Latest / Show, don't Tell Writing with Suzy Vadori / 122. Sawyer on Science Fiction: Community and the Future (Part 2)
Transcript
- 0:05Welcome to the Show, Don't Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction.
- 0:13Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be.
- 0:20Join me as I share the step-by-step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away, as I host successful writers who share a behind-the-scenes look at their own writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages, giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.
- 0:38Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book.
- 0:42There are real and important skills that you need to learn.
- 0:45On this show, I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need.
- 0:49I can't wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing Welcome back to the podcast.
- 0:59Robert J.
- 0:59Sawyer, my good friend and colleague, to talk about all things science fiction.
- 1:04This is part two in the series.
- 1:06If you missed part one, we'll link to it in the show notes.
- 1:08But we are here in honor of his latest release, which is a nonfiction book on writing.
- 1:15Um, it is called Sawyer on Science Fiction, and it is a 225,000-word compilation of all of his teachings and writings on science fiction.
- 1:25It is a must-read.
- 1:26It is witty as well as educational, and you are going to learn a ton.
- 1:31Before we get started, and I did this in the first episode as well, I'm gonna read you a few different quotes about Rob so that you can see how the industry views him.
- 1:39Norman Spinrad in Asimov's Science Fiction: "There are still some lone singular writers who are taking their chosen speculative fiction literature seriously." Darrell Schweitzer says, "All you have to do to show why Robert Sawyer is an important science fiction writer is to cite his awards.
- 1:55His credits give new meaning to the phrase 'a list as long as your arm.' It's clear that the Canadians regard him as a national treasure as well they should." Mystery News says,"Sawyer is on 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." The National Post says, "Sawyer is one of the most successful Canadian writers ever.
- 2:20Almost alone among Canadian writers, he tackles the most fundamental questions of who we are and where we might be going while illuminating where we are right now." Artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky has been quoted as saying, "Lately, I've been inspired by ideas from Robert J.
- 2:37Sawyer." Interzone says, "Robert J. Sawyer has good things to say about the world, about people.
- 2:44He deals in a currency of goodwill, where the trust that we hand him at the start of the book is repaid with interest Quill Blog: "Robert J. Sawyer, aka the Canadian author most likely to have his brain kept alive in a jar for centuries to come."
- 3:02Science Fiction Quarterly: "Robert J. Sawyer is quite literally the dean of Canadian science fiction and a publishing machine." Minister Faust:"Sawyer is a Canadian Michael Crichton, fascinated with how developments in science will affect present day and day after tomorrow individuals and society.
- 3:20Science Fiction Quarterly: His breadth of comprehension of scientific ideas is astounding, and his deployment of that understanding in his fiction is always exciting, memorable, and debate provoking." The Globe and Mail says, "Robert J.
- 3:31Science Fiction Quarterly: Sawyer is the rarest sort of figure in contemporary Canadian writing, a Canadian genre author deeply loyal to both his genre and his Canadian identity." And David G. Hartwell said in Publishers Weekly, "Sawyer is the kind of writer Asimov was and very generous to young writers." Robert J. Sawyer has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best science fiction novel of the year.
- 3:57Science Fiction Quarterly: The ABC TV series Flash Forward was based on his novel of the same name, and his Quantum Night was long-listed for Canada Reads.
- 4:05Science Fiction Quarterly: A member of the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, and the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, Rob lives in Mississauga.
- 4:14Science Fiction Quarterly: I love having you on the podcast, 'cause what we do here is for the writers that are just coming to it to have those conversations and to see that there are different sides to every coin, but what is it, if you wanna write science fiction, what are the accepted things?
- 4:27Science Fiction Quarterly: 'Cause a lot of people come to me and just wanna write a mashup of, well, it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that- Right without a lot of thought.
- 4:33Science Fiction Quarterly: Then they might have more difficulty finding a reader or a market, um, for that.
- 4:38Science Fiction Quarterly: Well, as you well know, the first thing an agent or an editor at a traditional publishing company is going to ask is, what are your comps?
- 4:46Science Fiction Quarterly: C-O-M-P-S.
- 4:48Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 4:48Science Fiction Quarterly: Comps.
- 4:48Science Fiction Quarterly: Your comparable titles.
- 4:50Science Fiction Quarterly: What other book that has already been a big success recently, in the last five years, is your book just like?
- 4:58Science Fiction Quarterly: Because they have no guts whatsoever.
- 5:02Science Fiction Quarterly: They don't want you to hand them something that's brilliant unlike anything they've ever seen before.
- 5:07Science Fiction Quarterly: "I don't know how to sell that," they will say.
- 5:09Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 5:09Science Fiction Quarterly: And I've heard that repeated to me over and over again by young writers.
- 5:14Science Fiction Quarterly: I, my manuscript, the I- uh agent asked to see it, and they said they don't know how to sell it.
- 5:18Science Fiction Quarterly: It's kind of their job to know how to sell anything, but they fail because they know that the publisher will say,"Okay, what book, what two or three books is this exactly like? Or if it's not exactly like, then what mashup of two or three successful books? It's a bit of this and a bit of that joined together." Yeah.
- 5:37Science Fiction Quarterly: And I, uh- Not necessarily two different genres, but- No, not two different genres … two different books.
- 5:42Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 5:42Science Fiction Quarterly: No, no.
- 5:42Science Fiction Quarterly: That's what I'm saying- That's right … 'cause you think of mashups that way.
- 5:44Science Fiction Quarterly: Really hard.
- 5:44Science Fiction Quarterly: I learned this lesson painfully early in my career.
- 5:48Science Fiction Quarterly: I, um, had a novel come out in 1997, so that's almost 30 years ago now, called Illegal Alien, a courtroom drama with an extraterrestrial defendant.
