RELATIVITY
Copyright © 2004 Robert J. Sawyer. All Rights Reserved.
Cover Art Copyright © 2004 Jael. All Rights Reserved.
“Introduction” Copyright © 2004 Mike Resnick. All Rights Reserved.
“Robert J. Sawyer’s Place in Science Fiction” Copyright © 2004 Valerie Broege. All Rights Reserved.
“Valerie Broege’s Wonder & Mystery Cryptic Word Puzzle” Copyright © 2004 Valerie Broege. All Rights Reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written consent from both the authors and copyright holder, except by a reviewer who may want to quote brief passages in review.
Published by ISFiC Press
707 Sapling Lane
Deerfield, Illinois 60015
ISFiC Press Logo Design: Todd Cameron Hamilton
Book Design by Robert T. Garcia
Garcia Publishing Services
919 Tappan Street, Woodstock, Illinois 60098
www.garciapublishingservices.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 0-9759156-0-6
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
by Thomson Shore, 7300 West Joy Road, Dexter, Michigan 48130-9701
www.tshore.com
For Peter Halasz
Contents
Introduction by Mike Resnick
FICTION
Just Like Old Times
Immortality
The Stanley Cup Caper
Relativity
Star Light, Star Bright
The Hand You’re Dealt
The Shoulders of Giants
Ineluctable
SPEECHES
The 2003 Hugo Awards Ceremony
The Future Is Already Here
AI and Sci-Fi: My, Oh, My!
Science Fiction and Social Change
ARTICLES
A Tale of Two Stories
Pros and Cons
Remembering Judith Merril
Science and God
Committing Trilogy
Privacy: Who Needs It?
The Age of Miracle and Wonder
Is Risk Our Business?
The Private Sector in Space
Science, Salvation, and Atwood
Atwood’s Depressing Future
ON WRITING
Great Beginnings
Constructing Characters
Point of View
Dialogue
Show, Don’t Tell
Description
Secret Weapons of Science
Heinlein’s Rules
Word-Processing Tricks
Cover Letters and SASEs
Self-Promotion
Professionalism
ABOUT ROB
Autobiography
Critical Essay by Valerie Broege
Crossword Puzzle
Robert J. Sawyer Bibliography
Introduction
by Mike Resnick
Rob Sawyer hit the ground running. One day he hadn’t published a word of science fiction, and (it seemed) the next day he was atop the field, turning out one award-caliber novel after another. I was present at Long Beach when he won his first Best Novel Nebula, and I was applauding him at Toronto when he pulled off the unprecedented double of winning the Hugo for one novel and the Seiun (the Japanese Hugo) for a different one.
But you know all that, or you probably wouldn’t have picked up the book you now hold in your hands. Anyone can tell you about Rob Sawyer the Superstar Writer; I’d like to tell you about the Rob Sawyer I know—the Superstar Fan and Friend.
If Rob has ever refused a request for anything—an autograph, a word of encouragement or advice, a speech, a non-paying fanzine article, a few moments of his increasingly valuable time to someone he barely knows—it’s not only escaped my notice, but just about everyone else’s. I’ve often said that Robert Bloch is my role model, not as a writer, but as a professional—and especially as a professional who interacts with fans. Rob is simply the Canadian version.
An exceptionally gracious man, when he won his Nebula he thanked me for my help and encouragement—neither of which had anything to do with his success—in his acceptance speech. I still remember turning to Carol with an excrement-eating grin on my face after hearing that and bragging, “I got to hold the hero’s horse!”
And a hero he is. He remains to this day the only winner of the Best Novel Hugo to remember to thank not only his editor and publisher, but his American and Canadian distributors. I mean, hell, we’d all be starving to death without our book distributors, but only Rob ever thought to thank them publicly.
I don’t remember quite when we first met in person—we already knew each other through the Internet—but it must have been at a convention in the 1980s or early 1990s, and we’ve been friends ever since. It’s pretty hard not to be Rob’s friend; once you get past being dazzled by his talent, you find yourself equally dazzled by his quick intellect, his wide-ranging knowledge, his humor, and his always good-natured personality.
