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Who's premise was flashforward? I'll give you a clue with the initials JT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.78.148 ( talk) 16:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Huh? Gareth McCaughan ( talk) 22:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm just reading Flashforward, and found it amusing/spooky that he mentions Pope Benedict XVI in the 2009 setting.
I really don't like this sentence. While I think all of the ideas presented have value, the particular combination seems highly POV and political to me: Although he is a dual US/Canadian citizen, he is sometimes seen as being critical of the United States (however a close reading of his work often reveals similar criticisms of Canada; see in particular the denouncing of former Ontario Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris in Calculating God). In particular, it suggests to me that either his American citizenship should preclude him being critical of the United States, or that being critical of the United States needs the defense that he's a citizen of it, and he's a citizen of Canada and critical of them, too. Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it. But at any rate, can someone change it to an alternative? -- Steven Fisher 15:16, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Why was "Webmind" removed from the bibliography? --IP 209...
It would be helpful to expand the article with info about Weiss v. Sawyer, the libel case that started several years ago and apparently (?) ended in 2002. Even a cursory mention is not here. It involved Weiss -- a bibliographer and reviewer -- suing Sawyer for libel. Weiss had published a negative review of one of Sawyer's novels, and Sawyer contacted the newspaper in question, Realms, regarding a previous difference of opinion between the two writers. His letter may have appeared on the Realms website, as well as in the paper, and formed the basis for the libel claim. All I've been able to find so far on the web is discussion of the Canadian legal precedent that was set; the judge in the case found that publishing online is considered to be the same as publishing a newspaper, in terms of expectations for filing a libel suit. http://puggy.symonds.net/pipermail/goajourno/2002-September/000202.html has a summary of that court action. I met the editors of Realms magazine at one time and was startled to see a Toronto Star article regarding the case and their need for a legal defense fund. I have not been in Canada for some years and am not sure if anything happened after 2002. Still, it bears mentioning, for the precedent it set at the very least. Noirdame 18:28, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
←I am not bullying you. I am simply reminding you that on Wikipedia, we expect editors to assume that other editors are contributing in good faith, as Dgcuff has done. Your reversion and comments clearly showed an assumption of bad faith, which is wholly inappropriate. Now let me address your two questions:
So let us move forward productively, with assumptions of good faith all around, and try to improve the standard of this article. Let's take our time to get it right and rely on reasonable discourse and solid consensus building. -- Scjessey ( talk) 15:17, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
If a legal issue is significant related to the decade-old Weiss lawsuit, it should be linked to where that legal significance is discussed in an article on law. As to it being "significant to the author," surely the significance (if any) in the context of a biographical discussion of Sawyer is that the suit against him was dismissed on summary judgment with costs awarded to Sawyer. Why was that left out? In any event, the inserted text on this topic, if any is warranted, needs to be absolutely accurate (not just per BLP but because it discusses a legal matter) and the current versions isn't: despite what the text claims, the citation does not establish that Weiss was a journalist, or that the material in question was published online, nor is it NPOV (the court found Weiss "failed" to serve a libel notice, not that he "neglected" to), etc. If someone wants to do a careful reading of the judgment and prepare an accurate (but suitably short) summary, that would perhaps be useful; the current insertion isn't. Sybok ( talk) 17:10, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
While some excellent work has been done here, we've lost the lede in a gigantic swamp of undifferentiated material. The new version needs some subject headings, and a bit of standard formatting (personal vs. professional life, etc.) to become useful. -- Orange Mike | Talk 01:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
This article still just resembles a puff piece written by Sawyer himself, or his agent. For instance the whole 'Critical Studies' section does not say anything about what the studies said about Sawyer's works, and seem to only be included to prove that Sawyer is a serious author who is taken seriously. Since he has an article in Wikipedia, we can assume he is notable, it doesn't need to be proven further.
Compare this article to any WP article on a more influential author which focus more on the man, his works and style rather than just being an online trophy rack, listing the author's awards, honours, etc. Ashmoo ( talk) 12:36, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
It's claimed that "Sawyer's work frequently explores the intersection between science and religion, with rationalism always winning out over mysticism", with "Calculating God" mentioned as an example. However, that's not quite right. In that book, mysticism very much has the last say, the religious aliens aren't shown to be wrong and the main character goes from being an atheist to actually praying. Not a good example! I haven't read any of the other books mentioned, so I can't say if this is a general trend. Niels E ( talk) 09:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The current version still says "[...]with rationalism always winning out over mysticism (see especially [...] Calculating God [...]". I think Calculating God should simply be removed from that list. Maybe even listed as a counter example. Niels E ( talk) 13:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I propose that we be bold, and remove from the article the valuable material that isn't relevant to this article (so that it can be used to create another article, once someone figures out what the new article is).
