Robert J. Sawyer – Page 15

Sounds Like Canada Interview with Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Online Audio

CBC‘s flagship morning programme, Sounds Like Canada, recently captured an accessible interview with Canada’s foremost SF author Robert J. Sawyer. Here’s how the official program log reads:

Robert Sawyer has won an armload of awards for his science fiction novels including the Nebula and the Hugo. His books often look at the intersection between science and religion and present complicated science and tech ideas in a clear way. His new novel is called, Rollback and it’s the story of a geriatric husband and wife who undergo a rejuvenation procedure. Big ethical questions emerge when the husband’s “rollback” to his mid-twenties is successful but his wife remains eighty-seven. Shelagh speaks with Robert Sawyer in Toronto.

Host, Shelagh Rogers, really knows how to wring goodness from her guests. Sadly, this segment was not included in the “Best of Sounds Like Canada Podcast” for April 25th. So we’ve rectified the situation. You can download the 23 minute interview via our MP3 link.

posted by Jesse Willis

Adventures In SciFi Publishing talks to Robert J. Sawyer

Online Audio

Adventures in Scifi Publishing has a nice two-part interview with Science Fiction author Robert J. Sawyer. Host Shaun Farrell talked to Rob about his new novel Rollback, S.E.T.I., aliens, and the lengthening human lifespan. Listen to Part 1 |MP3| and Part 2 |MP3| or subscribe via podcast feed to stay abreast of all the new shows:

http://scifipublishing.libsyn.com/rss

posted by Jesse Willis

Dragon Page Cover To Cover interviews Robert J. Sawyer

Online Audio

The latest Dragon Page Cover To Cover podcast has an interview with Science Fiction author Robert J. Sawyer who talks about his new novel Rollback, which is coming to hardcover in April and which was previously serialized in Analog Science Fiction magazine (unfortunately no audiobook for it is planned at this time). You can download the |MP3| directly or subscribe to the show’s XML feed:

http://www.dragonpage.com/podcastC2C.xml

posted by Jesse Willis

CBC Ideas Podcast has Richard Dawkins skirting Science Fiction

SFFaudio Online Audio

The chance to plug my favorite CBC podcast twice within the span of two weeks is a rare event. IDEAS does not often offer SFFaudio related programmes, but the latest entry in The Best Of Ideas podcast reveals a slight connection that’s just too good not to mention. The lecture, by none other than Richard Dawkins, is called Queerer Than We Suppose: The Strangeness Of Science.

This lecture was conducted on October 21st 2006 under the auspices of the Beatty Memorial Lecture as conducted at McGill University. The Beatty Memorial Lecture was created in 1952 to honour the legacy of McGill Chancellor Sir Edward Beatty.

You’ll find only tangential Sience Fiction references in the lecture itself |MP3|. Dawkins quotes from Douglas Adams – illustrates how quantum mechanics and its alternative explanations, “Many Worlds Interpretation” and “Copenhagen Interpretation” seem less like Science and more like Science Fiction to us. Indeed, quantum mechanics and natural selection are ripe fodder for Speculative Fiction. For natural selection think of Rudy Rucker’s Ware Tetralogy. For Quantum mechanics you need only think of George Alec Effinger‘s Schrodinger’s Kitten, Robert J. Sawyer‘s Neanderthal Parallax trilogy or any of the multitude of Parallel Universe stories all the way back to Murray Leinster‘s 1933 tale Sidewise In Time. I won’t try to digfest it all for you, check it out for yourself via direct download |MP3|. Or by pasting this feed into your podcatcher:

http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/ideas.xml

posted by Jesse Willis

KAMN News! Gateway and Far-Seer in the mix

SFFaudio News

The Ninjas have landed and they have a plan…

KAMN #23: Gateway by Frederick Pohl
KAMN #25: Far Seer by Robert J. Sawyer

I liked Gateway but isn’t my favorite Pohl novel. Pohl has a history of repeatedly using psychotic breaks as a theme in his novels. This one is probably 1/3 set in a psychiatrist’s office. I’m not sure where that would come from, but I liked his The Voices Voices Of Heaven more, also starring a protagonist with a history of mental illness. Interestlingly, Gateway does happen to be Robert J. Sawyer’s favorite Science Fiction novel. And speaking of Sawyer, his first novel in the Quintaglio ascension series, Far Seer, is up for KAMN review shortly after. That novel is set on a very interesting world that parallels our own in many ways. The “far seer” of the title refers to a telescope and the novel itself parallels the events surrounding Galileo Galilei’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter. If you dig science, science history and dinosaurs, you’ll dig Far Seer.

posted by Jesse Willis

Escape Pod Podcast has a Robert J. Sawyer story!

SFFaudio Online Audio

Escape Pod is proving that it can draw the biggest names in Science Fiction! This week’s story is by Hugo and Nebula award winning Robert J. Sawyer. This is amazing. Is there anything Escape Pod can’t do?

EP078: The Shoulders Of Giants
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Stephen Eley
1 MP3 File – [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Escape Pod
Podcast: November 2nd 2006

The Pioneer Spirit was a colonization ship; it wasn’t intended as a diplomatic vessel. When it had left Earth, it had seemed important to get at least some humans off the mother world. Two small-scale nuclear wars—Nuke I and Nuke II, as the media had dubbed them—had already been fought, one in southern Asia, the other in South America. It appeared to be only a matter of time before Nuke III, and that one might be the big one.

SETI had detected nothing from Tau Ceti, at least not by 2051. But Earth itself had only been broadcasting for a century and a half at that point; Tau Ceti might have had a thriving civilization then that hadn’t yet started using radio. But now it was twelve hundred years later. Who knew how advanced the Tau Cetians might be?

posted by Jesse Willis