And I like to think that I had a little something to do with one other bit of dazzling Rob does on occasion—the short story. It’s an unhappy fact that if you want to make a living writing short stories in this field and your name isn’t Ray or Harlan, you’re going to wind up in the poorhouse. So if you have any skill as a novelist, you go where the money is, and if you’re as skilled as Rob, you are contracted many books and many years in advance.
But along with novels, I happen to like writing and editing short stories, and I also happen to know that Rob has an incredibly difficult, almost impossible, time saying No to his friends. So over the years I have frequently asked him to contribute stories for anthologies I was editing, and, being Rob, he has yet to turn me down. Or hand in a story that was anything less than stellar in quality. One of them won an award; others were nominated. When Rob says Yes, it’s never a half-hearted Yes; he gives it his best.
And some of his best are right here in this volume. I’m proud to say I was responsible for a pair of them—“Immortality” and “Relativity.” But there are some other gems that I had nothing to do with (except, like you, to enjoy as a reader), gems like “Ineluctable” and “The Hand You’re Dealt.” And to show his versatility, Rob has also included a dozen how-to-write columns that he’s done for On Spec—the Canadian equivalent of my “Ask Bwana” columns for Speculations (or maybe my stuff is the American equivalent of Rob’s)—plus several speeches, and a touching tribute to Judy Merril.
I read somewhere that Rob recently made his 200th television appearance, which must be close to a record for anyone not named Isaac; and I know he’s been very active promoting science fiction on radio, too. And when I say promoting, I don’t mean just his own work; he always goes out of his way to find competitors and newcomers to praise and promote. As they say, you can’t pay back (although I wouldn’t mind if he’d loan me $67,084.22 until payday), so you pay forward—and Rob pays those dues about as well and generously as anyone.
And now that I’ve told you a little about Rob Sawyer and a little about what awaits you in the pages up ahead, let me simply point out that this book can be considered Essence of Sawyer: fiction, non-fiction, how-to pieces, tributes, speeches. If you buy it—and why would you be reading this if you weren’t going to buy it?—and Rob is anywhere around, hunt him up and ask him to sign it. I guarantee he’ll be happy to. And if he’s not around, take it with you to the next convention he’ll be attending; you’ll not only get a signature, but you’ll get a chance to meet a real mensch as well.
A mensch? You don’t know?
Well, it means a lot of things. In the Fandango d
ialect of western Botswana, it means a tuskless elephant with three testicles and a bad attitude. In Barsoomian, it means A Foul Perpetrator of a Fate Worse Than Death. In ancient Egyptian, it means He Who Does Vile Things To Mummies Under Cover of Night.
But where I come from, it means a man’s man and a writer’s writer—in other words, Robert J. Sawyer.
RELATIVITY
Stories and Essays
Fiction
Just Like Old Times
In 1987, I gave up writing short fiction: the pay rates were a tiny fraction of what I was getting for non-fiction, response times from SF magazines were ridiculously long, and I was mightily discouraged by having been unable to sell “Lost in the Mail.” Five years went by during which the only fiction I wrote was novel-length.
And then came Mike Resnick.
In July 1992, Mike asked me if I’d agree to write a story for the anthology Dinosaur Fantastic he and Martin H. Greenberg were putting together.
Note what Mike was doing: he was commissioning a story. My work wouldn’t have to languish for the better part of a year in a magazine’s slush pile.
This was a very appealing notion. Throughout the 1980s, I had made my living as a freelance non-fiction writer, specializing in high technology and personal finance. I’d done over 200 articles for Canadian and American magazines and newspapers, almost all of which were commissioned in advance of my writing them…and I liked it that way.
I accepted Mike’s offer, but with trepidation. I hadn’t written a short story for half a decade now. What if I’d forgotten how? Or, even worse, what if, as the apparent failure of “Lost in the Mail” had demonstrated, I never really knew how in the first place?