- 5:57Science Fiction Quarterly: And I thought, clever me, I will get all the science fiction readers and all the mystery readers, and instead I got that tiny little intersection set on the Venn diagram of those few science fiction readers who also read mystery.
- 6:13Science Fiction Quarterly: That novel was named the best Canadian mystery novel of the year by the crime fiction reviewer- Mystery novel of The Globe and Mail I didn't know that … Margaret Cannon.
- 6:21Science Fiction Quarterly: Interesting.
- 6:21Science Fiction Quarterly: She recognized that it… But it nonetheless, it was one of my least well-selling books because I crossed genre.
- 6:29Science Fiction Quarterly: People don't really want you to do that.
- 6:31Science Fiction Quarterly: They want- Because people couldn't find it, right?
- 6:33Science Fiction Quarterly: And they couldn't find it.
- 6:34Science Fiction Quarterly: The mystery readers, it never occurred to them, duh, I should look in the section next door, science fiction.
- 6:39Science Fiction Quarterly: That's true, too.
- 6:40Science Fiction Quarterly: Okay.
- 6:40Science Fiction Quarterly: And you, you've dropped a little bit about Margaret Atwood already, and I'm gonna bring it up because I know I know where we're gonna go here, but what about writers like Margaret Atwood who actually disassociate themselves from the genre or don't want to call themselves that?
- 6:55Science Fiction Quarterly: Like, what does that- What does that do?
- 6:57Science Fiction Quarterly: And you've famously called Margaret Atwood out for this, but how does that feel?
- 7:00Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah, so I had no problem with Margaret's position, right?
- 7:03Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 7:04Science Fiction Quarterly: For decades.
- 7:05Science Fiction Quarterly: And there's actually a YouTube video of her and Jack McClelland, who was the publisher of McClelland & Stewart, having a conversation about her forthcoming book, The Handmaid's Tale, which hadn't, wasn't out yet.
- 7:19Science Fiction Quarterly: And Jack said, "It's science fiction." And Margaret said, "Yes." And Jack said, "But of course we won't publish it as science fiction." And Margaret said, "Of course not." I don't begrudge her that at all.
- 7:30Science Fiction Quarterly: Michael Crichton made the same choice.
- 7:33Science Fiction Quarterly: Pure quill science fiction writer who wanted to be in the main fiction section of the bookstore, where far more readers ever go than go into the science fiction section.
- 7:44Science Fiction Quarterly: It was only when somehow bizarrely, about 20 years ago, Margaret decided it wasn't good enough just to be outside of science fiction in terms of where she was shelved, that she had to start dissing science fiction.
- 7:59Science Fiction Quarterly: And she literally said, "Science fiction is nothing but talking squids in outer space." And it is nothing.
- 8:07Science Fiction Quarterly: Oh, dear.
- 8:08Science Fiction Quarterly: She knows better, and she was friends with my great friend Judy Merrill, the great American science fiction writer who left the United States 'cause she couldn't countenance what they were doing in Vietnam, and came to Toronto.
- 8:20Science Fiction Quarterly: Margaret knew better, and that was a, uh, an aggression that was beneath her dignity.
- 8:27Science Fiction Quarterly: There was no reason for her to take a shot at other writers like that.
- 8:31Science Fiction Quarterly: And, um, so yeah, at that point I got pissed off and started calling her out on it.
- 8:36Science Fiction Quarterly: And she's written some great science fiction, Handmaid's Tale.
- 8:40Science Fiction Quarterly: She's written some mediocre science fiction, Oryx and Crake.
- 8:43Science Fiction Quarterly: But they are both works of science fiction, and I'm happy to praise one and damn the other, and not let her dismiss what I or William Gibson or Spider Robinson or Nalo Hopkinson or Kelly Robson or Julie Treanor, or endless numbers of great Canadian science fiction writers have done because it gave her a funny one-off, a one-liner to drop into, uh, interviews.
- 9:09Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 9:10Science Fiction Quarterly: Screw that.
- 9:10Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 9:11Science Fiction Quarterly: This is a decent- Yeah … important literary genre that's produced- Absolutely … works that in many, many cases are better than Margaret's own attempts at that same literature.
- 9:21Science Fiction Quarterly: Take that, Peggy.
- 9:22Science Fiction Quarterly: Her friends, which I'm not really, I'm just an acquaintance.
- 9:25Science Fiction Quarterly: That's what she's apparently called, Peggy.
- 9:27Science Fiction Quarterly: Okay.
- 9:28Science Fiction Quarterly: So, and, and I love that you don't pull punches in real life or in this book.
- 9:32Science Fiction Quarterly: Um, you actually have a section in there called Vintage RJS Rants- Yes … which I love 'cause I've heard a lot of them in person.
- 9:38Science Fiction Quarterly: But you always speak plainly, and sometimes you don't mind being controversial, right?
- 9:43Science Fiction Quarterly: So how is this received in the industry, and is there a cost to being the one to speak what everyone else in the room is thinking, and how brave do you need to be to speak your mind, or is this just something that comes naturally?
- 9:55Science Fiction Quarterly: So not to be immodest, but I'm a pretty well-loved guy in science fiction- You are… industry, in fandom, and amongst prodom.
- 10:06Science Fiction Quarterly: Because although I have opinions and I phrase them coherently and speak them boldly I'm not mean about it, except when somebody disses what my, me and my colleagues are doing, as Margaret did.
- 10:21Science Fiction Quarterly: And I don't think I was ever mean about it with Margaret either.
- 10:23Science Fiction Quarterly: I was just pointed in rebuttal.
- 10:25Science Fiction Quarterly: So this is a literature about the intellectual process.
- 10:30Science Fiction Quarterly: Science fiction.
