. The first book of his Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, Hominids (2002), is set in a near-future society, in which a quantum computing experiment brings a Neanderthal scientist from a parallel Earth to ours. His 2006 Mindscan explores the possibility of transferring human consciousness into a mechanical body, and the ensuing ethical, legal, and societal ramifications.

A passionate advocate for science fiction, Sawyer teaches creative writing and appears frequently in the media to discuss his genre. He prefers the label "philosophical fiction," and in no way sees himself as a predictor of the future. His mission statement for his writing is "To combine the intimately human with the grandly cosmic."

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964 posts
Robert J. Sawyer's Blog

Oppie gets a glow up!

Announcing a beautiful new edition of my The Oppenheimer Alternative

I honestly think The Oppenheimer Alternative is the best of my 26 novels, and, back in 2020, we were all set to launch it in a big way. We had a spectacular venue for the launch party: Toronto’s Prehistoria Museum, the only place in the city where you can buy real Trinitite from the initial atomic-bomb test.

And we had a book t

Combine Editions
Robert J. Sawyer’s books

Average rating: 3.88 · 144,388 ratings · 11,795 reviews · 219 distinct works • Similar authors

	Flashforward 3.66 avg rating — 17,087 ratings — published 1999 — 51 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax, #1) 3.81 avg rating — 14,106 ratings — published 2002 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Calculating God 3.87 avg rating — 10,476 ratings — published 2000 — 42 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Wake (WWW, #1) 3.83 avg rating — 8,597 ratings — published 2009 — 49 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Humans (Neanderthal Parallax, #2) 3.83 avg rating — 6,227 ratings — published 2003 — 30 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Watch (WWW, #2) 4.01 avg rating — 5,074 ratings — published 2010 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax, #3) 3.80 avg rating — 5,267 ratings — published 2003 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Downloaded 3.59 avg rating — 5,480 ratings — published 2024 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Wonder (WWW, #3) 3.99 avg rating — 4,319 ratings — published 2011 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Terminal Experiment 3.74 avg rating — 4,553 ratings — published 1995 — 49 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Series by Robert J. Sawyer

Neanderthal Parallax (3 books)
by

Robert J. Sawyer (Goodreads Author)

3.81 avg rating — 25,600 ratings

WWW (3 books)
by

Robert J. Sawyer (Goodreads Author)

3.92 avg rating — 18,015 ratings

The Downloaded (2 books)
by

Robert J. Sawyer (Goodreads Author),

Brendan Fraser (Narrator),

Vanessa Sears (Narrator),

Lior Maharjan (Narrator),

Cerise Handspiker (Narrator)

3.56 avg rating — 6,410 ratings

Quintaglio Ascension (3 books)
by

Robert J. Sawyer (Goodreads Author)

4.05 avg rating — 3,712 ratings

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The Oppenheimer Alternative

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Robert’s Recent Updates

Robert J. Sawyer wrote a new blog post Oppie gets a glow up! Announcing a beautiful new edition of my The Oppenheimer AlternativeI honestly think The Oppenheimer Alternative is the best of my 26 novels, and, ba Read more of this blog post »
May 04, 2026 12:03AM · 2 likes · like
Robert J. Sawyer and 4 other people liked Rachel Ashera Rosen's review of The Downloaded: "This was a fun, clever read that I imagine works even better in audiobook format. Two groups of people have their bodies frozen and their consciousnesses uploaded: a group of astronauts preparing to colonize a distant planet, and a group of convicts " Read more of this review »
Feb 11, 2025 02:02PM · see review
Robert J. Sawyer rated a book it was amazing The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Feb 11, 2025 02:02PM · 20 likes · like
Robert J. Sawyer is now following John E. Stith Author of Manhattan Transfer
Aug 05, 2024 06:23AM · like
Robert J. Sawyer and 4 other people liked Robert J. Sawyer's blog post: WordStar for DOS 7.0 Archive " As you all know, I continue to use WordStar for DOS 7.0 as my word-processing program. It was last updated in December 1992, and the company that made it has been defunct for decades; the program is abandonware.There was no proper archive of W..." Read more of this blog post »
Aug 05, 2024 06:23AM

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Quotes by Robert J. Sawyer (?)

“Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.”
― Robert J. Sawyer, Calculating God

2274 likes

“There is no indisputable proof for the big bang," said Hollus. "And there is none for evolution. And yet you accept those. Why hold the question of whether there is a creator to a higher standard?”
― Robert J. Sawyer, Calculating God

tags: atheism, big-bang, darwinism, double-standards, id, intelligent-design, macro-evolution, macroevolution, materialism, naturalism, religious-science-fiction, science, theism, theistic-science-fiction

47 likes

“Naturally, one does not normally discuss plans to commit murder with the intended victim.”
― Robert J. Sawyer, Flashforward

tags: future, killers, murder

31 likes

See all Robert J. Sawyer's quotes »

Polls

May-July 2023 Nomination: A Trilogy
(one book per month)

The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

34 votes, 28.8%

Oxford Time Travel by Connie Willis

22 votes, 18.6%

The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson

20 votes, 16.9%

Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee

11 votes, 9.3%

The Neanderthal Parallax by Robert J. Sawyer

11 votes, 9.3%

Helliconia by Brian Aldiss

10 votes, 8.5%

The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

10 votes, 8.5%

118 total votes

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Robert’s Friend Comments

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message 1: by Gerald

Mar 17, 2021 03:45PM

Hey Robert. If it's possible, and you are willing, why don't you add what you are currently reading. I'm sure your fans will take a keen interest in what you're reading..

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