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" I think there's always been, to some degree, a misunderstanding about what science fiction is all about, in that it has been judged by the general public as being literature of prediction, and it isn't. "

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" When we have machines that are as intelligent - and then twice as intelligent - as we are, there is no reason why that relationship cannot be synergistic rather than antagonistic. "

Robert J. Sawyer

Relationship

Reason

Intelligent

" When I first started, my novels were set in the far future. "

" You fall into a black hole, and you are irretrievably gone from the universe. That finality has made it irresistible to writers. "

" I'm a rationalist. And I can see no evidence for a benevolent and interventionist creator. "

" I'm much more interested in writing about the things that engage and enrage me as an adult rather than in wallowing in childhood sorrows. "

Robert J. Sawyer

Childhood

" Science fiction is the WikiLeaks of science, getting word to the public about what cutting-edge research really means. "

" A short story is one idea; a novel is a whole soup of them. "

" The traditional route to success in science fiction is by making a name for yourself in short fiction, so people who read science fiction magazines will recognize your byline on a novel. "

" I'm a fiction writer, and fiction is telling the lives of unreal people. But the only way you can learn to do that well is by really understanding the lives of real people. "

" Real people are complex, contradictory, and have their own motivations - they can't just be mouthpieces for the writers' point of view. "

" I really strived to give equal weight to the two halves of my genre's name: science and fiction. "

" Print science fiction writers often do consulting for government bodies. "

" By serializing two novels in 'Analog,' the world's No. 1, best-selling science fiction magazine, I've had 200,000 words of fiction and three cover stories in that magazine. Quite an enviable record. "

" The standard model of particle physics says that the universe consists of a very small number of particles, 12, and a very small number of forces, four. If we're correct about those 12 particles and those four forces and understand how they interact, properly, we have the recipe for baking up a universe. "

" When you're changing centuries, people get curious about the future. "

" One gets a bit picky after having the success of something like 'FlashForward!' "

Robert J. Sawyer

Something

Success

" I'm often characterized as an optimistic writer, and certainly my 'Neanderthal Parallax' and 'WWW' trilogies shade toward the utopian. I like to think that's not simple naivete, but rather a reasonable approach. "

" Science fiction is about extrapolation, looking back through history, spotting a trend, and predicting where it will go. "

" The heart and soul of good writing is research; you should write not what you know but what you can find out about. "

" An agnostic is someone who believes the nature of the Divine is unknowable... and in that sense, I'm willing to subscribe to being an agnostic. "

" I'm a member of the Writers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of Canada. "

" Many science-fiction writers, such as Gregory Benford, are working scientists. Many others, such as Joe Haldeman, have advanced degrees in science. Others, like me, have backgrounds in science and technology journalism. "

Robert J. Sawyer

Technology

Journalism

" A short story is the shortest distance between two points; a novel is the scenic route. "

" Everything that I can do to ground the story in reality helps make it harder for people to be dismissive of it. "

" I frankly couldn't imagine being a series mystery-fiction writer, churning out book after book about the same viewpoint character. "

" You can't be a 21st-century science fiction writer writing about Mars without doing tips of the hat to Edgar Rice Burroughs, to Ray Bradbury, to H.G. Wells, to the guys who first put it in the public imagination that Mars was an exciting place. "

" The fact we exist merely means we exist. That's all it means. "

" Science fiction has never been about the future; it's always been about the present day whether it's Victorian England that Wells was writing about or the post-9/11 era that I'm writing about. "

" Fiction is all about vicarious experiences and getting into other people's heads in a way that no other art form lets you. "

" Whether it's created in a lab, written by a programmer, or lands on the White House lawn as a visitor from the stars, if it acts like a human being, it is a human being. "