What do you think?
Rate this book
Relativity: Stories and Essays
Robert J. Sawyer established his reputation as a fine novelist when he burst on the science fiction scene with Golden Fleece in 1990. More quietly, he has built an impressive body of short fiction, essays, articles, and speeches. Relativity is his first collection of these.
This Aurora Award-winning collection 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.
Featuring a foreword by Mike Resnick and introductory notes on most pieces by Sawyer. Originally published in hardcover 2004 by ISFiC Press.
Relativity also contains all three years of his column "On Writing" from the Canadian SF magazine, On Spec, collected here for the first time.
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.
Fascinating, controversial, thought-provoking, this collection looks into the works and the mind of one of SF's most influential "new" writers. 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.
Robert J. Sawyer has won the Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell Memorial, Seiun, and Aurora Awards, all for best science fiction novel of the year. His novels include Golden Fleece, Rollback, Wake, and FlashForward (basis for the TV series).
This Aurora Award-winning collection 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.
Featuring a foreword by Mike Resnick and introductory notes on most pieces by Sawyer. Originally published in hardcover 2004 by ISFiC Press.
Relativity also contains all three years of his column "On Writing" from the Canadian SF magazine, On Spec, collected here for the first time.
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.
Fascinating, controversial, thought-provoking, this collection looks into the works and the mind of one of SF's most influential "new" writers. 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.
Robert J. Sawyer has won the Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell Memorial, Seiun, and Aurora Awards, all for best science fiction novel of the year. His novels include Golden Fleece, Rollback, Wake, and FlashForward (basis for the TV series).
355 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1996
2 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Robert J. Sawyer
226 books2,495 followersRobert 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."
http://us.macmillan.com/author/robert...
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."
http://us.macmillan.com/author/robert...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 17, 2014
According to the front matter, this was originally published in an anthology titled Men Writing Science Fiction as Women. If this story is to believed, the difference between a male main character and a female main character is that a female main character is constantly thinking about one of two things: 1) sexism, and 2) her family. Robert Sawyer's usual stories are (excellent) what-ifs and explorations of scientific possibilities. But apparently when your story features a woman, everything else has to take a backseat to her feelings about her husband and children.
A better way to write a female character:
Write about a person. Use female pronouns.
A better way to write a female character:
Write about a person. Use female pronouns.
May 19, 2018
I quite like listening to Sawyer's views and stories so this worked for me.
September 28, 2013
While Sawyer may stand on the shoulders of giants (Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein, predominately) he has clearly become a giant himself. This collection of early stories,articles, speeches and essays is a great introduction to the author's work and the author himself. If you like science fiction, read it.
November 14, 2009
reprinted stories from other collections. Shoulders of Giants is an epic space opera - well worth a read.
interesting essays and thoughts on various subjects including one on writing that is interesting. Worth a read only if you're already a fan of this writer.
interesting essays and thoughts on various subjects including one on writing that is interesting. Worth a read only if you're already a fan of this writer.
September 19, 2011
Apenas li a história Relativity que adorei
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews