Relativity

Stories and Essays by Robert J. Sawyer

Cover by Jael

Robert J. Sawyer established his reputation as a fine novelist when he burst on the science fiction scene with Golden Fleece in 1991. More quietly, he has built an impressive body of short fiction, essays, articles, and speeches. Relativity is his first collection of these.

Read the stories collected, and you'll...

   ...become a modern day killer who walks with dinosaurs in "Just Like Old Times."
   ...experience first contact with an alien race, with all that implies in "Ineluctable."
   ...fly on board a space ship in "The Shoulders of Giants."

And enjoy five more flights of the imagination in "Immortality," "The Stanley Cup Caper," "Star Light, Star Bright," "The Hand You're Dealt" and the title story, "Relativity."

This collection also gives you a chance to read a selection of Sawyer's speeches, including his acceptance of the prestigious Hugo Award for his novel Hominids in 2003.

Among his articles, you'll discover how the author views science and religion, science fiction's importance to the world, what exactly he thinks is the difference between Canadian and American SF, and his fond remembrance of Judith Merril.

Relativity also contains all three years of his column "On Writing" from the Canadian SF magazine, On Spec, collected here for the first time.

Fascinating, controversial, thought-provoking this collection looks into the works and the mind of one of SF's most influential "new" writers. The Illinois Science Fiction in Chicago Press is proud to present: Relativity, a book every Robert J. Sawyer and SF fan should have in their collection.

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Relativity received the 2005 Aurora Award (Prix Aurora) for Best Work in English.

Table of Contents for Relativity:

•  
• • Introduction by Mike Resnick
•  
• Fiction
•  
• • Just Like Old Times
  • Immortality
  • The Stanley Cup Caper
  • Relativity
  • Star Light, Star Bright
  • The Hand You're Dealt
  • The Shoulders of Giants
  • Ineluctable
•  
• Speeches
•  
• • 2003 Hugo Award Ceremony
  • The Future Is Already Here
  • AI and Sci-Fi, Oh, My!
  • Science Fiction and Social Change
•  
• Articles
•  
• • A Tale of Two Stories
  • Pros and Cons
  • Remembering Judith Merril
  • Science and God
  • Committing Trilogy
  • Privacy: Who Needs It?
  • The Age of Miracle and Wonder
  • Is Risk Our Business?
  • The Private Sector in Space
  • Science, Salvation and Atwood
  • Atwood's Depressing Future
•  
• On Writing
•  
• • Great Beginnings
  • Constructing Characters
  • Point of View
  • Dialogue
  • Show, Don't Tell
  • Description
  • Secret Weapons of Science
  • Heinlein's Rules
  • Word-Processing Tricks
  • Cover Letters and SASEs
  • Self-Promotion
  • Professionalism
•  
• About Rob
•  
• • Autobiography
  • Critical Essay: Valerie Broege (Vanier College)
  • Crossword Puzzle
  • Bibliography

Comments on Robert J. Sawyer's work:

"Robert J. Sawyer has returned a sense of wonder to science fiction."

—Tanya Huff

"Sawyer is a writer of boundless confidence and bold scientific extrapolation"

—The New York Times

"One of contemporary SF's most consistent performers"

—Publishers Weekly

"The biggest job of science fiction is to portray the Other. Nobody explores this territory more boldly than Robert J. Sawyer"

—David Brin

"No reader seeking well-written stories that respect, emphasize and depend on modern science should be disappointed by the works of Robert J. Sawyer"

—The Washington Post

"Just about the best science-fiction writer out there these days"

—The Denver Rocky Mountain News

"Can Sawyer write? Yes — with near-Asmovian clarity, with energy and drive, with such grace that his writing becomes invisible as the story comes to life in youir mind"

—Orson Scott Card

"One of Sawyer's strengths is his ability to seamlessly weave fact with his fiction"

—Steven Silver's Reviews
on Factoring Humanity

"['Ineluctable'] highlights perfectly the potentially disastrous consequences that can arise in a meeting of two alien cultures before they have the chance to learn more about each other"

—Phil Friel, TangentOnline

"Robert J. Sawyer is on a par with giants like Asimov and Heinlein — and, perhaps, more than any other science fiction writer working today, he understands that it's a genre about ideas"

—Mystery News

Robert J. Sawyer won the Nebula Award for The Terminal Experiment, and the Hugo Award for Hominids; his novels Starplex, Frameshift, Factoring Humanity, Calculating God, and Humans were all also Hugo finalists. In addition, Rob has won three Seiun Awards — Japan's top honor in SF — for best foreign novel of the year, as well as an Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada for best short strry of the year.

His novels are top-ten national mainstream bestsellers in Canada, and they've hit #1 on the Locus bestsellers' list. In 2004, he was named the most collectible author of the year by the clientele of Barry R. Levin Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, the field's leading rare-book dealer.

Rob lives just outside Toronto. For more information, see his web site at sfwriter.com.

(November 2004)

Jael is considered to be one of the foremost female artists of today. Since moving to the east coast, in1986, she has completed several hundred cover illustrations and unique private commissions, as well as pursuing her personal visionary perceptualistic work. Her art is featured in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Art Techniques, the Spectrum annuals and the Jane and Howard Frank Collections. She is a frequent Chesley Award nominee. Jael teaches several adult and teen classes in Creative Fine Art/Illustration and Portfolio Power, in Montclair, New Jersey. A book of her life and her art, Perceptualistics, was published by Paper Tiger in 2002. Her web site is www.jael.net.

(November 2004)