- 10:31Science Fiction Quarterly: Science comes from the Greek word episteo, to know, right?
- 10:35Science Fiction Quarterly: And we want to know things, and we are a readership that loves engaging with our work and with our authors.
- 10:46Science Fiction Quarterly: Science fiction conventions going back to the first in 1939 have always been about authors and readers interacting on an even footing.
- 10:54Science Fiction Quarterly: There's no hierarchy.
- 10:55Science Fiction Quarterly: Go to a comic book convention and the movie stars are hustled out, surrounded by security, stand up on a dais, give their talk, and you never see them again.
- 11:04Science Fiction Quarterly: Science fiction convention, you can come up and say, "Rob, I read your book.
- 11:07Science Fiction Quarterly: I don't agree with your position." "Okay.
- 11:09Science Fiction Quarterly: Here, there's a coffee stand.
- 11:10Science Fiction Quarterly: Let's go have a coffee.
- 11:11Science Fiction Quarterly: Let's ta- This is great.
- 11:12Science Fiction Quarterly: Let's sit down and, and really dig into it." And that's wonderful.
- 11:17Science Fiction Quarterly: So I've had extremely little pushback.
- 11:21Science Fiction Quarterly: And the only time I get mad at pushback, I just had an example on Facebook where somebody said Rob Sawyer dismissed all, uh, Star Treks except the original series as, uh, just a costroom, costume drama and soap opera.
- 11:36Science Fiction Quarterly: Did you say that, Rob?
- 11:37Science Fiction Quarterly: Well, I said those words, and they were prefaced by these words, "With a few notable exceptions," dot.
- 11:45Science Fiction Quarterly: And he left that part out.
- 11:47Science Fiction Quarterly: So he said I dismissed them all, and he said, and then he said, "And hasn't he seen Deep Space Nine?" And I came on and s- and, you know, one of the stars of Deep Space Nine, Chase Masterson, one of my very best friends.
- 11:58Science Fiction Quarterly: Mm-hmm.
- 11:58Science Fiction Quarterly: Of course I've seen it.
- 11:59Science Fiction Quarterly: I came on and said, "Yes, and these are the three notable exceptions," or, "three of the notable exceptions." From the 175 episodes they did, there are indeed a handful in every one of the Star Trek series that are laudable the way at least half of them were in the original series.
- 12:19Science Fiction Quarterly: So yeah, as long as people engage with- Mm … what I actually said, I'm happy to hear, have the conversation.
- 12:27Science Fiction Quarterly: When they paraphrase, deliberately misrepresent to make a straw man argument, well, I'm not a straw man.
- 12:34Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm a, I'm not a fighter physically, but intellectually, you bet I'm gonna go in there and engage and point out, A, intellectual in- dishonesty of what you did by misrepresenting what I said, and B, recapitulate the argument so that you can understand it, you pinhead.
- 12:54Science Fiction Quarterly: And I say "pinhead" in the most affectionate possible way.
- 12:57Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah, absolutely.
- 12:57Science Fiction Quarterly: And I, I mean, even preparing for this interview, I was pulling things out of the book, and I'm like, I wouldn't do that to a lot of people, put them on the spot in the interview.
- 13:04Science Fiction Quarterly: But I'm like, Rob's gonna be able to… He's gonna remember it or he's gonna correct me or something, 'cause he won't let me do that to him.
- 13:10Science Fiction Quarterly: Right.
- 13:10Science Fiction Quarterly: You pinhead.
- 13:11Science Fiction Quarterly: Do it.
- 13:12Science Fiction Quarterly: You, a writer, and this is good advice for your audience here.
- 13:17Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 13:17Science Fiction Quarterly: So many writers are afraid to offend.
- 13:20Science Fiction Quarterly: They're afraid that they will lose readers.
- 13:23Science Fiction Quarterly: Well, guess what?
- 13:24Science Fiction Quarterly: There are 8 billion readers on, or 8 billion people on the planet, and you've already lost 7 million- 7 billion 900 million plus, plus right off the bat who will never hear of you 'cause they've never heard of Salinger, and half of them have never heard of Shakespeare.
- 13:39Science Fiction Quarterly: They will never have heard of you.
- 13:40Science Fiction Quarterly: So you're gonna lose readers left, right, and center.
- 13:43Science Fiction Quarterly: Your job is to pare your readership potential marketplace down to the people who will like what you do.
- 13:52Science Fiction Quarterly: And losing readers who don't like, say, my liberal left-wing Canadian politics, fine.
- 13:58Science Fiction Quarterly: I would rather you not engage with my books than you go onto A- Amazon or Goodreads and give me one star because you politically disagree with me.
- 14:10Science Fiction Quarterly: You can give me one star if you think I failed at this as a craftsperson.
- 14:13Science Fiction Quarterly: And let me tell you something, I don't fail as a craftsperson.
- 14:17Science Fiction Quarterly: No, you don't.
- 14:17Science Fiction Quarterly: 26 novels under my belt, 68 national and international writing awards.
- 14:21Science Fiction Quarterly: My books are unassailable in terms of craftspersonship.
- 14:25Science Fiction Quarterly: You may not like my style.
- 14:26Science Fiction Quarterly: That's a personal choice.
- 14:28Science Fiction Quarterly: But I know what I'm doing as a craftsperson.
- 14:30Science Fiction Quarterly: So the reviewing environment we exist in right now where people say, "One star means not to my taste," that's meaningless, right?
- 14:39Science Fiction Quarterly: You want to get rid of all the readers who aren't gonna like what you do, and cater to the readers who do like what you're gonna do.
- 14:45Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah, absolutely.
- 14:46Science Fiction Quarterly: And you do that very well with your platform.
