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 discussion in his far-future Starplex. His interest in quantum physics, and especially quantum computing, inform the short stories 'You See But You Do Not Observe' (a Sherlock Holmes pastiche) and 'Iterations,' and the novels Factoring Humanity and Hominids. His interest in consciousness studies is also apparent in Wake, which deals with the spontaneous emergence of consciousness in the infrastructure of the World Wide Web.

Sawyer often explores the notion of copied or uploaded human consciousness, mind uploading, most fully in his novel Mindscan, but also in Flashforward, Golden Fleece, The Terminal Experiment, 'Identity Theft', 'Biding Time', and 'Shed Skin'.

Sawyer's work frequently explores the intersection between science and religion, with rationalism winning out over mysticism (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 lived in the Greater Toronto Area for most of his life and has been a resident of Mississauga since 2000.įiction Style and themes Heinlein Award (2017), and more Aurora Awards than anyone else in history. Campbell Memorial Award (2006), the Robert A. He has won many writing awards, including the best-novel Nebula Award (1995), the best-novel Hugo Award (2003), the John W. He has had 24 novels published and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and numerous anthologies. Robert James Sawyer CM OOnt (born April 29, 1960) is a Canadian science fiction writer.

Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer