Robert J. Sawyer

He has lived in the Greater Toronto Area for most of his life and has been a resident of Mississauga since 2000.

Sawyer studied at Toronto Metropolitan University. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are science fiction and mystery fiction. Distinctions recorded are Nebula Award for Best Novel, Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for Best Foreign-Language Short Story, Hugo Award for Best Novel and Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence.

• Name — Robert J. Sawyer • Honorific Suffix — OOnt • Born — 29 April 1960 • Birthplace — Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Education — Ryerson University • Occupation — Novelist • Citizenship — * Canada • United States • Genre — * Science fiction • mystery • Website — https: sfwriter.com

Sawyer's work frequently explores the intersection between science and religion, with rationalism winning out over mysticism. The most relevant novels in this regard are Far-Seer, The Terminal Experiment, Calculating God, and the three volumes of the Neanderthal Parallax (Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids), in addition to the short story "The Abdication of Pope Mary III" (originally published in Nature, July 6, 2000). Sawyer often explores the notion of copied or uploaded human consciousness (or mind uploading)—most fully in his novel Mindscan, but also in Flashforward, Golden Fleece, The Terminal Experiment, "Identity Theft", "Biding Time", "Shed Skin", and The Downloaded. His interest in consciousness studies is also apparent in Wake, which deals with the spontaneous emergence of consciousness in the infrastructure of the World Wide Web. His interest in quantum physics, and especially quantum computing, informs the short stories "You See But You Do Not Observe" (a pastiche of Sherlock Holmes) and "Iterations," in addition to the novels Factoring Humanity and Hominids. SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, plays a role in the plots of Golden Fleece, Factoring Humanity, Mindscan, Rollback, the novelette "Ineluctable," and the short stories "You See But You Do Not Observe" and "Flashes." Sawyer gives cosmology a thorough discussion in his far-future Starplex. Real-life science institutions are often used as settings by Sawyer, including TRIUMF in End of an Era, CERN in Flashforward, the Royal Ontario Museum in Calculating God, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Hominids and its sequels, the Arecibo Observatory in Rollback, the Canadian Light Source in Quantum Night, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Institute for Advanced Study in The Oppenheimer Alternative. Sawyer's prose has been described by Orson Scott Card as similar to that of Isaac Asimov in its clarity.

Sawyer has won both Canada's top SF award (the Prix Aurora Award) and its top mystery-fiction award (the Arthur Ellis Award) for his 1993 short story "Just Like Old Times". Illegal Alien is a courtroom drama with an extraterrestrial defendant; Hominids puts one Neanderthal on trial by his peers for the apparent murder of another Neanderthal; Mindscan has the rights of uploaded consciousnesses explored in a Michigan probate court; and Golden Fleece, Fossil Hunter, The Terminal Experiment, Frameshift, Flashforward, and Red Planet Blues are all, in part, murder mysteries. Of Sawyer's shorter SF works, the novella Identity Theft and the short stories "Biding Time", "Flashes", "Iterations", "Shed Skin", "The Stanley Cup Caper", "You See But You Do Not Observe", "The Hand You're Dealt", and the aforementioned "Just Like Old Times" are all also crime or mystery fiction.

Sawyer has long been an advocate of Canadian science fiction. He lobbied hard for the creation of the Canadian Region of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The Canadian Region was established in 1992, and Sawyer served for three years on SFWA's Board of Directors as the first Canadian Regional Director (1992–1995). He also edited the newsletter of the Canadian Region, called Alouette in honor of Canada's first satellite; the newsletter was nominated for a Prix Aurora Award for best fanzine. Sawyer was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Laurentian University in 2007 and an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Winnipeg in 2014.

In addition to his popularity at home, Sawyer's work is well received internationally. All of his novels have been issued by New York publishing houses and translated editions have appeared in Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, Hungarian, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, and Spanish.

In 1998, Sawyer was elected president of SFWA on a platform that promised a referendum on various contentious issues, including periodic membership requalification and the creation of a Nebula Award for best script; he won, defeating the next-closest candidate, past SFWA president Norman Spinrad, by a 3:2 margin. However, Sawyer's actual time in office was marked by considerable opposition to membership requalification and negative reaction to his dismissing — supported by a majority of the Board of Directors — one paid SFWA worker and one volunteer. He resigned after completing half of his one-year term, and was automatically succeeded by then-incumbent vice-president Paul Levinson. Prior to resigning, Sawyer's promised referendum was held, resulting in significant changes to SFWA's bylaws and procedures, most notably allowing appropriate non-North American sales to count as membership credentials, allowing appropriate electronic sales to count as membership credentials, and creating a Nebula Award for best script. Sawyer has been active in other writers' organizations, including the Crime Writers of Canada, the Horror Writers Association, and the Writers' Union of Canada (for which he has served on the membership committee), and he is a member of scriptwriting unions Writers Guild of America and Writers Guild of Canada.

• Ribbon — Description — Date — Notes • — Order of Canada — 2016 — Member (CM) • — Order of Ontario — 2018 — Member (OOnt) • — Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal — 2012 — Canadian version

• Golden Fleece (Warner Books/Questar, 1990) • End of an Era (Ace, 1994) • The Terminal Experiment (serialized as Hobson's Choice in Analog; HarperPrism, 1995) • Starplex (serialized in Analog; Ace, 1996) • Frameshift (Tor, 1997) • Illegal Alien (Ace, 1997) • Factoring Humanity (Tor, 1998) • Flashforward (Tor, 1999) • Calculating God (Tor, 2000) • Mindscan (Tor, 2005) • Rollback (serialized in Analog; Tor, 2007) • Triggers (serialized in Analog, 2012; Ace USA, Viking Canada, and Gollancz UK, April 2012) • Peking man (2014) • Red Planet Blues (Ace USA and Viking Canada, 2013; Orion/Gollancz UK, 2014) • Quantum Night (Ace USA and Viking Canada, 2016) • The Oppenheimer Alternative (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy (US) and Red Deer Press (Canada), 2020; reissued by Shadowpaw Press, 2026) • The Downloaded (Audible 2023 [audiobook] and Shadowpaw Press [print], 2024) • The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine (Audible 2025 [audiobook] and Shadowpaw Press [print], 2026) The Quintaglio Ascension trilogy • Far-Seer (Ace, 1992) • Fossil Hunter (Ace, 1993) • Foreigner (Ace, 1994) The Neanderthal Parallax trilogy • Hominids (serialized in Analog; Tor, 2003) • Humans (Tor, 2003) • Hybrids (Tor, 2003) The WWW trilogy • Wake (serialized in Analog, 2008–2009; Ace USA, Viking Canada, and Orion/Gollancz UK, 2009) • Watch (Ace USA, Viking Canada, and Orion/Gollancz UK, 2010) • Wonder (Ace USA, Penguin Canada and Orion/Gollancz UK, 2011)

• Tesseracts 6 with Carolyn Clink (1997) • Crossing the Line: Canadian Mysteries With a Fantastic Twist with David Skene-Melvin (1999) • Distant Early Warnings: Canada's Best Science Fiction (2009)

• Boarding the Enterprise: Transporters, Tribbles, And the Vulcan Death Grip in Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek edited with David Gerrold (BenBella Books, 2006) • Sawyer on Science Fiction (Shadowpaw Press, 2026)

• Iterations – Short stories (Quarry Press, 2002) • Relativity (ISFiC Press, 2004) • Identity Theft and Other Stories (Red Deer Press, 2008)