- 14:48Science Fiction Quarterly: You know, when I coach writers, we need to do that in the opening of our books as well to explain, you know, put it in the right category, and put it in the… You know, we were talking about- Right … earlier, do a mashup of a genre.
- 14:58Science Fiction Quarterly: The problem with that is if you get a hard science fiction reader and you've got dashes of fantasy in it, they're gonna give you a one-star review 'cause they're pissed off.
- 15:06Science Fiction Quarterly: So you have to be very clear in the… You know, if you don't have a platform like Rob does, then you've got to be really clear in the opening of your book exactly what ride they're in for, and not, like, sort of… I, I see this in fantasy a lot, especially YA fantasy, where the first half of the book the teenager doesn't have any magical powers, and then in the second half of the book they have all these magical powers.
- 15:26Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm like, you've totally broken the- you attracted the wrong reader.
- 15:29Science Fiction Quarterly: You've broken the construct, right?
- 15:30Science Fiction Quarterly: You gotta get that stuff right up at the front.
- 15:32Science Fiction Quarterly: Um- 100%.
- 15:33Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 15:34Science Fiction Quarterly: And on this question of not offending, I was actually doing a round table for the Alexandra Writers' Centre Society.
- 15:40Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm their current writer in residence- Yeah in Alberta last night.
- 15:43Science Fiction Quarterly: That's my town.
- 15:44Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 15:44Science Fiction Quarterly: And, um, one of the things I said was- The worst response somebody can have to having read your book is,"Yeah?" You want them to be energized.
- 15:55Science Fiction Quarterly: You want them maybe to be angry or be excited or see the world in a different way.
- 16:00Science Fiction Quarterly: If you are so walking on eggshells, afraid of offending anybody, all you will have at the end is banality, and people will, "Yeah?
- 16:09Science Fiction Quarterly: Why would I ever want to read another book by you again," right?
- 16:12Science Fiction Quarterly: "It, it didn't do anything for me." No matter what you're writing, as I said in YA, you have to decide, F-bombs or no F-bombs, sex or no sex, sex without consequences or sex where, you know, there's DNA involved.
- 16:25Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah, we've had that conversation, and I know, and thank you for keeping it PG 'cause we do have a G rating on this, although we can make the exception or we can put the- Right, right.
- 16:32Science Fiction Quarterly: I mean, uh, you know, I, I didn't say the F-bomb.
- 16:34Science Fiction Quarterly: I alluded to it, right?
- 16:35Science Fiction Quarterly: No, no, no, I, but I am saying, but, but in, in recent years, you, you are letting loose a little bit because it does work, right?
- 16:42Science Fiction Quarterly: And it is fun- Oh … and all of those things, right?
- 16:45Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 16:45Science Fiction Quarterly: I mean- Like, to be comfortable … I have a fairly salty tongue in my own private life- Yeah particularly with inanimate objects.
- 16:49Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm doomed when they all finally become sentient AI-driven machines because I swear at my computer and my toaster and my microwave because they don't do what I want them to do.
- 16:59Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm very gentle- I love it … with human beings, though.
- 17:01Science Fiction Quarterly: You can trust me with your children.
- 17:02Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah, totally, and such a great supporter.
- 17:04Science Fiction Quarterly: Talking about all the writers in residencies that you've done and things and, and the culture of the speculative fiction conference where there is no hierarchy.
- 17:12Science Fiction Quarterly: The, my home conference here, which is one that you attend as well, which is how we know one another, um, through When Words Collide in Calgary, has, I mean, and now it's a multi-genre festival, but it has a, a history out of speculative fiction and conversion, and because of that, that was my first sort of conference experience.
- 17:30Science Fiction Quarterly: And when I go to conferences where I'm in a green room, you know, and nobody can talk to me because I'm the presenter and like, I'm like, "What is happening here?" I, I, it's not my, not my preference.
- 17:40Science Fiction Quarterly: I was invited to be a writer in residence at a, um, a, a book camp in Wisconsin in June, and I'm going back next year too.
- 17:49Science Fiction Quarterly: Um, but the thing is, is that I said yes immediately because I knew it had speculative fiction roots, and they were saying, "Hey, will you, we expect our guests to go to the socials, to be available, to have those- Right… conversations." And I was like, "Yes, that's my kind of thing," and I went, and it was exactly what I'd hoped, right?
- 18:06Science Fiction Quarterly: And so but there are different cultures out there in terms of, and I think that's one of the things that speculative fiction, I say that because it includes, um, science fiction and fantasy, but that whole way of being and that lack of hierarchy is, is such a great thing for newer writers and for those of us who support newer writers like yourself and myself.
- 18:24Science Fiction Quarterly: It's such a breath of fresh air compared to some of the other conferences that- writers that are listening might have been to.
- 18:31Science Fiction Quarterly: And, you know, writers who reach a stature, and, and Margaret Atwood has this gigantic stature.
- 18:36Science Fiction Quarterly: She can't go anywhere, the grocery store, whatever, without being recognized.
- 18:41Science Fiction Quarterly: You end up being insulated from real human interaction.
- 18:44Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 18:44Science Fiction Quarterly: This is the problem.
- 18:45Science Fiction Quarterly: You know, I remember, oh, whenever George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, excuse me, was president of the United States, and, uh, for whatever reason, he was at a grocery store as part of the campaign trail, and he was astonished as they were passing the cans over a barcode reader.
- 19:02Science Fiction Quarterly: He had not been in a grocery store in decades- Oh, wow because he had been a politician isolated, and yet he's standing there on the campaign stump, as do all politicians saying, "I'm in touch with the common man and woman. I know your pain." No.
- 19:17Science Fiction Quarterly: As a writer, you gotta be out there.
- 19:20Science Fiction Quarterly: Whether you're writing science fiction, fantasy, mainstream fiction, doesn't matter.
