Red Planet Blues Rocks!

Red Planet Blues:
Murder on the Mean Streets of Mars
Robert J. Sawyer
ACE April, 2013

Review by Ann Wilkes

This is the best book I've read for months! Maybe years! What's not to love? You have the Frontier (Mars), the Gold Rush (only it's a fossil rush), a Chandler-like, witty detective, extreme conditions (no atmosphere outside the dome) and cyborgs! Did I mention the body doubles and mind swapping? This book has everything! I couldn't put it down.

The detective, Alex Lomax,  is even a fan of classic movies from the forties!  He's rough around the edges with questionable morals, kind of like Bogart in those movies of old, with the same soft spot for the women and the underdogs.

Diana was standing in her topless splendor next to the bar, loading up her tray. "Hey Diana," I said, when you get off tonight, how 'bout you and me go out and paint the town . . . " I trailed off: the town was already red; the whole damned planet was.

Diana's face lit up, but Buttrick raised a beefy hand. "Not so fast, lover boy. If you've got the money to take her out, you've got the money to settle your tab."

I slipped two golden hundred-solar coins on the countertop. "That should cover it." Buttrick's eyes went as round as the coins, and he scooped them up immediately, as if he were afraid they'd disappear--which, in this joint, they probably would.

The technology and the ways it is abused raise some very interesting questions, like where does our soul live? Do we have one and does it survive our body and live on in a download of our brain? What rights does an unauthorized cyborg have? Will a duplicate be able to think any differently than the original? Does immortality get boring? What upgrades would I get? I love books that make me think, and Robert Sawyer certainly churns out a lot of them.

This is the first book I've read by this author in which the mystery is the heart of the tale and he has mastered that genre neatly, while never straying from science fiction. The mystery involved so many reversals and plot twists which I totally didn't see coming that it kept me guessing throughout.

Read two interviews, one in 2009 and one in 2011 with Rob by yours truly, right here on Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys.  The 2011 interview includes a review of www.Wonder.

Robert J. Sawyer on www:Wonder

www:Wonder
by Robert J. Sawyer
April 2011 Ace

Reviewed by Ann Wilkes

Robert Sawyer's final book of the WWW trilogy, www:Wonder, capped the series off in a very satisfying, thought-provoking manner. I have read and reviewed the other two: www:Wake and www:WATCH. In this final book, we see Caitlin growing up and facing even harder choices. Her Dad. Malcolm Decter, is thrust even more on the forefront of the wave that is Webmind. We see him fight for his family and Webmind and come out of the closet, not as an autistic, as the reader is lead to believe, but as a … no, I can't spoil that one. You just have to read it.

In www:Wake, Caitlin Decter discovers Webmind through a fluke of science. Born blind, Caitlin is fitted with a device that unscrambles the signals from her eye to her brain, restoring sight to one of her eyes. This device is what made it possible to see the World Wide Web and the intelligence emerging within.

In www:WATCH, Caitlin and her family are hounded by a government organization tasked with destroying Webmind as the threat they perceive it (or rather "he" as he has chosen to identify himself) to be.

www:Wonder explores more of what it is to be Webmind. How can he prove that he won't turn on his progenitors? What can he do to prove his loyalty? In www:WATCH, he eradicated spam. What's next? How does he know he will always seek the betterment of the human condition and peace for humanity as Caitlan has taught him? These are the questions expertly addressed in this volume.

Convinced that Webmind is preparing some evil endgame, the Pentagon's top AI expert Colonel Peyton Hume begins to round up the world's best hackers to construct a virus for him, only to learn they' each disappeared right before he got to them.

He'd tried last night to contact three more names on the black-hat list. He'd been unable to get hold on one—which could mean anything, he knew; another was indeed missing, according to her devastated boyfriend; and the third told Hume to cram it up his ass…

"Yeah, I'll go into the office," he said. "And I'll check with the FBI again, see if they've got any leads. The guy I talked to yesterday agreed it was a suspicious pattern—maybe even a serial killer; he called it the 'hacker whacker.' But the only blood at Chase's place was his own, and there's no sign of foul play in the other cases, they say."

She snuggled closer to him in the dark. "You'll do the right thing," she said. "As always."

The alarm went off. He let it ring, wishing the whole world could hear it.

When Hume finally catches up with the hackers, the truth is shocking. Webmind's power cannot be questioned, but he still has limitations for which he needs thinking humans. With the help of an anonymous activist in the Peoples Republic of China and this assembled team of experts, Webmind performs his demonstration, the scale of which is staggering — and hilarious. You'll really experience the urge to stand up and cheer. And wish it could all be true. Truly a feel-good ending.

Another aspect that made me smile for pages and pages was that Webmind chose the bonobo-chimpanzee half-breed Hobo as the vehicle of his presence when addressing the United Nations. Hobo is only too happy to aid the friend who helped him come to terms with his identity and speak out for his own rights(www:Wake). Here it is in Webmind's words:

"There would be confusion between me and the machine. I am not a robot, and I don't wish to be perceived as one; also, the fear would be that if I controlled one robot, I might soon control millions. Hobo is unique like me: I am the only Webmind; he is the only bonobo-chimpanzee hybrid. No one can confuse Hobo for me, and no one can worry that there will soon be an army of such beings under my command."

I highly recommend this trilogy. If you haven't read any of them yet, then you don't have to wait in between books now. Lucky you.

****

Rob consented to another Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys interview. Yeah me! Or, as Caitlin would say, "Supreme wootage!" (author photo by Christina Molendyk of Argent Dawn Photography, Calgary)


AW: I truly loved the WWW trilogy. When you're done with a long project like that, do you miss it and the characters, or are you sick to death of it from rewriting and editing?

RJS: Honestly, it's the latter. Don't get me wrong -- I love Caitlin and the other characters, but I spent six years of my life, off and on, working on the WWW trilogy; that's the longest I've ever worked on anything ever. I was very happy to finish the project and move on to something else. Still, I think the WWW trilogy is the best thing I've ever written, or probably ever will write.

AW: I loved that you addressed autism and did it so well. Not to mention the disability of blindness. It's so important to speak up for marginalized, misunderstood and persecuted people. The long discussion with Barbara Decter over who or what was next with granting rights was great. Who instilled your compassion for the underdogs of society?

RJS: My parents. It's funny, because they both went to the University of Chicago to study economics, and, first, that institution isn't known for a particularly compassionate breed of economics, and, second, in general, economics is rightly called the dismal science. But my parents were typical left-leaning academics and I grew up in the 1960s. I was taught to always try to see the other person's point of view, and my mother -- a feminist who often used her maiden name professionally in the 1960s, when that was rare -- certainly helped to set the template for Caitlin's mother.

It's also no coincidence that Caitlin's mom is a Unitarian. I don't practice that religion -- or any -- myself now, but I was raised a Unitarian, and Unitarians are very inclusive, compassionate people.

AW: You really got me with your bait and switch. I thought Caitlin's dad was going to out himself as autistic. Good job!

RJS: Thank you. That's one of my favorite scenes. Part of the whole underlying theme of the trilogy is that you can be moral without God; it's a message that people need to hear. I argue in the series, based on game theory, for nonzero-sumness: that it's possible to have win-win situations that make sense, and aren't just the result of the threat of punishment or reward in some putative afterlife; the payoff matrix is real, in the here and now, and tends toward altruism and cooperation.

AW: Can you tell me a bit about the protagonist of the new book and the premise?

RJS: I'm just finishing up my -- gak! -- 21st novel, with the working title of Triggers. It's about post-traumatic stress disorder, the scientific nature of memory, and an attempt to assassinate the US president. It's a large ensemble cast -- the most characters I've ever had in a novel -- but I suppose if I had to name one as the lead, it would be Susan Dawson, who is Secret Service agent-in-charge of the president's protective detail. I like that I'm doing a book in which the main character is not an academic or a scientist for a change.

AW: I'm glad you're addressing PTSD. So many people suffer from it.

RJS: It's a huge issue, and it's not just related to war, of course. I'm not prepared to publicly go into it at this stage, but I will say one of the epiphanies of my last couple of years is that I suffer to a degree from PTSD; recognizing that has finally let me begin to deal with it. I'm trying, as always, to handle the issue sensitively in the novel.

AW: How's the research for the new book coming? I hear you visited the White House.

RJS: The research is done; I'm in the final writing stages -- the book is due in less than two months. I didn't actually visit the White House, but did get amazing behind-the-scenes tours of the George Washington University Hospital, which is where much of the action is set, and of the US Capitol Building. And, of course, I did tons of research on PTSD and memory.

AW: You still seem to be the personable, down-to-earth guy you were before your brush with Hollywood. :) Can you tell me briefly what that was like? The highs and lows? Long days, celeb dinners, etc.?

RJS: Honestly? There were no lows. That's why Hollywood is so seductive for many people; as long as you're working, it's an incredible place to be. Sure, the days are long, but so what? You're having a blast every second! I seriously think about moving there from time to time (and not just because Toronto just had another snow storm!).

In terms of highs, well, there were so many great moments, it's hard to choose -- but getting to go to a taping of The Big Bang Theory, sitting in the VIP section of the audience, and then going to the after-party with the cast was pretty amazing.

AW: You wrote at least one of the episodes. Do you have plans of writing more screenplays? Do you ever toy with going straight to a screenplay rather than adapting a book?

RJS: I wrote the 19th episode, "Course Correction," and little bits and pieces of dialog throughout the series -- the staff writers would come to me for technical or science stuff. I'd written scripts before that had been commissioned, but hadn't been produced, and I'm sure I'll do more scriptwriting again. I did an original series pilot a little while ago that was ultimately not made -- the fate of most series pilots -- although I was well paid for it ... and I'm actually thinking of now turning that into a novel. My degree is in Radio and Television Arts from Toronto's Ryerson University; I've always been interested in TV, and one could argue that I merely got sidetracked for a couple of decades into writing for print.

Also, the money is seductive, I have to say: a TV script and a short story have about the same number of words in them. But you're lucky to get six cents a word for the short story, whereas guild minimum for scripts works out to about six dollars a word.

AW: Isn't there an option on another of your books?

RJS: There are always options on various books of mine; I think there are five under option at the moment. It's a nice secondary income stream.

AW: You've been doing a lot of touring with these books, both at bookstores and conventions. Do you have a couple survival tips for staying healthy, rested and sane when on the road so much?

RJS: Yes. Arrange in advance for friends to meet you at the airport, or to go out to dinner with them, in whatever city you're going to. It takes the loneliness out of it. I'm doing five cities in the next week, and I've got a nice dinner date lined up in each city. That really helps to make it something to look forward to instead of a grind.

AW: Where can your fans find you in the next month or so to get www: Wonder signed?

RJS: My travel schedule is at http://sfwriter.com/lnappear.htm.


Editor's Note: If you haven't read my first interview with Rob, you can find it herein. And don't forget to check out his website.

Secret Technology - Is It More Dangerous?

I was listening to NPR last week when a news story came on about how legal bans on texting while driving may actually be increasing the number of accidents and fatalities where such laws are now in place. ( NPR STORY LINK )

The concept here is simple enough: if someone is texting while driving, they are distracted. In the two to five seconds their eyes are targeting something other than the road, they can run through a red light or over a pedestrian. If someone is texting while driving, but taking extra care to not be seen doing it, their eyes might be further away from the road, and for longer periods of time.

What plagued me about this story was the idea that technology, secret technology, might be more dangerous than technology that is known and used out in the open. This seems to me to be very much a science fiction theme. But how would this play out with other technologies? What other credible parallels can be drawn?

Part of the answer depends on what one considers to be a 'technology'. I'm rather nerdly, yet I use a fairly low-tech standard ... if I can't make it in my garage using stuff left over from the last time I fixed my backyard gate, it's a technology. (This says not very much about my gate maintenance skills, I know.)

So what are some viable candidates for this discussion? Putting the moral issues aside, because that is not what we are talking about, there are a lot of things we do as individuals to utilize technology which are not necessarily done under public scrutiny. One example: drugs. Are secret drugs, those taken illicitly, without prescription and without public knowledge, more dangerous than prescribed, legal drugs? That seems likely for a number of reasons, whether the drug is heroin, alcohol, or steroids. What about abortions? Surely the procedure of abortion could be considered a technology. Would a secret abortion be more dangerous than one performed in a public medical facility? That would also seem a reasonable conclusion.

Turning this around, I thought to look at what might be considered protective technologies, something secret that is not necessarily being done to our bodies. Would these stand up to the same sort of basic "known-is-good ... secret-is-bad" test? Let's try a couple of examples. What about bullet-proof vests? You know ... the Kevlar things they wear on all the cop shows. Would wearing one secretly put the wearer in more danger? Or less? It depends, I suppose, on how many people are trying to kill you and if they are good enough to make a headshot.

How about home alarm systems? Would a secret alarm system make one safer? That is a good question, since here we have slipped into the area of deterrence. Would the "Protected by ACME Alarms" sign on your front lawn prevent would-be burglars from breaking in any more or less than the alarm system itself? Possibly, at least if your would-be burglar could see the sign, could read it, and believed it was true (that you had the system, not just the sticker). ( eHow Alarm Stick Link )

In keeping with my ready love of all things post-apocalyptic, extending the idea to nuclear deterrence as well seemed a next logical step. Is a country with nuclear weapons somehow safer from its neighbors than a country without them? The more I thought about this, the more the whole model of the technology-secret-danger relationship became muddled up and twisted in my mind.

I finally reached a conclusion that makes some sense to me. In this new, simplified model I look at myself as a natural biotechnology, a human body, using technology as an amplifier, a mechanism to extend my basic capabilities. If I choose to "juice up" my bio-engine with some sort of drug technology, and I amplify it too much, I could die. This is true if I choose to use some illicit street drug or if I overmedicate on a prescription drug. Some statistics suggest, in fact, that the number of deaths per year in the US from accidental overdose of prescription drugs far exceeds the number of deaths from illegal drug use. So, secret or no, if I jack up my body, I might die. On the other hand, if I put on armor, such as a bullet-proof vest, to boost my body's ability to reject projectiles, I probably am safer overall, regardless of whether people know I have the vest or not.

Does this model extend if the "organism" is a nation, using nuclear technology? Probably.

Why? Because ultimately, all technology amplifies something more fundamental than our attack strength, our defensive strength, or our ability to communicate with friends near and far. Technology amplifies our basic natures: if we are behaving in a fundamentally stupid way, our technology will help make those stupid things we are doing more collossally stupid and the consequences more catastrophic. This applies to individuals as well as Group Organisms like nations.

Ultimately, all technology has the power to extend the reach of our own stupidity. The preoccupied teenager driving past the mall up the street, texting behind the wheel of mom's Ford Bronco really is, by virtue of her rolling two tons of steel, somewhat more dangerous than her Amish counterpart reading a book behind the reigns of his horse and buggy on some rural road.

I would prefer not to be run over by either of them.
________________________________________
The Event - A new science fiction show from NBC. If you have not seen it, catch it. If we don't watch these emerging broadcast TV science fiction shows, they might stop making them.
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Changing Your Mind - This CBC documentary, airing again on October 14, sheds light on some fascinating new developments in neuroscience. SF author Robert J. Sawyer says this show offers some clues as to the subject matter of his next novel.
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Justin Stanchfield in October Analog - In addition to its other fine fact and fiction offerings, this month's Analog includes an interesting story of ecoterrorism, genetic destiny, and love in space from writing colleague Justin Stanchfield. His story appears to be at least part of the inspiration for Stanley Schmidt’s “Science and Simplicity” editorial in this issue. Buy a copy.
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"Live" Mystery Science Theater 3000? Close enough. Check out this multi-theater event, being conducted nationwide this October 28th. RIFFTRAX LIVE: House on Haunted Hill
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A special thanks to Ann for bringing me on board as Staff Blogger here at SFOO. I promised her I would keep my accounts of alien abduction, spiritual rebirth, political revolution, and personal hygiene to a minimum. My intent is to maintain her fine standards and continue to share information of interest to science fiction fans including those who are also writers of speculative fiction. If you have some good info, please send those useful data bits on to her and to me as well.

