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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."
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.