- 19:24Science Fiction Quarterly: You're really writing about human beings and the human heart.
- 19:27Science Fiction Quarterly: Yes.
- 19:27Science Fiction Quarterly: And the more time you spend with real human people, the better writer you're going to be.
- 19:32Science Fiction Quarterly: So I love these kinds of writers conferences that you've just referred to, including, as you say, Calgary's wonderful When Words Collide every August, where you just go and the- you can just walk up to the, any writer and chat.
- 19:45Science Fiction Quarterly: Or the writer is hanging around in the bar or the coffee shop waiting for- Or the dealer room… to come and have a chat, and After all, we are zero, nothing, n- absolutely meaningless if we don't have readers.
- 19:59Science Fiction Quarterly: So to treat them as hazardous materials that we should never physically come in contact with is antithetical to what it's all about being a writer.
- 20:08Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah, I totally agree.
- 20:09Science Fiction Quarterly: And even the experience of coaching writers and, and getting to know their deeply human journey as they go through writing a book, it can be a lot even if you've written 26 of them.
- 20:19Science Fiction Quarterly: And getting to know that is kind of that sim- uh, and I don't know.
- 20:22Science Fiction Quarterly: Is that, is that why you also provide mentorship?
- 20:25Science Fiction Quarterly: Is that kind of experience to be with humanity?
- 20:28Science Fiction Quarterly: So there's a great science fiction… You, you were kind enough to say that I'm sometimes referred to as the Dean of Canadian Science Fiction.
- 20:35Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah, you are.
- 20:35Science Fiction Quarterly: Now, that's a play on, uh, another writer, Robert A. Heinlein, who was referred to going right back to the 1950s as the Dean of American Science Fiction.
- 20:46Science Fiction Quarterly: I have some fun with that.
- 20:46Science Fiction Quarterly: In one of my books I say, in one of my books, uh, anything that turn- that's touted as Canada's answer to something American always disappoints.
- 20:55Science Fiction Quarterly: But in any event, Heinlein said, because he had helped a young writer, the young writer said, "How can I pay you back?" And Heinlein said, "You can't.
- 21:04Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm established.
- 21:05Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm rich.
- 21:06Science Fiction Quarterly: I, I, I know what I'm doing.
- 21:08Science Fiction Quarterly: You can't pay me back." But you can pay forward.
- 21:12Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 21:12Science Fiction Quarterly: Look behind you to see who's coming up behind you, and when you're where I am or partway to where I am, turn around and give a hand up to somebody else.
- 21:20Science Fiction Quarterly: That ethos has been in the science fiction industry community family ever since Heinlein first said that s- getting on to 80 years ago.
- 21:30Science Fiction Quarterly: And I was lucky in the 1980s to have a couple of, uh, writers in Toronto who were ahead of me in the game, sadly both deceased now, Terence M. Green and Andrew Weiner, um, who were publishing in the American science fiction magazines, uh, Asimov's Science Fiction, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the British one, Interzone, so forth, who for whatever reason, just they're paying forward, uh, took me under their wing and mentored me.
- 21:58Science Fiction Quarterly: And again, there was nothing I could do to pay them back Paying forward.
- 22:03Science Fiction Quarterly: So I've been … My first writer in residence gig was, I think, in 1993, so that's 33 years ago.
- 22:09Science Fiction Quarterly: And this is probably my last one.
- 22:11Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm doing 60 one-on-one consultations 'cause of my health crisis that we alluded to earlier.
- 22:16Science Fiction Quarterly: But I thought, you know, here was a chance in a relatively short period.
- 22:20Science Fiction Quarterly: I mean, I don't, I don't think my remission's gonna end in the next 90 days, and here was a 90-day posting where I could touch 60 different writers, young writers.
- 22:28Science Fiction Quarterly: Not- I shouldn't say young.
- 22:29Science Fiction Quarterly: New writers, 'cause some of them are over 15.
- 22:31Science Fiction Quarterly: I was gonna ask you if you wanted to rephrase that, but- New writers.
- 22:33Science Fiction Quarterly: Right?
- 22:33Science Fiction Quarterly: And, and lend a helping hand.
- 22:36Science Fiction Quarterly: Absolutely.
- 22:36Science Fiction Quarterly: And I have been- And we look forward to having you here when you get here and get involved and all that fun.
- 22:40Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 22:40Science Fiction Quarterly: That's right.
- 22:41Science Fiction Quarterly: 'Cause it just kicked off, right?
- 22:41Science Fiction Quarterly: That writer in residency.
- 22:43Science Fiction Quarterly: It is a huge, as huge a part of, uh, what I want my legacy to be.
- 22:48Science Fiction Quarterly: Well, I'll put it this way.
- 22:50Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm the only science fiction writer person to be admitted to the Order of Canada for writing science fiction.
- 22:56Science Fiction Quarterly: Margaret's in there.
- 22:56Science Fiction Quarterly: She was admitted for writing poetry before she even wrote Handmaid's.
- 23:01Science Fiction Quarterly: And, um, the citation says, "For Robert J. Sawyer's work as a science fiction writer, futurist, and mentor." Yeah.
- 23:11Science Fiction Quarterly: And that's the three prongs of my life have been that.
- 23:15Science Fiction Quarterly: And, um, it's been so important to me and so gratifying to me to see the great success of my writing students.
- 23:24Science Fiction Quarterly: And in fact, I'm coming to Calgary this week because I'm, a- as we're recording this, because I'm a headliner at Word On The Street in Lethbridge on Saturday.
- 23:34Science Fiction Quarterly: But on Sunday, there's a reunion dinner for a writer's workshop that I did in Calgary 30 years ago, 1996.