- D. E. Helbling
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Telling on my friends

Emilie Bush's Chenda and the Airship Brofman is a quarter-finalist in the
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Competition! Of the 5000 entered in its
category, hers is in the top 250.

Lancer Kind's story, "KanjiKiss", was translated and published in the biggest sf mag on the planet. Bet you don't know which magazine that is.

Seanan McGuire's Late Eclipses and The Brightest Fell (Toby Daye books four and five) have officially been acquired by DAW Books.

Robert Sawyer reports: "Still too soon to announce which property, but had an amazing meeting today with the director, the screenwriter, the star, and two of the executive producers for an adaptation of one of my novels ... "

Finally, though I refuse to twitter, I know others thrive on it. And I love lists.
100 Fun Twitter Feeds for Serious Sci-Fi Geeks





vote it up!

Story in online mag, SF news and writing progress

My story, "The Visitor" is up over at Chaos Theory: Tales Askew. Also there is a story by fellow Broad Universe member, April Grey. And an article about Book View Cafe by another BU member and friend, Sue Lange.

The story is an oldie, but a goodie. Of course I would say it's good, right? Imagine that you're on a supposedly uninhabited planet and the rest of your team is out exploring. Now imagine you see a creature. Imagine you don't know if you just imagined it...

I finished editing my new SF flash fiction piece. It's getting a once over from beta readers before it goes out the door. I'm anxious to finish the other new story and start on a Lavratt story, but have been barely keeping up this week. Just realized I didn't blog yesterday. In fact I did nothing but eat and crash when I got home from work.

My local writer's club is hosting a conference in October in Santa Rosa, CA. I'll be presenting on Developing Your Online Presence.

Two of my favorite writers have big news:

Robert J. Sawyer's Flash Forward series will air in September! :)

Ben Bova's B-Four Prods. and Red Giant Media are developing a feature adaptation of The Immortality Factor which came out in April.

Reading The Book from the Sky by Robert Kelley and Valis by Philip K. Dick at the same time. What a trippy tandem!!!


vote it up!

Wake review and Sawyer and Ellison in the news

My review of Wake by Rober J. Sawyer is finally up over at Mostly Fiction.

I'm looking forward to www.Watch.

In other news, Rob's book, Calculating God won the Audio Publishers Association's Audie Award for Best SF/F Audio Book of the Year.

Check out this audio interview with Harlan Ellison. It's a hoot. You can find it at Studio 360, Public Radio International’s Peabody Award-winning, nationally syndicated weekly show about creativity, pop culture and the arts, hosted by Kurt Andersen.

Did you know that Ellison was tracked down by the Pinkerton detective agency as a youth after running away to join the circus. He also reads from one of his short stories "Jeffty is Five". He also says that his 15 minutes of fame have lasted since the 60s as though it's just a fluke.

A doco on Ellison, Dreams with Sharp Teeth, is now available on DVD.

For those interested, I've added photos to the previous post from BayCon.

Left coast con updates and other tidbits

As I begin to gear up for BayCon Memorial weekend, in San Jose, I thought I'd bring you some science fiction convention news.

First of all, the latest for BayCon:
The Celtic folk band, Tempest, will playing.
Unfortunately, little else has been updated there. I'm sure they'll pull everything together soon for another amazing convention. Author guests of honor are: Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

FiestaCon (WesterCon) is in Tempe, AZ July 2-5, 2009. And they have Alan Dean Foster! I'll be giving a talk at an East Bay library instead. It's a bit far afield for me here in the North Bay.

And this just in from World Fantasy Convention 2009 in San Jose, October 29th to November 1st:
More guests of honor announced as follows:
* Lisa Snellings
* Michael Swanwick
* Ann VanderMeer
* Jeff VanderMeer
And Jay Lake will be Toastmaster.

Have you purchased your ticket yet? Do so here.

I received my official invite to SpoCon 2009 today in Spokane, WA. It's a new little con with lots of class.

Here's a handy convention finder to find a con near you.

I know you're wondering why I haven't blogged about the new Star Trek movie yet. Well, I haven't seen it yet. :( I put it off until Mothers Day and ended up letting my son beat me at pool instead. Ah well, much more sociable. I'll see it this week for sure, and there's no shortage of reviews for the movie anyhow.

