Robert J. Sawyer – Page 13

Review of Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Review

Calculating God
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 12 hours – [Unabridged]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2008
ISBN: None
Themes: / Science Fiction / Aliens / Paleontology / Religion / Philosophy / Space Travel /

One of the things I enjoy most about reviewing audiobooks is that I get to revisit novels that I’ve read and loved in the past. When these beloved novels are given great readers (not always the case), I can’t wait to get at them. Calculating God is one of those novels, and Jonathan Davis is an excellent narrator, so this audiobook leapt to the top of my TBR list the moment I realized it existed.

Jonathan Davis burst onto the science fiction scene with his stellar narration of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (SFFaudio review here). Since then, in the science fiction genre, he’s been almost exclusively reading Random House’s Star Wars abridgments. He reads them well, but I was thrilled to see him step away from that and narrate another of science fiction’s great novels. He is one of our very best narrators and this is a fine performance. I was rapt the entire time, and even near tears at one moment in the book.

When I read this novel for the first time, I was a bit taken aback. I am a Catholic and I’ve been reading science fiction all of my life. I have never had a problem reconciling science and religion and have been both perplexed and dismayed that Christianity is portrayed so often as being incompatible with science. It’s certainly true that for many Christian churches this conflict is real, but those churches are not Catholic churches, despite the most famous illustration of the conflict being the Catholic treatment of Galileo. I tell everyone who cares that Galileo was an aberration in the history of the Church (not the norm), but still, it was a colossal (though admitted) mistake. But for myself, science and religion are NOT in conflict. I’ve included a link at the bottom of this review to an interview of Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Vatican astronomer that aired on CBC Radio as an illustration of a Catholic’s relationship with science. Robert J. Sawyer is mentioned in the interview as well.

Back to the novel at hand: The reason I was taken aback when I first read this book was that it’s the first novel I’ve ever read in which the aliens believe in God. That in itself makes this book interesting enough to pick up. Imagine – an alien lands on your front doorstep and starts to question your doubts about the existence of God. Most science fiction portrays religion as something that is grown through or evolved past. By the time an alien species is mature enough for stellar travel, surely they have jettisoned religion? There’s no place for such a thing in a rational, scientific universe. Right?

Well, not according to this novel. Sawyer presents, in a very entertaining and interesting way, arguments for and against God’s existence. The main character (Tom Jericho) is a paleontologist who is dying of cancer. An alien (named Hollus) lands near the Royal Ontario Museum and strolls right in, asking to see the fossils. And off the novel goes. Jericho and Hollus spend much of the novel together looking at fossils and discussing various topics that range from the wide, including mass extinctions and evolution, to the intimately personal, like the approaching death of Jericho. I can think of no better way to present these topics than this lively novel, and I’ll recommend it to anyone interested in thinking about these things, no matter which side of the fence they are on.

Sawyer uses science fiction to create circumstances that make us readers think about important ideas in different ways and from different perspectives. That’s exactly the kind of science fiction I love to read, and why I’ll keep coming back to Robert J. Sawyer for more. I’m very happy to have had a chance to revisit this novel, and even happier to be able to award it our SFFaudio Essential designation.

Audible.com has published a few more of Robert J. Sawyer’s novels: The Neanderthal Trilogy is there (Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids). They also have his Nebula winning novel The Terminal Experiment, published by Recorded Books. We reviewed it back in 2003.

Robert J. Sawyer’s Calculating God page: LINK

A link to a CBC interview of Brother Guy Consolmagno, Vatican Astronomer: LINK

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Audible.com and Blackstone Audio Royalties

SFFaudio News

Robert J. Sawyer, in answer to a question about the royalties he gets on the sale of his audiobooks, writes:

“~~…on royalties, Audible pays –% (either of the flat-out purchase price, or the purchase cost of the applicable “Audible Listener Credit” applied). Audible doesn’t do any physical product.~~ Blackstone Audio does, though, and they pay:

Rental and Retail 10% of net receipts
Direct internet download 15% of net receipts
Download via (sublicensed) 3rd party 40% of net receipts (that is 40% of whatever they get from Audible or other online retailers).

Net receipts is a tricky phrase: it’s NOT that I get 10% of the price you, the consumer, pays on the cassettes/CDs, but 10% of the portion of that price the bookseller passes on to the publisher — making the effective royalty about 6% of cover price.

So, the royalties are pretty darn small, but, then again, they’re small on books, too (8% on mass-market paperbacks is typical; 7.5% on large format trade-paperbacks; 10% on hardcovers – although at least those amounts are percentages of cover price).

All that said, I’m into five figures on audio-book income actually received so far this year, so I’m not complaining too much (although all of that is advances against royalties, or other licensing fees).”