- 23:43Science Fiction Quarterly: The first writer's workshop ever hosted by the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association, Calgary's, um, speculative- Of which I've been a member for many years… where all these people are my students 30 years ago.
- 23:55Science Fiction Quarterly: And now they're people like Hayden Trenholm, who's now in the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
- 24:01Science Fiction Quarterly: You know?
- 24:01Science Fiction Quarterly: And it's just so gratifying to have seen these people's careers prosper, and that they, it wasn't me who decided to put together this reunion, it was Hayden, who felt, you know, we should all go and celebrate the fact that we all sort of started.
- 24:15Science Fiction Quarterly: Liz Westbrook Trenholm, another great established writer that came out of that group.
- 24:19Science Fiction Quarterly: Al Oni, who's publishing left, right, and center these days.
- 24:23Science Fiction Quarterly: And it just means so much to me that it meant so much to them that they wanted to commemorate it with a reunion.
- 24:29Science Fiction Quarterly: Oh, that's so exciting.
- 24:30Science Fiction Quarterly: And I mean, these are all the things that science fiction is, and that science fiction- It should be.
- 24:38Science Fiction Quarterly: But there's lots of things that are assumptions out there, and you have in the book, one thing that's included in the book is common misconceptions- Yes… about science fiction writers, that We're way out there.
- 24:51Science Fiction Quarterly: We're, like, full of it.
- 24:52Science Fiction Quarterly: We're a little bit loony.
- 24:54Science Fiction Quarterly: Uh, we just make stuff up.
- 24:56Science Fiction Quarterly: We predict the future.
- 24:58Science Fiction Quarterly: We're all men, or we're all Star Trek or Star Wars fans.
- 25:02Science Fiction Quarterly: Yes.
- 25:03Science Fiction Quarterly: Okay?
- 25:03Science Fiction Quarterly: Included.
- 25:03Science Fiction Quarterly: Certainly some of us are all those things.
- 25:06Science Fiction Quarterly: But I'll give you a concrete example.
- 25:08Science Fiction Quarterly: Two months ago, I was at MIT as part of a conference about superintelligence, which is very much in the news these days, AI superintelligence.
- 25:19Science Fiction Quarterly: And, um, there was a guy there who's an economist, not a sci- there were six science fiction writers and six academics.
- 25:26Science Fiction Quarterly: One of the academics was an economist, and he's a UFO nut.
- 25:29Science Fiction Quarterly: And he said to me, "I don't get why you science fiction writers are not writing more stories about the aliens visiting Earth." And I said, "Because the evidence for aliens currently visiting Earth does not rise to the threshold of plausibility required for an actual science fiction story." He had bought into all of this, uh, stuff that you ask almost any one of my colleagues, "Do you believe that there's other life in the universe?" Oh, very likely so.
- 26:00Science Fiction Quarterly: "Do you believe any of it's visiting us right now and giving anal probes to, uh, people, uh, that they capture out in the back 40?" No, not a chance that that's true.
- 26:09Science Fiction Quarterly: The point is that we're not- we don't believe in psychic powers.
- 26:13Science Fiction Quarterly: We don't believe that aliens are abducting human beings.
- 26:17Science Fiction Quarterly: We don't believe in past lives.
- 26:20Science Fiction Quarterly: We don't believe in reincarnation, and not all of us don't believe in God, but a very large number are atheists or agnostic on that question.
- 26:29Science Fiction Quarterly: We're the least credible, that is least easily convinced that something is a reality, people.
- 26:35Science Fiction Quarterly: We're the most f- cynical or, uh, skeptical bunch that you're ever likely to encounter, and yet people think, "Oh, they believe in all this far-out stuff." A, we don't write about that far-out stuff.
- 26:48Science Fiction Quarterly: Other people do.
- 26:48Science Fiction Quarterly: And B, no, we are rational, skeptical, logical thinkers Okay.
- 26:56Science Fiction Quarterly: So as a rational, skeptical, logical thinker, science fiction writer, are you optimistic about the future of science fiction?
- 27:04Science Fiction Quarterly: Ooh, you added two words at the end there, three, of science fiction.
- 27:07Science Fiction Quarterly: 'Cause I thought you were gonna say, are you optimistic about the future?
- 27:09Science Fiction Quarterly: And I have one answer, and then another for your actual question.
- 27:13Science Fiction Quarterly: Well, yeah, that's about you, but, but about the future of science fiction.
- 27:15Science Fiction Quarterly: Let's answer the of science fiction.
- 27:16Science Fiction Quarterly: This is about the book though, right?
- 27:17Science Fiction Quarterly: So lots of agents right now are saying they're looking for science fiction, and the reason is the unprecedented success of the movie Project Hail Mary, uh, which is based on Andy Weir's science fiction novel.
- 27:30Science Fiction Quarterly: Because for the longest time, real hard science fiction, rigorously extrapolated real science, wasn't doing well in the marketplace.
- 27:40Science Fiction Quarterly: And even Star Trek, the bastion of science fiction for, you know, since we're celebrating the 60th anniversary this year.
- 27:47Science Fiction Quarterly: Strange New Worlds this season has decided rather than being a science fiction show, they will do a Muppet episode.
- 27:55Science Fiction Quarterly: They will do a noir, film noir episode.
- 27:57Science Fiction Quarterly: Oh.
- 27:57Science Fiction Quarterly: They'll do a soap opera episode.
- 27:59Science Fiction Quarterly: They're trying to win awards?
- 28:00Science Fiction Quarterly: Like, I don't know.
- 28:00Science Fiction Quarterly: Right?
- 28:00Science Fiction Quarterly: They're, they're afraid to be science fiction- Yeah … because the fear is that nobody's interested in science fiction anymore.
- 28:08Science Fiction Quarterly: Right now there's a blip because of Project Hail Mary.