Make sure to scoot on over to sfsignal for this fun little video showing George Lucas' reaction to the Star Trek movie.

I just finished WAKE and can only say WOW! Now that's an ending. I know I've said this before, but darn it, this is MY blog, and I'm going to say it again (perhaps better this time). When a reader picks up a book to read, he or she expects at least three things from that book: a beginning, a middle and an end. Just because it's a volume of a larger work, does not mean you can cheat the reader out of a satisfying ending. I understand the need for a bit of a cliffhanger to have them come back for more, but when they have to wait a year or two for the next volume, you can't leave them with next to nothing resolved.

Robert J. Sawyer's WAKE had a superb ending. The full review will be forthcoming at Mostly Fiction soon.

More news from Rob. ABC purchased 13 episodes of the series Flash Forward, an adaptation his book by the same title. He's a National Post article with more info.

Interview with Robert J. Sawyer

Robert J. Sawyer, science fiction author of 19 books, is on tour with the first book of his new trilogy, WWW:Wake. Imagine the internet waking up! Becoming aware of itself. No, this isn't fantasy, this is hard science fiction delivered by a master. My review of Wake will be available over at Mostly Fiction soon.

For now, enjoy the interview below.


Rob's signing at Borderlands in San Francisco on April 13th.

April 11, 2009

AW: I read that you knew what you needed to do to make it as a SF novelist as your 30th birthday approached. Can you describe that process and how you knew you could make it as a novelist?

RJS: That was twenty years ago, when I was 28. I’d been talking since I was 15 about being a science-fiction writer, and, indeed, had sold a few stories, starting when I was 19. But I realized at 28 that the big three-oh was about to roll around without me ever having made the time to write a novel; I was just letting other things—mostly the lucrative freelance nonfiction work I was doing back then—distract me from that.

And so, even though my wife and I were saving to buy a home, I made the difficult decision to turn down guaranteed work to clear time to write a novel that I didn’t know for sure would sell. It was a total gamble—and I wasn’t at all sure it was going to pay off. Of course, in retrospect, it was the right thing to do, but it was a very scary move.

The bottom line, though, was that I realized I’d rather try and fail at it than never have tried at all; I’d never forgive myself if I let another decade slip by without taking my shot.

AW: Do some of your books seem to write themselves? Were any of your books a struggle?

RJS: All of my books have been a struggle—because I’m always challenging myself to do something that I consider difficult; if the book is coming too easily or too quickly, it means I’m not being ambitious enough.

Wake was one of the very hardest; it took four years on and off to do. Most of that was because of my own skepticism about the premise: I had a hard time believing the World Wide Web was going to wake up, and finding a scenario that rang true for me was difficult. Also, getting both the nascent consciousness’s voice and the voice of the blind 15-year-old main human character right was a lot of hard, hard work.

AW: How much time do you spend on rewrites?

RJS: Lots—at least as much time as I spend on the first draft, and sometimes twice as much. I find doing the first draft to be excruciatingly hard work, but I love doing revision. I liken it to being a sculptor who first has to make his or her own clay; that’s no fun at all, but once you’ve got the clay, molding it is a blast. I pride myself on handing in very clean copy, and leaving my editors, and even my copyeditors, very little to complain about.

AW: Who is your favorite SF author? Why?

RJS: Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Like me, he was a skeptic, and a rationalist, but he wasn’t afraid to grapple with metaphysical questions, and no one has ever done a better job of generating that sense of wonder science fiction is famous for than him.

AW: Tell me about your most memorable book tour moment.

RJS: In public school in Toronto, one of my best friends was a boy named Rice—but he moved away to Vancouver, British Columbia, in the 1970s and and I never saw him again. Well, two years ago, I was on tour for my novel Rollback in Calgary, Alberta—thousands of kilometers from Toronto and hundreds from Vancouver. The store I was signing at put a large sign out on the sidewalk in front of the store. Rice happened to be in Calgary on business and he literally walked into the sign, almost knocking it over—and he recognized my name, and came in to the store. It was an absolutely wonderful reunion.