In accordance with that, I've moved the major section about the author's writing to this page so that I can be easily retrieved when needed. Dgcuff ( talk) 14:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
The cuts to Sawyer's entry are gigantic and unjustified , in my view. The sections cut had been subject to approximatgely 306 edits made by 142 editors over a period of four and a half years, from 13 February 2005, when the first detailed discussions of Sawyer's works were added to the entry on him, until 17 August 2009, when Dgcuff took it upon himself to cut the entry from 45 kilobytes to 25. That work (hundreds of edits by over a hundred editors, all well-cited) IS consensus, and should not be removed.
In restoring Dgcuff's latest version, Scjessey ignores this comment elsewhere on this talk page: "Additional biographical material might be useful, but needs to be accurate and include source citations. Just randomly adding things you suppose might be true, such as that Sawyer's parents were both university professors (which, anyway, is info about them but not about Sawyer) but not citing it isn't helpful and it isn't accurate from the sources I have seen. Frex, his mother apparently was a lecturer only." Dgcuff added that information without citation, and try as I might with Google I can indeed find no credible support for Dgcuff's statement about Sawyer's mother --- so why restore it? Doing so seems to violate the standards imposed by BLP.
On whether an entry on a writer should be filled with biographical tidbits, note that when previous versions of this entry did contain those (such as what Sawyer's father taught and who he was by name or that Sawyer went to school with fantasist Tanya Huff) they were deleted by other editors. There is no consensus that an article on a writer should concentrate on his personal life and eschew discussion of the writer's works so deleting that discussion is not appropriate. Sybok ( talk) 16:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Sawyer's work frequently explores the intersection between science and religion, with rationalism always winning out over mysticism [1] (see especially Far-Seer, The Terminal Experiment, Calculating God, and the three volumes of the Neanderthal Parallax [Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids], plus the short story "The Abdication of Pope Mary III," originally published in Nature, July 6, 2000).
He has a great fondness for paleontology, as evidenced in his Quintaglio Ascension trilogy (Far-Seer, Fossil Hunter, and Foreigner), about an alien world to which dinosaurs from Earth were transplanted, and his time-travel novel End of an Era. In addition, the main character of Calculating God is a paleontologist, Wake features a chase scene at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, and the Neanderthal Parallax novels deal with an alternate version of Earth where Neanderthals did not become extinct.
Sawyer often explores the notion of copied or uploaded human consciousness, most fully in his novel Mindscan, but also in Flashforward, Golden Fleece and The Terminal Experiment, plus the Hugo-, Nebula-, and Aurora-award-nominated novella "Identity Theft," its sequel the Aurora-winning short story "Biding Time," and the Hugo- and Aurora-award-nominated short story "Shed Skin."
His interest in consciousness studies is also apparent in his WWW trilogy, beginning with Wake, which deals with the spontaneous emergence of consciousness in the infrastructure of the World Wide Web. His interest in quantum physics, and especially quantum computing, inform the short stories "You See But You Do Not Observe" [2] (a Sherlock Holmes pastiche) and "Iterations," [3] and the novels Factoring Humanity and Hominids.
SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, plays a role in the plots of Golden Fleece, Factoring Humanity, Mindscan, Rollback, the novelette "Ineluctable," and the short stories "You See But You Do Not Observe" and "Flashes." Sawyer gives cosmology a thorough workout in his far-future Starplex. [4]
Real-life science institutions are often used as settings by Sawyer, including TRIUMF in End of an Era, CERN in Flashforward, the Royal Ontario Museum in Calculating God, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Hominids and its sequels, and the Arecibo Observatory in Rollback.
Another Sawyer hallmark is the mortally ill main character. Pierre Tardivel in Frameshift suffers from Huntington's disease, Thomas Jericho in Calculating God has lung cancer, and Jacob Sullivan in Mindscan has an arteriovenous malformation in his brain; one of the main characters in Rollback vividly suffers from that most fatal illness of all, old age. Sawyer nonetheless is known for tales that end on an upbeat, and even transcendent, note. [5]
Sawyer is unusual even among Canadian SF writers for the blatantly Canadian settings and concerns addressed in his novels, all of which are issued by New York houses. His politics are often described as liberal by Canadian standards (although he contributed a Hugo Award-nominated story called "The Hand You're Dealt" [6] to the Libertarian SF anthology Free Space, and another called "The Right's Tough" [7] to the Prometheus Award-winning Libertarian SF anthology Visions of Liberty). He holds citizenship in both Canada and the United States, and has been known to criticize the politics of both countries. He often has American characters visiting Canada (such as Karen Bessarian in Mindscan and Caitlin Decter in Wake) or Canadian characters visiting the U.S. (such as Pierre Tardivel in Frameshift and Mary Vaughan in Humans and Hybrids) as a way of comparing and contrasting the perceived values of the two countries.
Sawyer's style is simple, with clear prose, that Orson Scott Card compared to that of Isaac Asimov. [8] [9] He has a tendency to include pop-culture references in his novels (his fondness for the original Star Trek, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Planet of the Apes is impossible to miss).