$??,??? just in audiobook revenues in less than 5 months!

[via the Robert J. Sawyer Yahoo! Group]

Posted by Jesse Willis

UPDATE ON JUNE 4th 2008 Rob Sawyer asked me to remove the Audible.com figures from this post (due to a non-disclosure agreement he has with Audible.com). I’ve done so because I’m nice and he asked me nicely. I like Rob and don’t want to screw up something he was kindly, but mistakenly, telling his readers about.

Hypaspace Podcast interviews: Shatner, Sawyer, Takei, Hopkinson, Wilson + MORE

SFFaudio Online Audio

The HypaSpace podcast, which is put out by Space: The Imagination Station, talks about the Aurora Awards, and talks to Nalo Hopkinson, Robert J. Sawyer, William Shatner, George Takei, Alessandro Julianni, and Robert Charles Wilson in the latest podcast. Have a listen |MP3| or subscribe to the feed via THIS LINK.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Orthopedic Horseshoes: Robert J. Sawyer, Dave Degraff, James Alan Gardner, and Edo van Belkom

SFFaudio Online Audio

I’ve had the same email account since 1999 so I get a lot of spam. Thankfully I’m also got pretty good at spotting it. But one item caught my eye right before I was about to blast it into electronic nothingness. The subject line was:

“Orthopedic Horseshoes”

Orthopedic Horseshoes? Is this yet another Nigerian Prince scam – but gone horribly wrong? Or are they just really working hard to find euphemisms for “penis enlarger” (how many does one man need anyway)? So, I clicked on it.

It turns out it wasn’t a scam at all! That’s the name of a show! Details follow:

Dan Gurzynski and some of his friends work on a monthly podcast called Orthopedic Horseshoes, it’s a “show where cranky old men discourse on American society and media.” It seems the OH crew recently visited Erie Con in Niagara Falls, NY. And so, starting May 9, 2008 they’ll feature interviews with the likes of Robert J. Sawyer, Dave Degraff, James Alan Gardner, and Edo van Belkom.
I’ve listened to the first few shows in the podcast feed and they’re funny and full of literary SF references. You can listen to the “Audio Stream” version HERE, or subscribe to the podcast via this feed:

itpc://orthohorseshoes.mypodcast.com/rss.xml

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals – Joe Haldeman and Robert J. Sawyer

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Hot out of the microphones and into SFFaudio’s Audible Accounts, two Science Fiction titles from Audible Frontiers…

First up, a Joe Haldeman story that I first heard about on Prisoners Of Gravity, which is always a source for good Science Fiction!

The Hemingway Hoax
By Joe Haldeman; Read by Eric Michael Summerer
Audible Download – 4 Hours 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
The hoax proposed to John Baird by a two-bit con man in a seedy Key West bar was shady but potentially profitable. With little left to lose, the struggling, middle-aged Hemingway scholar agreed to forge a manuscript and pass it off as Papa’s lost masterpiece. But Baird never realized his actions would shatter the history of his own Earth – and others. And now the unsuspecting academic is trapped out of time – propelled through a series of grim parallel worlds and pursued by an interdimensional hitman with a literary license to kill.

Intelligent design and creationism versus the fossil record, it should be a slam-dunk, until the alien arrives…

Calculating God
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 12 Hours and 4 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: 2008
An alien walks into a museum and asks if he can see a paleontologist. But the arachnid ET hasn’t come aboard a rowboat with the Pope and Stephen Hawking (although His Holiness does request an audience later). Landing at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the spacefarer, Hollus, asks to compare notes on mass extinctions with resident dino-scientist Thomas Jericho. A shocked Jericho finds that not only does life exist on other planets, but that every civilization in the galaxy has experienced extinction events at precisely the same time. Armed with that disconcerting information (and a little help from a grand unifying theory), the alien informs Jericho, almost dismissively, that the primary goal of modern science is to discover why God has behaved as he has and to determine his methods. BONUS AUDIO: Author Robert J. Sawyer explains how the creationism vs. evolution debate informed the writing of Calculating God.

Posted by Jesse Willis

New Releases – AUDIBLE Piles it on with Robert J. Sawyer, Harry Turtledove, Fritz Leiber, Mike Resnick, John Scalzi AND LOTS MORE!

New Releases

Here are a few of the new Audible Frontiers titles that are rapidly populating the Science Fiction and Fantasy section of Audible.com. First up, Robert J. Sawyer’s much acclaimed ‘Anthropological / Alternate Universe’ trilogy…

Hominids: The Neanderthal Parallax, Book 1
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 11 Hours and 25 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
Neanderthals have developed a radically different civilization on a parallel Earth. A Neanderthal physicist, Ponter Boddit, accidentally passes from his universe into a Canadian underground research facility. Fortunately, a team of human scientists, including expert paleo-anthropologist Mary Vaughan, promptly identifies and warmly receives Ponter. Solving the language problem and much else is a mini-computer, called a Companion, implanted in the brain of every Neanderthal. A computerized guardian spirit, however, doesn’t eliminate cross-cultural confusion; permanent male-female sexuality, rape, and overpopulation are all alien to Ponter. Nor can it help his housemate and fellow scientist back in his world, Adikor Huld, when the authorities charge Adikor with his murder. BONUS AUDIO: Author Robert J. Sawyer explains why Ponter Boddit is his favorite among all the characters he’s created.

Humans: The Neanderthal Parallax, Book 2
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 11 Hours 38 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
Neanderthal physicist Ponder Boddit brings Canadian geneticist Mary Vaughan back to his world to explore the near-utopian civilization of the Neanderthals. Boddit serves as a Candide figure, the naive visitor whose ignorance about our society makes him a perfect tool to analyze human tendencies toward violence, over-population, and environmental degradation. The Neanderthals have developed a highly artistic, ethical, and scientific culture without ever inventing farming – they’re still hunters and gatherers – and this allows the author to make some interesting and generally unrecognized points about the downside of the discovery of agriculture. BONUS AUDIO: Author Robert J. Sawyer explains why one particular chapter of Humans is his very favorite.

Hybrids: The Neanderthal Parallax, Book 3
By Robert J. Sawyer; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 11 Hours and 53 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
Scientists (and lovers) Mary Vaughan, who is human, and Ponter Boddit, who is Neanderthal, embark on the harrowing adventure of conceiving a child together. To overcome the genetic barbed wire of mismatched chromosomes, they must use banned technology obtainable only from a Neanderthal scientist living in the northern wilderness.
BONUS AUDIO: Author Robert J. Sawyer reveals the “secret history” of The Neanderthal Parallax trilogy.

I read this novel in paperbook format, it’s a very interesting exploration of both intelligent design and creationism. It’s like a visit to a natural history museum with Robert J. Sawyer…

A Hugo Award nominee that I haven’t heard much about…

Forty, Counting Down & Twenty-One, Counting Up
By Harry Turtledove; Read by Victor Bevine
Audible Download – 4 Hours and 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
Harry Turtledove, the master of alternate history, turns to time travel in these two related novellas that range from fantastic to oddly familiar to eerily prescient.
Computer genius Justin Kloster travels to the past to stop himself from making a terrible mistake. But all actions have their consequences. Then, in Twenty-One, Counting Up, Kloster’s college life and romantic dreams are rudely interrupted when the 40-year-old Justin arrives from the future to save him from himself.

I distinctly remember reading this story in a paper SF magazine when it was first published. It’s a memorable Mediterranean adventure and a Hugo Award Winner!

Down in the Bottomlands
By Harry Turtledove; Read by Victor Bevine
Audible Download – 4 Hours 13 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
In the Hereditary Tyranny of Tartesh, what was once a vast sea basin is now a dried-out, unforgiving desert. When the kingdom’s enemies try to shake down the Barrier Mountains and let the ocean in, Trench Park tour guide Radnal vez Krobir must stop them or be destroyed along with everything he holds dear.

Winner of the Nebula and Hugo Awards for best novella, Mike Resnick, recommendation enough…

Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge
By Mike Resnick; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 2 Hours 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
Thousands of years after mankind has become extinct, a party of alien archaeologists try to learn the mysteries of mankind as they excavate in a gorge on Earth. This Hugo and Nebula Award winning novella by Mike Resnick is a gripping exploration of human origins and motivations.

This should be very cool, and Audible Frontiers is adding more from this series…

Starship: Mutiny, Book 1
By Mike Resnick; Read by Jonathan Davis
Audible Download – 7 Hours and 35 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
The date is 1966 of the Galactic Era, almost three thousand years from now, and the Republic, created by the human race – but not yet dominated by it – finds itself in an all-out war. They stand against the Teroni Federation, an alliance of races that resent Man’s growing military and economic power. The main battles are taking place in the Spiral Arm and toward the Core. But far out on the Rim, the Theodore Roosevelt is one of three ships charged with protecting the Phoenix Cluster – a group of 73 inhabited worlds. Old, battered, some of its weapon systems outmoded, the Teddy R. is a ship that would have been decommissioned years ago if weren’t for the war. Its crew is composed of retreads, discipline cases, and a few raw recruits. But a new officer has been transferred to the Teddy R. His name is Wilson Cole, and he comes with a reputation for heroics and disobedience. Will the galaxy ever be the same?

Recipe for happiness: Give it a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1958, wait 50 years, make audiobook…

The Big Time
By Fritz Leiber; Read by Suzanne Toren
Audible Download – 4 Hours and 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
Have you ever worried about your memory, because it doesn’t seem to recall exactly the same past from one day to the next? Have you ever thought that the whole universe might be a crazy, mixed-up dream? If you have, then you’ve had hints of the Change War.It’s been going on for a billion years, and it will last another billion or so. Up and down the timeline, the two sides, “Spiders” and “Snakes”, battle endlessly to change the future and the past. Our lives and our memories are their battleground. And in the midst of the war is the Place, outside space and time, where Greta Forzane and the other Entertainers provide solace and R&R for tired time warriors.

A single voiced narration (there is a FREE VERSION with multiple serial narrators)….

The Sagan Diary
By John Scalzi; Read by Stephanie Wolfe
Audible Download – 1 Hours and 34 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
Jane Sagan: Soldier. Killer. Lover. Dreamer. In John Scalzi’s best-selling Old Man’s War series of science-fiction novels, we see this warrior woman as the other characters see her: silent and strong, from the outside. But now The Sagan Diary shows us Sagan from another point of view – her own. As she prepares to leave military life and join her new husband and adopted daughter on a colony world, Sagan reflects on her life, in her own words – recalling friends, battles, and experiences; illustrating all the violence and wonder of her times; trying to fit “an entire life into this compressed space”. For fans of Scalzi’s works, it’s an intimate and surprising glimpse into one of his most popular characters. As read by Stephanie Wolfe, it’s unlike any other science-fiction story you’ll hear this year.

A new Tanith Lee novella, published in print last fall, now audiboook’d…

Indigara
By Tanith Lee; Read by Amy Palant
Audible Download – 3 hours and 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Group USA and Audible.com
Published: April 2008
Jet and her robot dog, Otis, have been taken to their planet’s film capital, Ollywood, and are soon catapulted into the unplumbed underworld that lurks below the studios and lots. Here lies the beautiful and sinister otherwhere of Indigara, which has spontaneously generated from the sets, costumes, models, and actual celluloid of rejected pilot fantasy and SF movies that never got made into series. Even while girl and dog try to survive the dangers and terrors below, their Indigaran mirror images have replaced them, and are running amok in the real world above.

Hey rook! Is a Gojirra auriobrook!

Tim, Defender of the Earth
By Sam Enthoven; Read by Bryan Kennedy
Audible Download – 8 Hours and 42 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Group USA and Audible
Published: April 2008
TIM, aka Tyrannosaurus: Improved Model, is the product of a top-secret government military experiment, and he couldn’t be more loveable. Sure, he’s an enormous monster to most, but at heart he’s just a big, awkward, 13-year-old who realizes he could be all that stands between the earth and total destruction. (Take that, Godzilla.) Now TIM must form an unlikely alliance with 15-year-olds Chris and Anna in order to save humanity from the greatest threat it has ever known: Anna’s father, the brilliant and demented Professor Mallahide, and his growing tide of vicious, all-consuming nanobots. Will TIM prevail and save the British Isles and the world from evil? We’ll all have to hold hands, read, and believe – in TIM, Defender of the Earth!

A sequel to Shadowmancer, now all we need is the original (oh HERE it is)…

The Shadowmancer Returns
By G.P. Taylor; Read by Bryan Kennedy
Audible Download – 9 Hours and 47 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Group USA and Audible.com
Published: April 2008
Kate and Thomas have barely escaped the evil sorcerer Demurral, and are sailing to London to make a fresh start. But someone knows they are coming, and is lying in wait to lure them into the darkest heart of the city. Meanwhile, Raphah, who has had a narrow escape of his own, sets out on a terrifying journey to find his friends, all the time haunted by a shadowy beast. Eventually, the friends’ paths meet on a cursed street, hidden from the world – a place where fates are decided and old enemies seek revenge. They thought it was over…but can evil ever be destroyed?

Spies, humor, and magic and a cool title….

The Man With The Golden Torc
By Simon R. Green; Read by Stuart Blinder
Audible Download – 17 Hours and 15 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audible Frontiers
Published: April 2008
Meet Shaman Bond, aka Eddie Drood, scion of the ancient Drood family. He is devoted to protecting humanity from the forces of darkness. Protected by the secret weapon received at birth by all members of the Drood family – a magical gold torc (i.e., a neck ring) that turns into a suit of nearly impervious golden armor – Eddie faces arcane dangers with healthy doses of wry self-confidence and sarcasm. Then the family matriarch sends him on a mission that turns out to be a deadly setup. Declared a rogue, Eddie teams up with short-tempered witch Molly Metcalf to find out why he’s been betrayed.

Posted by Jesse Willis