- 28:11Science Fiction Quarterly: All of those episodes were filmed before Project Hail Mary, uh, premiered this past spring.
- 28:16Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm hoping that it will start a, a resurgence of science fiction.
- 28:22Science Fiction Quarterly: People always say, when I say science fiction is struggling, they go, "It's cyclical." And they're right to one degree in that it does go up and down.
- 28:30Science Fiction Quarterly: What they fail to note is that it never comes up- As much as it had been at the previous up.
- 28:38Science Fiction Quarterly: So it's a f- uh, it, yes, it is a up and down trend, but it is always in average trending downwards.
- 28:47Science Fiction Quarterly: There's more and more people reading fantasy, fewer and fewer reading science fiction.
- 28:52Science Fiction Quarterly: The one place where science fiction is fairly vigorous, ironically, is young adult science fiction, most of which is dystopian, which says something very sad and profound about the state of control.
- 29:04Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah, which is just coming back.
- 29:05Science Fiction Quarterly: I mean, it's been gone for 20 years.
- 29:07Science Fiction Quarterly: Right?
- 29:08Science Fiction Quarterly: At conferences right now I'm hearing,"Bring back dystopian," from all the agents, and I'm like, "Okay.
- 29:13Science Fiction Quarterly: Well, let's see." Right?
- 29:14Science Fiction Quarterly: That'll be great.
- 29:15Science Fiction Quarterly: Well, we live in a world where young people today are facing the prospect of a much worse world for them to grow up in and to have their old age in than we had.
- 29:25Science Fiction Quarterly: They're facing all of the economic impact and job losses of AI.
- 29:29Science Fiction Quarterly: They're facing catastrophic climate change.
- 29:32Science Fiction Quarterly: They're facing the rise of authoritarianism.
- 29:35Science Fiction Quarterly: And so when they think about their future, they're naturally thinking, unfortunately, we've set the template for them that it ain't gonna be a wonderful place.
- 29:44Science Fiction Quarterly: Dystopian futures make sense to them.
- 29:46Science Fiction Quarterly: Whereas when I was growing up in the optimistic '60s at the tail end of the baby boom, uh, we were, the future was gonna be bright and sunny.
- 29:54Science Fiction Quarterly: The original Star Trek, we were gonna have, we were on trajectory to utopia.
- 30:00Science Fiction Quarterly: And to go to the other version of your question, am I optimistic about the future, I was until the last five or six years.
- 30:09Science Fiction Quarterly: And I know that coincides with my cancer diagnosis, but I think I'm astute and self-aware enough to not have my cancer diagnosis, which I'm actually quite zen about it- No, I think it's, there's a, it's, it's a part of us … color my perception of the future.
- 30:20Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 30:21Science Fiction Quarterly: I think it is Any idiot can, uh, can make a mistake once, but to elect Donald Trump twice, I don't know what the hell's going on there.
- 30:29Science Fiction Quarterly: The fact that Donald Trump and others are saying no guardrails on AI even when the AI researchers are begging for it, the incredible widening of the gap between the f- by far ultra-rich and the people who can't make, uh, make ends meet to meet their rent or feed their kids, all of that.
- 30:49Science Fiction Quarterly: At Brexit, the, uh, um, astonishingly the UK doing the opposite of what basically Canada's looking for now, a special relationship with the European Union.
- 30:59Science Fiction Quarterly: Well, except where I live, but, but we're good.
- 31:01Science Fiction Quarterly: Right?
- 31:01Science Fiction Quarterly: You know, and Alberta's separation, sure.
- 31:04Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 31:04Science Fiction Quarterly: All of that depresses me enormously.
- 31:06Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm enthusiastic about Canada right now, actually.
- 31:09Science Fiction Quarterly: We seem to be, you know, in the last couple of months since Donald Trump dissed us one time too many and Mark Carney and his team walked away from the negotiation table- I think it's only been a few weeks, but I love that you said a few months because it feels like a long time because a lot has happened, right?
- 31:25Science Fiction Quarterly: Yes, it's, this, we live in, you know, uh, this incredibly compressed timeframe.
- 31:30Science Fiction Quarterly: Things are happening so quickly, and it's so disorienting.
- 31:34Science Fiction Quarterly: And I go back to why, sort of as we get to the close of the interview here, why people should read science fiction.
- 31:39Science Fiction Quarterly: You introduced me as a science fiction writer, sometimes calls himself a futurist.
- 31:43Science Fiction Quarterly: The first well-known futurist to use that term is a guy named Alvin Toffler, T-O-F-F-L-E-R, in the 1970s, and he wrote a book that became a gigantic bestseller called Future Shock.
- 31:58Science Fiction Quarterly: And he said the only preven- preventive medicine against being totally shocked, gobsmacked, disoriented, discombobulated by the rapid pace of change is reading science fiction, and I stand by that to this day.
- 32:13Science Fiction Quarterly: He was right then, and it's right right now.
- 32:16Science Fiction Quarterly: We w- you would not be shocked by what's happening in AI right now, with a, a few exceptions, if you'd been reading science fiction for seven years.
- 32:24Science Fiction Quarterly: I don't mean you, Suzy, I mean you the audience, the world in general.
- 32:27Science Fiction Quarterly: Hey, I would like to do that for the last seven years.
- 32:29Science Fiction Quarterly: That'd be great.
- 32:31Science Fiction Quarterly: Okay.
- 32:31Science Fiction Quarterly: So what is your best, you're right, we're have to draw this to a conclusion, but what is your best advice for those listeners out there that found this episode, Rob, to be like, "Hey, I think I'm writing science fiction.
- 32:43Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm interested in writing science fiction. I'm not writing it yet." What's your best advice for those newer writers looking to get into the genre?