Sawyer's work often crosses over from science fiction to mystery; he won both Canada's top SF award (the Aurora Award) and its top mystery-fiction award (the Arthur Ellis Award) for his 1993 short story "Just Like Old Times." [10] Illegal Alien is a courtroom drama with an extraterrestrial defendant; Hominids puts one Neanderthal on trial by his peers for the apparent murder of another Neanderthal; Mindscan has the rights of uploaded consciousnesses explored in a Michigan probate court; and Golden Fleece, Fossil Hunter, The Terminal Experiment, Frameshift, and Flashforward are all, in part, murder mysteries. Of Sawyer's shorter SF works, the novella "Identity Theft" and the short stories "Biding Time," "Flashes," "Iterations," "Shed Skin," "The Stanley Cup Caper," "You See But You Do Not Observe," and the aforementioned "Just Like Old Times" are all also crime or mystery fiction.
Conference papers about Sawyer's work include "The Science and Religion Dialogue in the Science Fiction of Robert J. Sawyer," by Valerie Broege, presented at The Uses of the Science Fiction Genre: An Interdisciplinary Symposium, Brock University, October 2005; [11] "The Intimately Human and the Grandly Cosmic: Humor and the Sublime in the Works of Robert J. Sawyer," by Fiona Kelleghan, presented at the 29th annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, Florida, March 2008; [12] and "Time and the Fiction of Robert J. Sawyer: Flash Forward to the End of an Era," also by Fiona Kelleghan, presented at the 30th annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, March 2009. [13]
Critical studies and scholarly reviews of Sawyer's work have appeared in The Gospel According to Science Fiction by Gabriel McKee; [14] in Worlds of Wonder: Readings in Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature edited by Jean-Francois Leroux and Camille R. La Bossiere; in The Everyday Fantastic: Essays on Science Fiction and Human Being edited by Michael Berman; [15] in Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence edited by Susan Schneider; [16] in Dinosaurs in Fantastic Fiction: A Thematic Survey by Allen A. Debus; [17] in The New York Review of Science Fiction (including 5,000 words by Richard Parent on the "Neanderthal Parallax" trilogy in the June 2004 issue [18], the essay "Robert J. Sawyer in Summer 2005: Mad Play" by Donald M. Hassler in the December 2005 issue, and commentary by Fiona Kelleghan in the cover story of the November 2008 issue); in the SFRA Review; [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] in a scholarly afterword by Valerie Broege in Sawyer's own essay collection Relativity; and even in such publications as Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice. [24]
His fiction has received starred reviews (denoting "books of exceptional merit") in Publishers Weekly, [25] [26] [27] Library Journal, [28] Booklist, [25] Quill & Quire, [25] Kliatt, and Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction, Fifth Edition, by Neil Barron.
Sawyer is profiled in The Canadian Encyclopedia, [9] Canadian Who's Who, [29] Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada, [30] The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, Contemporary Authors volume 212, [31] Something About the Author volume 81, [1] St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers, and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. The hour-long documentary In the Mind of Robert J. Sawyer premiered on Canadian television on January 8, 2003, [32] and has been shown numerous times since on various channels, including Space: The Imagination Station, for which Sawyer is a frequent commentator.
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As the dispute regarding POV and appropriate content for this page has become long and messy, I will attempt to reframe the specific points under dispute here, under sub-headings, so that it will be easier for WP editors to follow and contribute to the discussion. Hopefully, by discussing the various points of contention separately we will be able to put to rest the wholesale reversion war and achieve consensus and move forward with improving the article. (Drakkenfyre, if you agree, I will move our discussion re: citing of awards to the appropriate sub-section below, so the information will not be duplicated.) Bowrain13 ( talk) 14:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
My apologies for the above. I generally lurk... I agree that the William Gibson and J.K. Rowling articles suggested would be good exemplars for this ariticle. The most glaring difference I noticed between the two articles suggested and this article was the insufficient amount of material on the subject's personal and professional background. Expansion in this regard would make clear what led this living science fiction author to achieve awards and other accomplishments. Cleanup should include further sourced details about this living author's early years. I cannot provide acceptable sources for the following at this time, but, for instance, his parents' having worked at a university and his membership as a child to the Royal Ontario Mueseum had an impact on this author's outlook, interest in science fiction and future work. Also significant to this author's career: after winning the Nebula award for Terminal Experiment the author quit his former employment as a freelance (finacial/business) writer and devoted himself to writing fiction full time. In addition, worth mentioning: there is a complete lack of quotations about this author by experts and academics in his field and related fields. Such quotes, which I am certain are available from acceptable sources, would add credibility to this article and would make the long list of awards, etc. appear less like puff. These issues should be addressed in the cleanup of this article. msklystron ( talk) 20:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
It has been suggested that the current article fails to meet Wikipedia's standard of Neutral Point of View because too much weight is given to Sawyer's awards and recognitions. Bowrain13 ( talk) 14:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
There is dispute as to whether this section provides noteworthy NPOV information to the article or whether it is simply a "laundry list" of praise for the subject. Bowrain13 ( talk) 14:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
There is dispute as to whether the "style and themes" section should be included in the article. Arguments for inclusion include the opinion that it adds value and improves the NPOV of the article. Arguments against inclusion include the opinion that this BLP article contains too much information about the subject's work and not enough biographical information about the subject himself. Bowrain13 ( talk) 14:32, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I had a new thought re: the inclusion of the CanCon material. What about removing it from styles and themes and starting a new section for "Canadian cultural significance" (or some such)? This section could include information on not only the CanCon in Sawyer's writing but also his advocacy for a Canadian region within SFWA, his work on Tesseracts 6 and with Red Deer Press? Sawyer's contributions to "Canadian culture" (as a specific entity) are currently scattered throughout the article with some currently dumped in the generic "Other activities" section. I think this aspect of the subject and his work is significant enough that it perhaps warrants it's own section. Bowrain13 ( talk) 20:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
There is dispute as to whether or not the section regarding this legal dispute should be included in the article. See this revision for the text under review. Bowrain13 ( talk) 15:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
This section requires cleanup (and possibly a complete removal). It is in violation of Wikipedia's external links standards.
As per Wikipedia:External_links, the following should all be avoided:
A quick glance of the current External links section suggests to me that everything in it falls under the category of Links normally to be avoided and that the whole section should be removed. Sawyer's fans have gotten into the habit of popping every new interview with him and promotional piece written about him into this section. This practice does not add value to the article and it exacerbates the problem of the article reading like a puff piece. Bowrain13 ( talk) 17:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
This article is obviously either a product of its subject or of intensely devoted fans. There are two sections about awards, an absurd amount of detail that is neither useful nor encyclopedic, and the "Other activities" section might as well list Sawyer's resume. How much of this can be removed? Ipsenaut ( talk) 16:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
I've made a start on cleaning up this article. It still needs a lot of work, but hopefully my start has made further progress more manageable. I've removed the parts we identified most obviously as "puff". (Some of that is included on this talk page below, as editors felt it might contain references to suitable sources for future expansion of the main article.) I've also attempted to reorganize the sections along the lines of what we discussed in the NPOV Dispute discussion. Some of these new sections are very short at present, and still read like a laundry list, because I don't have time today to properly expand and source each section. I decided to go ahead and create them wherever we had at least some material to put in them, however, in the hope that doing so would help other editors to see specific areas where they could dive in and help. Bowrain13 ( talk) 17:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
I toned down the opening paragraph. I don't want to get too deeply involved in this in that I am Sawyer's Tor editor's wife (i.e. I am married to David Hartwell who edits Sawyer for Tor). But toning down the opening was easily done.
I think from a Wikipedia perspective, the main problem with the article is the Style and Themes section. Wikipedia really isn't set up to be a venue for literary criticism and critical analysis because such things are inherently a matter of point of view. I think if the Style & Themes section could be condensed to one paragraph, the article would be much more in line with other Wikipedia articles about authors and the difficulties with the article would seem much less insurmountable.-- Pleasantville ( talk) 14:24, 6 November 2009 (UTC) aka Kathryn Cramer
A repository for extraneous links and citations which should not be included in the main article (unless they are in the References section because they've been used to source encyclopedic content in the article). I'm porting any such content I remove from the main article here so that editors working on researching new material and sourcing material for the main article will have easy access to possible sources.
Bowrain13 ( talk) 15:08, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Ralph Vicinanza, presumably Robert's agent, appears in Humans, taking out a neandertal to a book deal lunch. ps Ralph deserves an article. Mercurywoodrose ( talk) 07:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
Sawyer is about to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Winnipeg, as stated by them here. I think that belongs under the "Major awards" section of this article, as should his Honorary D. Litt from Laurentian University (I can rustle up a source for that upon request). I don't want to add this myself, as I know him personally, so editing this article for anything other than error correction would violate WP:COS. So. Anyone agree with me about adding the honorary doctorates to the article? cymru.lass ( talk • contribs) 06:52, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
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==Assessment== Start-class - almost no sources (I found his bio), little discussion of his work, too much biographical detail. Lots of room for improvement. Avt tor 08:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC) |
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Currently the Bibliography section gives this as "(Ace, 1994)". However the (not reliable, because user edited) ISFDB lists the New English Library edition as published October 1994, citing the SF world's 'Journal of Record' Locus for this date, and the Ace edition as November 1994, and the (usually reliable) Encyclopedia of Science Fiction also credits NEL's edition as the first.
I have copies of both editions: the Ace (c) page is dated November 1994 and claims "never previously published", and the NEL's merely "First published in Great Britain in 1994" as is each's habitual style. I can believe that the Ace edition was intended to appear first (Sawyer's 'Acknowledgements', identical in both, mention only Ace editorial assistance), but Locus is highly reliable and the EoSF does not rely on ISFDB without good corroboration. I could well believe that some schedule rearrangement led to NEL's edition inadvertently appearing first.
Does anybody have another source to cross-check and determine whether the article should be amended to "(New English Library 1994)"? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.195.174.88 ( talk) 19:23, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
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Who's premise was flashforward? I'll give you a clue with the initials JT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.78.148 ( talk) 16:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Huh? Gareth McCaughan ( talk) 22:45, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm just reading Flashforward, and found it amusing/spooky that he mentions Pope Benedict XVI in the 2009 setting.
I really don't like this sentence. While I think all of the ideas presented have value, the particular combination seems highly POV and political to me: Although he is a dual US/Canadian citizen, he is sometimes seen as being critical of the United States (however a close reading of his work often reveals similar criticisms of Canada; see in particular the denouncing of former Ontario Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris in Calculating God). In particular, it suggests to me that either his American citizenship should preclude him being critical of the United States, or that being critical of the United States needs the defense that he's a citizen of it, and he's a citizen of Canada and critical of them, too. Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it. But at any rate, can someone change it to an alternative? -- Steven Fisher 15:16, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Why was "Webmind" removed from the bibliography? --IP 209...
It would be helpful to expand the article with info about Weiss v. Sawyer, the libel case that started several years ago and apparently (?) ended in 2002. Even a cursory mention is not here. It involved Weiss -- a bibliographer and reviewer -- suing Sawyer for libel. Weiss had published a negative review of one of Sawyer's novels, and Sawyer contacted the newspaper in question, Realms, regarding a previous difference of opinion between the two writers. His letter may have appeared on the Realms website, as well as in the paper, and formed the basis for the libel claim. All I've been able to find so far on the web is discussion of the Canadian legal precedent that was set; the judge in the case found that publishing online is considered to be the same as publishing a newspaper, in terms of expectations for filing a libel suit. http://puggy.symonds.net/pipermail/goajourno/2002-September/000202.html has a summary of that court action. I met the editors of Realms magazine at one time and was startled to see a Toronto Star article regarding the case and their need for a legal defense fund. I have not been in Canada for some years and am not sure if anything happened after 2002. Still, it bears mentioning, for the precedent it set at the very least. Noirdame 18:28, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
←I am not bullying you. I am simply reminding you that on Wikipedia, we expect editors to assume that other editors are contributing in good faith, as Dgcuff has done. Your reversion and comments clearly showed an assumption of bad faith, which is wholly inappropriate. Now let me address your two questions:
So let us move forward productively, with assumptions of good faith all around, and try to improve the standard of this article. Let's take our time to get it right and rely on reasonable discourse and solid consensus building. -- Scjessey ( talk) 15:17, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
If a legal issue is significant related to the decade-old Weiss lawsuit, it should be linked to where that legal significance is discussed in an article on law. As to it being "significant to the author," surely the significance (if any) in the context of a biographical discussion of Sawyer is that the suit against him was dismissed on summary judgment with costs awarded to Sawyer. Why was that left out? In any event, the inserted text on this topic, if any is warranted, needs to be absolutely accurate (not just per BLP but because it discusses a legal matter) and the current versions isn't: despite what the text claims, the citation does not establish that Weiss was a journalist, or that the material in question was published online, nor is it NPOV (the court found Weiss "failed" to serve a libel notice, not that he "neglected" to), etc. If someone wants to do a careful reading of the judgment and prepare an accurate (but suitably short) summary, that would perhaps be useful; the current insertion isn't. Sybok ( talk) 17:10, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
While some excellent work has been done here, we've lost the lede in a gigantic swamp of undifferentiated material. The new version needs some subject headings, and a bit of standard formatting (personal vs. professional life, etc.) to become useful. -- Orange Mike | Talk 01:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
This article still just resembles a puff piece written by Sawyer himself, or his agent. For instance the whole 'Critical Studies' section does not say anything about what the studies said about Sawyer's works, and seem to only be included to prove that Sawyer is a serious author who is taken seriously. Since he has an article in Wikipedia, we can assume he is notable, it doesn't need to be proven further.
Compare this article to any WP article on a more influential author which focus more on the man, his works and style rather than just being an online trophy rack, listing the author's awards, honours, etc. Ashmoo ( talk) 12:36, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
It's claimed that "Sawyer's work frequently explores the intersection between science and religion, with rationalism always winning out over mysticism", with "Calculating God" mentioned as an example. However, that's not quite right. In that book, mysticism very much has the last say, the religious aliens aren't shown to be wrong and the main character goes from being an atheist to actually praying. Not a good example! I haven't read any of the other books mentioned, so I can't say if this is a general trend. Niels E ( talk) 09:07, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The current version still says "[...]with rationalism always winning out over mysticism (see especially [...] Calculating God [...]". I think Calculating God should simply be removed from that list. Maybe even listed as a counter example. Niels E ( talk) 13:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I propose that we be bold, and remove from the article the valuable material that isn't relevant to this article (so that it can be used to create another article, once someone figures out what the new article is).
In accordance with that, I've moved the major section about the author's writing to this page so that I can be easily retrieved when needed. Dgcuff ( talk) 14:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
The cuts to Sawyer's entry are gigantic and unjustified , in my view. The sections cut had been subject to approximatgely 306 edits made by 142 editors over a period of four and a half years, from 13 February 2005, when the first detailed discussions of Sawyer's works were added to the entry on him, until 17 August 2009, when Dgcuff took it upon himself to cut the entry from 45 kilobytes to 25. That work (hundreds of edits by over a hundred editors, all well-cited) IS consensus, and should not be removed.
In restoring Dgcuff's latest version, Scjessey ignores this comment elsewhere on this talk page: "Additional biographical material might be useful, but needs to be accurate and include source citations. Just randomly adding things you suppose might be true, such as that Sawyer's parents were both university professors (which, anyway, is info about them but not about Sawyer) but not citing it isn't helpful and it isn't accurate from the sources I have seen. Frex, his mother apparently was a lecturer only." Dgcuff added that information without citation, and try as I might with Google I can indeed find no credible support for Dgcuff's statement about Sawyer's mother --- so why restore it? Doing so seems to violate the standards imposed by BLP.
On whether an entry on a writer should be filled with biographical tidbits, note that when previous versions of this entry did contain those (such as what Sawyer's father taught and who he was by name or that Sawyer went to school with fantasist Tanya Huff) they were deleted by other editors. There is no consensus that an article on a writer should concentrate on his personal life and eschew discussion of the writer's works so deleting that discussion is not appropriate. Sybok ( talk) 16:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Sawyer's work frequently explores the intersection between science and religion, with rationalism always winning out over mysticism [1] (see especially Far-Seer, The Terminal Experiment, Calculating God, and the three volumes of the Neanderthal Parallax [Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids], plus the short story "The Abdication of Pope Mary III," originally published in Nature, July 6, 2000).
He has a great fondness for paleontology, as evidenced in his Quintaglio Ascension trilogy (Far-Seer, Fossil Hunter, and Foreigner), about an alien world to which dinosaurs from Earth were transplanted, and his time-travel novel End of an Era. In addition, the main character of Calculating God is a paleontologist, Wake features a chase scene at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, and the Neanderthal Parallax novels deal with an alternate version of Earth where Neanderthals did not become extinct.
Sawyer often explores the notion of copied or uploaded human consciousness, most fully in his novel Mindscan, but also in Flashforward, Golden Fleece and The Terminal Experiment, plus the Hugo-, Nebula-, and Aurora-award-nominated novella "Identity Theft," its sequel the Aurora-winning short story "Biding Time," and the Hugo- and Aurora-award-nominated short story "Shed Skin."
His interest in consciousness studies is also apparent in his WWW trilogy, beginning with Wake, which deals with the spontaneous emergence of consciousness in the infrastructure of the World Wide Web. His interest in quantum physics, and especially quantum computing, inform the short stories "You See But You Do Not Observe" [2] (a Sherlock Holmes pastiche) and "Iterations," [3] and the novels Factoring Humanity and Hominids.
SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, plays a role in the plots of Golden Fleece, Factoring Humanity, Mindscan, Rollback, the novelette "Ineluctable," and the short stories "You See But You Do Not Observe" and "Flashes." Sawyer gives cosmology a thorough workout in his far-future Starplex. [4]
Real-life science institutions are often used as settings by Sawyer, including TRIUMF in End of an Era, CERN in Flashforward, the Royal Ontario Museum in Calculating God, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Hominids and its sequels, and the Arecibo Observatory in Rollback.
Another Sawyer hallmark is the mortally ill main character. Pierre Tardivel in Frameshift suffers from Huntington's disease, Thomas Jericho in Calculating God has lung cancer, and Jacob Sullivan in Mindscan has an arteriovenous malformation in his brain; one of the main characters in Rollback vividly suffers from that most fatal illness of all, old age. Sawyer nonetheless is known for tales that end on an upbeat, and even transcendent, note. [5]
Sawyer is unusual even among Canadian SF writers for the blatantly Canadian settings and concerns addressed in his novels, all of which are issued by New York houses. His politics are often described as liberal by Canadian standards (although he contributed a Hugo Award-nominated story called "The Hand You're Dealt" [6] to the Libertarian SF anthology Free Space, and another called "The Right's Tough" [7] to the Prometheus Award-winning Libertarian SF anthology Visions of Liberty). He holds citizenship in both Canada and the United States, and has been known to criticize the politics of both countries. He often has American characters visiting Canada (such as Karen Bessarian in Mindscan and Caitlin Decter in Wake) or Canadian characters visiting the U.S. (such as Pierre Tardivel in Frameshift and Mary Vaughan in Humans and Hybrids) as a way of comparing and contrasting the perceived values of the two countries.
Sawyer's style is simple, with clear prose, that Orson Scott Card compared to that of Isaac Asimov. [8] [9] He has a tendency to include pop-culture references in his novels (his fondness for the original Star Trek, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Planet of the Apes is impossible to miss).
Sawyer's work often crosses over from science fiction to mystery; he won both Canada's top SF award (the Aurora Award) and its top mystery-fiction award (the Arthur Ellis Award) for his 1993 short story "Just Like Old Times." [10] Illegal Alien is a courtroom drama with an extraterrestrial defendant; Hominids puts one Neanderthal on trial by his peers for the apparent murder of another Neanderthal; Mindscan has the rights of uploaded consciousnesses explored in a Michigan probate court; and Golden Fleece, Fossil Hunter, The Terminal Experiment, Frameshift, and Flashforward are all, in part, murder mysteries. Of Sawyer's shorter SF works, the novella "Identity Theft" and the short stories "Biding Time," "Flashes," "Iterations," "Shed Skin," "The Stanley Cup Caper," "You See But You Do Not Observe," and the aforementioned "Just Like Old Times" are all also crime or mystery fiction.
Conference papers about Sawyer's work include "The Science and Religion Dialogue in the Science Fiction of Robert J. Sawyer," by Valerie Broege, presented at The Uses of the Science Fiction Genre: An Interdisciplinary Symposium, Brock University, October 2005; [11] "The Intimately Human and the Grandly Cosmic: Humor and the Sublime in the Works of Robert J. Sawyer," by Fiona Kelleghan, presented at the 29th annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, Florida, March 2008; [12] and "Time and the Fiction of Robert J. Sawyer: Flash Forward to the End of an Era," also by Fiona Kelleghan, presented at the 30th annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, March 2009. [13]
Critical studies and scholarly reviews of Sawyer's work have appeared in The Gospel According to Science Fiction by Gabriel McKee; [14] in Worlds of Wonder: Readings in Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature edited by Jean-Francois Leroux and Camille R. La Bossiere; in The Everyday Fantastic: Essays on Science Fiction and Human Being edited by Michael Berman; [15] in Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence edited by Susan Schneider; [16] in Dinosaurs in Fantastic Fiction: A Thematic Survey by Allen A. Debus; [17] in The New York Review of Science Fiction (including 5,000 words by Richard Parent on the "Neanderthal Parallax" trilogy in the June 2004 issue [18], the essay "Robert J. Sawyer in Summer 2005: Mad Play" by Donald M. Hassler in the December 2005 issue, and commentary by Fiona Kelleghan in the cover story of the November 2008 issue); in the SFRA Review; [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] in a scholarly afterword by Valerie Broege in Sawyer's own essay collection Relativity; and even in such publications as Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice. [24]
His fiction has received starred reviews (denoting "books of exceptional merit") in Publishers Weekly, [25] [26] [27] Library Journal, [28] Booklist, [25] Quill & Quire, [25] Kliatt, and Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction, Fifth Edition, by Neil Barron.
Sawyer is profiled in The Canadian Encyclopedia, [9] Canadian Who's Who, [29] Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada, [30] The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, Contemporary Authors volume 212, [31] Something About the Author volume 81, [1] St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers, and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. The hour-long documentary In the Mind of Robert J. Sawyer premiered on Canadian television on January 8, 2003, [32] and has been shown numerous times since on various channels, including Space: The Imagination Station, for which Sawyer is a frequent commentator.
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As the dispute regarding POV and appropriate content for this page has become long and messy, I will attempt to reframe the specific points under dispute here, under sub-headings, so that it will be easier for WP editors to follow and contribute to the discussion. Hopefully, by discussing the various points of contention separately we will be able to put to rest the wholesale reversion war and achieve consensus and move forward with improving the article. (Drakkenfyre, if you agree, I will move our discussion re: citing of awards to the appropriate sub-section below, so the information will not be duplicated.) Bowrain13 ( talk) 14:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
My apologies for the above. I generally lurk... I agree that the William Gibson and J.K. Rowling articles suggested would be good exemplars for this ariticle. The most glaring difference I noticed between the two articles suggested and this article was the insufficient amount of material on the subject's personal and professional background. Expansion in this regard would make clear what led this living science fiction author to achieve awards and other accomplishments. Cleanup should include further sourced details about this living author's early years. I cannot provide acceptable sources for the following at this time, but, for instance, his parents' having worked at a university and his membership as a child to the Royal Ontario Mueseum had an impact on this author's outlook, interest in science fiction and future work. Also significant to this author's career: after winning the Nebula award for Terminal Experiment the author quit his former employment as a freelance (finacial/business) writer and devoted himself to writing fiction full time. In addition, worth mentioning: there is a complete lack of quotations about this author by experts and academics in his field and related fields. Such quotes, which I am certain are available from acceptable sources, would add credibility to this article and would make the long list of awards, etc. appear less like puff. These issues should be addressed in the cleanup of this article. msklystron ( talk) 20:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
It has been suggested that the current article fails to meet Wikipedia's standard of Neutral Point of View because too much weight is given to Sawyer's awards and recognitions. Bowrain13 ( talk) 14:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
There is dispute as to whether this section provides noteworthy NPOV information to the article or whether it is simply a "laundry list" of praise for the subject. Bowrain13 ( talk) 14:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
There is dispute as to whether the "style and themes" section should be included in the article. Arguments for inclusion include the opinion that it adds value and improves the NPOV of the article. Arguments against inclusion include the opinion that this BLP article contains too much information about the subject's work and not enough biographical information about the subject himself. Bowrain13 ( talk) 14:32, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
I had a new thought re: the inclusion of the CanCon material. What about removing it from styles and themes and starting a new section for "Canadian cultural significance" (or some such)? This section could include information on not only the CanCon in Sawyer's writing but also his advocacy for a Canadian region within SFWA, his work on Tesseracts 6 and with Red Deer Press? Sawyer's contributions to "Canadian culture" (as a specific entity) are currently scattered throughout the article with some currently dumped in the generic "Other activities" section. I think this aspect of the subject and his work is significant enough that it perhaps warrants it's own section. Bowrain13 ( talk) 20:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
There is dispute as to whether or not the section regarding this legal dispute should be included in the article. See this revision for the text under review. Bowrain13 ( talk) 15:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
This section requires cleanup (and possibly a complete removal). It is in violation of Wikipedia's external links standards.
