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Synchrotron Gets Sci-Fi Writer In Residence
kandela writes "CBC News is reporting that Nebula and Hugo award winning author Robert J. Sawyer is to become the first-ever writer in residence at the Canadian Light Source synchrotron facility (see also their media release). Sawyer will spend two months at the facility, where he is hoping to be inspired by the everyday grind of scientists, 'I spent a lot of time visiting science labs over the years, but it's always the VIP tour,' he said in an interview Wednesday. 'You are in and you are out in a couple of hours, and everyone has shown you all the things they want you to see but none of the day-to-day grind of the work as well. I want to get the flavour of that.' As a scientist who has worked at synchrotron facilities (and occasional sci-fi writer myself (page 4)), I'm excited to see what a professional can do with that environment for inspiration."
Ok, Kandela. If you're "Daniel Cotton", let me be one of the ones to tell you - that was fscking brilliant! I haven't been so pleasantly smacked in the face by a short story in a very long time. That bit of fiction is a much bigger story than that of some writer trying to get inspired... and yes, I admit it - I've never heard of Robert J. Sawyer, though I've got on the order of 19 untouched copies of "Asimov's" piled up from between the onset of presbyopia and the procurement of reading glasses(it was hard to admit that need).
Shouldn't all science fiction writers have some firsthand experience with science, ideally from an actual involvement with science? Well, maybe or maybe not. But more disturbing is the prevalence of people with no knowledge of science in the business of so-called science journalism. Of course, a few months in a science lab won't cure what ails most science writers. But it would be better than nothing, which is apparently the status quo.
I've only read one Sawyer book, Mindscan.
From what I can see, he likes to get ideas from the public. And I will say there were a couple of cool ideas in that book...but the book itself was horrible.
The emotions were canned, the story forced and the characters unsympathetic. It degenerated into just-plain-silly at times with blatant attempts to be 'socially relevant' with all the subtlety of hammering a railroad spike with a hippo.
I'm not kidding when I say that it almost felt like a 7th grader who just watched Outer Limits sat down and wrote a book for his end-of-the-week project.
I'm hoping his other work is better.
I wouldn't bother reading his other books then. People keep buying me Robert Sawyer books as presents as I think the Galaxy bookshop (Sydney's big SF shop) recommends him if you like hard SF. I wish they wouldn't. I agree with the comments about his characters and his Canadian inferiority complex is just plain annoying.
Maybe fans of Michael Crichton's characterisation will appreciate Sawyer's works.
I've read three of his other books: The Terminal Experiment, Flashfoward, and Calculating God -- Hoping that maybe they would get better. But sadly, they don't.
He takes far too many of his scene descriptions directly from public spaces. If you've ever lived in Toronto, you know the exact locations he's talking about, and you really wish he would shut up about it, and stop using the word Toronto. He goes into such inane detail that you know which subway stop to get off at, how many blocks over to walk, and which side of the street to be on to be standing right where his cardboard characters uttered something absolutely obvious, and then go over to Pizza^H^H^H^H^HFood Food for all their dietary needs.
He's not totally incompetent. Some of his stuff is second rate. The book which won the undeserved Hugo (Hominids), for instance. A lot of it, though, is just plain bad. _Rollback_... a lot of hand-wringing and emoting topped off with an old man's wish fulfillment fantasy. The first volume of (God save us, a trilogy) "Wake"... some good concepts, terrible execution.
He's built a publicity machine based on being a top _Canadian_ SF writer. But if he were American, he'd be lost in the midlist.