- 32:51Science Fiction Quarterly: In particular, for science fiction, you really have to read the genre if you want to write it.
- 32:57Science Fiction Quarterly: And the reason is so many people who want to get into science fiction think they've got a bright, exciting new idea that has already been done to death.
- 33:07Science Fiction Quarterly: Even when, uh, Planet of the Apes in 1968 revealed it had been Earth all along, that was a cliche in science fiction going back 50 years.
- 33:16Science Fiction Quarterly: The story where the astronauts on the distant world, the only survivors of a spaceship crash, and at the end we find out their names were Adam and Eve.
- 33:26Science Fiction Quarterly: Ooh-hoo-hoo.
- 33:27Science Fiction Quarterly: All of that- Spoiler alert if you haven't watched- It's so easy to become a cliche- Oh, you've already read it idea in science fiction.
- 33:32Science Fiction Quarterly: So I always recommend you read the genre that you want to write about particularly.
- 33:37Science Fiction Quarterly: So you should read current, uh, present day science fiction.
- 33:41Science Fiction Quarterly: But that said, you don't have to be a hard science fiction expert, a hard science expert to write science fiction.
- 33:48Science Fiction Quarterly: You can't see this 'cause we're only doing audio here.
- 33:51Science Fiction Quarterly: Suzy can see this 'cause we have our video on.
- 33:53Science Fiction Quarterly: I can see it.
- 33:54Science Fiction Quarterly: But I have my favorite drink currently, which is G Zero.
- 33:57Science Fiction Quarterly: I was gonna say currently- Cranberry Zero… ' cause I, I know you drinking Coke Zero all I kicked Coke Zero.
- 34:03Science Fiction Quarterly: Oh, well there's you.
- 34:03Science Fiction Quarterly: It wasn't good for my teeth or my digestion.
- 34:05Science Fiction Quarterly: Yeah.
- 34:05Science Fiction Quarterly: But if you know the difference between G Zero and zero G, you know enough science to start writing science fiction.
- 34:14Science Fiction Quarterly: So go for it.
- 34:15Science Fiction Quarterly: You- I was wondering where it felt like an ad. I was wondering, I love that you turned it back in.
- 34:19Science Fiction Quarterly: I get, I don't get any product placement fees.
- 34:21Science Fiction Quarterly: So impressive.
- 34:21Science Fiction Quarterly: But- I love it seriously, if, uh, the difference between G Zero, which is, you know, an electrolyte drink, and zero G, which is microgravity We live, one of the wonders of when we live right now is you can educate yourself on science and technology in an afternoon.
- 34:38Science Fiction Quarterly: Just go to YouTube.
- 34:39Science Fiction Quarterly: Just go to Google and ask about the science.
- 34:42Science Fiction Quarterly: There are so many good popularizers of science, writers of pop science books, Dan Falk being the great Canadian one, F-A-L-K.
- 34:53Science Fiction Quarterly: So many good YouTubers who are, and TikTokers who are doing science explanation.
- 34:58Science Fiction Quarterly: It is, and of course, there's PBS and the CBC that does great science documentary stuff.
- 35:04Science Fiction Quarterly: It is so easy to come up to speed on science and technology that you shouldn't be daunted by it.
- 35:10Science Fiction Quarterly: No, you don't have a degree in, in particle physics.
- 35:12Science Fiction Quarterly: Neither do I. I have an arts degree, and I write hard science fiction, and you can, too.
- 35:19Science Fiction Quarterly: Ugh, amazing.
- 35:20Science Fiction Quarterly: Where can we find you?
- 35:21Science Fiction Quarterly: Where can we follow you?
- 35:22Science Fiction Quarterly: Where can we get this book?
- 35:24Science Fiction Quarterly: I was the first science fiction writer in the world to have a website, so it's at sfwriter.com.
- 35:30Science Fiction Quarterly: S as in science, F as in fiction, sfwriter.com.
- 35:34Science Fiction Quarterly: And on most social media channels, I'm just my byline all run together with no punctuation, RobertJSawyer.
- 35:41Science Fiction Quarterly: Facebook, Patreon, TikTok, uh, X, Blue Sky, you'll find me there.
- 35:46Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm so glad that this book is taking off and it's beyond your wildest expectations.
- 35:51Science Fiction Quarterly: Everybody who is considering reading science fiction can get a very long education and as if you'd been there if you read the book.
- 35:59Science Fiction Quarterly: So go pick it up.
- 36:00Science Fiction Quarterly: Thanks for coming on the show today, Rob.
- 36:02Science Fiction Quarterly: As we say in the SF game, Suzy, live long and prosper.
- 36:12Science Fiction Quarterly: Thanks for tuning in to the Show, Don't Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori.
- 36:16Science Fiction Quarterly: It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you're writing or the book that you're planning to write.
- 36:23Science Fiction Quarterly: Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us.
- 36:27Science Fiction Quarterly: You can subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you're listening to show how much you enjoy the show.
- 36:36Science Fiction Quarterly: That's how other listeners will find us.
- 36:39Science Fiction Quarterly: Also, visit Suzyvadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list, where you'll stay inspired and be the first to know about all the upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community.
- 36:53Science Fiction Quarterly: Want my eyes on your writing?
- 36:55Science Fiction Quarterly: Submit a page in your current draft for a chance to come on the podcast at the link in the show notes.
- 37:00Science Fiction Quarterly: I'd love to chat with you about your writing in my always positive, incredibly supportive way so that you can make great strides towards your writing goals.
- 37:10Science Fiction Quarterly: I'm here to cheer you on.
- 37:11Science Fiction Quarterly: Remember, that book you're writing is gonna open doors that you haven't even thought of yet, and I can't wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.
- 37:22Science Fiction Quarterly: See you again right here next week