As per Wikipedia:External_links, the following should all be avoided:
A quick glance of the current External links section suggests to me that everything in it falls under the category of Links normally to be avoided and that the whole section should be removed. Sawyer's fans have gotten into the habit of popping every new interview with him and promotional piece written about him into this section. This practice does not add value to the article and it exacerbates the problem of the article reading like a puff piece. Bowrain13 ( talk) 17:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
This article is obviously either a product of its subject or of intensely devoted fans. There are two sections about awards, an absurd amount of detail that is neither useful nor encyclopedic, and the "Other activities" section might as well list Sawyer's resume. How much of this can be removed? Ipsenaut ( talk) 16:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
I've made a start on cleaning up this article. It still needs a lot of work, but hopefully my start has made further progress more manageable. I've removed the parts we identified most obviously as "puff". (Some of that is included on this talk page below, as editors felt it might contain references to suitable sources for future expansion of the main article.) I've also attempted to reorganize the sections along the lines of what we discussed in the NPOV Dispute discussion. Some of these new sections are very short at present, and still read like a laundry list, because I don't have time today to properly expand and source each section. I decided to go ahead and create them wherever we had at least some material to put in them, however, in the hope that doing so would help other editors to see specific areas where they could dive in and help. Bowrain13 ( talk) 17:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
I toned down the opening paragraph. I don't want to get too deeply involved in this in that I am Sawyer's Tor editor's wife (i.e. I am married to David Hartwell who edits Sawyer for Tor). But toning down the opening was easily done.
I think from a Wikipedia perspective, the main problem with the article is the Style and Themes section. Wikipedia really isn't set up to be a venue for literary criticism and critical analysis because such things are inherently a matter of point of view. I think if the Style & Themes section could be condensed to one paragraph, the article would be much more in line with other Wikipedia articles about authors and the difficulties with the article would seem much less insurmountable.-- Pleasantville ( talk) 14:24, 6 November 2009 (UTC) aka Kathryn Cramer
A repository for extraneous links and citations which should not be included in the main article (unless they are in the References section because they've been used to source encyclopedic content in the article). I'm porting any such content I remove from the main article here so that editors working on researching new material and sourcing material for the main article will have easy access to possible sources.
Bowrain13 ( talk) 15:08, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Ralph Vicinanza, presumably Robert's agent, appears in Humans, taking out a neandertal to a book deal lunch. ps Ralph deserves an article. Mercurywoodrose ( talk) 07:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
Sawyer is about to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Winnipeg, as stated by them here. I think that belongs under the "Major awards" section of this article, as should his Honorary D. Litt from Laurentian University (I can rustle up a source for that upon request). I don't want to add this myself, as I know him personally, so editing this article for anything other than error correction would violate WP:COS. So. Anyone agree with me about adding the honorary doctorates to the article? cymru.lass ( talk • contribs) 06:52, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
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The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Robert J. Sawyer/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
==Assessment== Start-class - almost no sources (I found his bio), little discussion of his work, too much biographical detail. Lots of room for improvement. Avt tor 08:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC) |
Last edited at 08:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 04:37, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
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Currently the Bibliography section gives this as "(Ace, 1994)". However the (not reliable, because user edited) ISFDB lists the New English Library edition as published October 1994, citing the SF world's 'Journal of Record' Locus for this date, and the Ace edition as November 1994, and the (usually reliable) Encyclopedia of Science Fiction also credits NEL's edition as the first.
I have copies of both editions: the Ace (c) page is dated November 1994 and claims "never previously published", and the NEL's merely "First published in Great Britain in 1994" as is each's habitual style. I can believe that the Ace edition was intended to appear first (Sawyer's 'Acknowledgements', identical in both, mention only Ace editorial assistance), but Locus is highly reliable and the EoSF does not rely on ISFDB without good corroboration. I could well believe that some schedule rearrangement led to NEL's edition inadvertently appearing first.
Does anybody have another source to cross-check and determine whether the article should be amended to "(New English Library 1994)"? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.195.174.88 ( talk) 19:23, 30 June 2022 (UTC)