AW: Do you ever write free-hand when nothing else is available when you get inspired? If yes, what’s the strangest thing you’ve used for paper?

RJS: I wish I could, but in 1985 I went through a plate-glass window and severed the tendons in my right hand, which is the one I write with. They stitched them back together, but the hand just doesn’t work as well as it should. I can type for hours on end, but I can’t do more than a few lines in longhand, sadly. So, I’m lucky to live in the computer age: I was an early adopter and have always been one of the first to buy the newest, smallest computers, so I can always have one with me to let me write whenever the mood strikes me.

AW: In WWW:Wake, how did you get the teenage girl so authentic? Did you have help with that or a ready model?

RJS: I spent a lot of time reading blog postings and Facebook postings by teenagers, and talking to teenage girls—including my own wonderful nieces and the daughters of friends. I really worked hard to make the voice authentic, and I had a number of teenagers read the novel in manuscript to check to be sure that I got it right.

AW: In WWW:Wake, you tease the reader with snippets from an awakening, an entity discovering consciousness. Did you do any research on human awareness for this?

RJS: I did years of research on that topic. I’ve been researching human consciousness and perception for over a decade now—and using that material in novels such as Factoring Humanity and Mindscan. To me, the single most interesting area of science right now is consciousness studies, and I love the way it combines computer science, neurobiology, quantum physics, and so many other disciplines.

AW: Your characters are so believable and have such depth. Do you model them after real people?

RJS: I model them after bunches of people: I take a little bit from person A and a little bit from person B, and so on. If you make a character based on a real person, then you have obligations to that real person—and you can’t turn the character into a murderer or a psycho or whatever, even if that’s what the story calls for. But a composite—well, a composite can do anything.

AW: Have you had any interesting or unusual speaking invitations from the scientific community or elsewhere in response to WWW:Wake?

RJS: Yes, indeed! I’m going to Penn—the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia—on May 6, 2009, to speak to the students and faculty at their new Center for Neuroscience and Society about the book, and when I was writing WWW:Wake, I was invited to the Googleplex—the international headquarters of Google—where I gave a talk on the notion of the World Wide Web gaining consciousness.

AW: Do you have any plans of revisiting the world of Hominids?

RJS: I’d love to. I think Caitlin Decter—the girl in WWW:Wake—is my favorite of all the characters I’ve created, but Ponter Boddit, the Neanderthal quantum physicist in Hominids and its sequels, is a close second. I really like to do social commentary with my science fiction, and those books were an ideal setup for that, a look at how our world might have been if it had been in the hands of a more peaceful, more environmentally aware, and more secular kind of humanity.

AW: What’s next?

RJS: I just finished final revisions on WWW:Watch, the sequel to WWW:Wake. Everyone is saying it’s even better than Wake, which is very gratifying. Although I think Wake tells a complete story, Watch takes things even further in the development of Caitlin and the consciousness on the Web—and it tries to answer the question of why evolution gave us consciousness in the first place.

firsts

I received payment today for my first paid non-fiction piece (not counting the salary from the day job, which is all non-fiction). I think I shall photocopy it before I cash it and file it away with my first check for a short story sale.

I'm looking forward to meeting Robert J. Sawyer in person on Monday at his Wake signing at Borderlands books in San Francisco. If you're local, don't miss it. If you're not, you can at least read my interview with him on Friday.

I'm also very excited about a talk I'm giving at a library in San Ramon. I think it will have to make the rounds. :) "Exploring 'what ifs' to unleash riveting stories"

Here's another first: I saw a great book in the SFBC (Science Fiction Book Club) catalog and asked my editor at Mostly Fiction if she could get it for me. And she did! :) That's my kind of shopping. Oh, did you want to know what the book was? The Temporal Void, by Peter F. Hamilton.

Went clothes shopping today. I'm a disgrace to my gender, I guess. I hate shopping. Any kind. The point was to take my daughter shopping for clothes for her birthday. I ended up with more clothes than she did. Why? Because I knew I wasn't likely to shop for clothes again for another year.

I would like to wish all my readers a very happy Easter and all my fellow Orthodox Christians a wonderful Palm Sunday tomorrow.