“Just Like Old Times” turned out to be quite a success: Mike and Marty used it as the lead story in Dinosaur Fantastic, and I also sold it to On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of Speculative Writing. The On Spec people reprinted it in their “best-of” anthology, On Spec: The First Five Years; Marty Greenberg scooped it up for his unrelated hardcover anthology Dinosaurs; Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois reprinted it in their Dinosaurs II; and David G. Hartwell and Glenn Grant bought it for their anthology Northern Stars.
After that, there was no turning back: I knew writing short fiction would always be a part of my life. Still, since that day in 1992, I haven’t written any short fiction without a specific commission; I just don’t seem to find the time for short work otherwise.
The transference went smoothly, like a scalpel slicing into skin.
Cohen was simultaneously excited and disappointed. He was thrilled to be here—perhaps the judge was right, perhaps this was indeed where he really belonged. But the gleaming edge was taken off that thrill because it wasn’t accompanied by the usual physiological signs of excitement: no sweaty palms, no racing heart, no rapid breathing. Oh, there was a heartbeat, to be sure, thundering in the background, but it wasn’t Cohen’s.
It was the dinosaur’s.
Everything was the dinosaur’s: Cohen saw the world now through tyrannosaur eyes.
The colors seemed all wrong. Surely plant leaves must be the same chlorophyll green here in the Mesozoic, but the dinosaur saw them as navy blue. The sky was lavender; the dirt underfoot ash gray.
Old bones had different cones, thought Cohen. Well, he could get used to it. After all, he had no choice. He would finish his life as an observer inside this tyrannosaur’s mind. He’d see what the beast saw, hear what it heard, feel what it felt. He wouldn’t be able to control its movements, they had said, but he would be able to experience every sensation.
The rex was marching forward.
Cohen hoped blood would still look red.
It wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t red.
“And what, Ms. Cohen, did your husband say before he left your house on the night in question?”
“He said he was going out to hunt humans. But I thought he was making a joke.”
“No interpretations, please, Ms. Cohen. Just repeat for the court as precisely as you remember it, exactly what your husband said.”
“He said, ‘I’m going out to hunt humans.’”
“Thank you, Ms. Cohen. That concludes the Crown’s case, my lady.”
The needlepoint on the wall of the Honorable Madam Justice Amanda Hoskins’s chambers had been made for her by her husband. It was one of her favorite verses from The Mikado, and as she was preparing sentencing she would often look up and re-read the words:
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time—
To let the punishment fit the crime—
The punishment fit the crime.
This was a difficult case, a horrible case. Judge Hoskins continued to think.
It wasn’t just colors that were wrong. The view from inside the tyrannosaur’s skull was different in other ways, too.
The tyrannosaur had only partial stereoscopic vision. There was an area in the center of Cohen’s field of view that showed true depth perception. But because the beast was somewhat wall-eyed, it had a much wider panorama than normal for a human, a kind of saurian Cinemascope covering 270 degrees.
The wide-angle view panned back and forth as the tyrannosaur scanned along the horizon.
Scanning for prey.
Scanning for something to kill.
The Calgary Herald, Thursday, October 16, 2042, hardcopy edition:
Serial killer Rudolph Cohen, 43, was sentenced to death yesterday.
Formerly a prominent member of the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Cohen was convicted in August of thirty-seven counts of first-degree murder.
In chilling testimony, Cohen had admitted, without any signs of remorse, to having terrorized each of his victims for hours before slitting their throats with surgical implements.
This is the first time in eighty years that the death penalty has been ordered in this country.
In passing sentence, Madam Justice Amanda Hoskins observed that Cohen was “the most cold-blooded and brutal killer to have stalked Canada’s prairies since Tyrannosaurus rex…”
From behind a stand of dawn redwoods about ten meters away, a second tyrannosaur appeared. Cohen suspected tyrannosaurs might be fiercely territorial, since each animal would require huge amounts of meat. He wondered if the beast he was in would attack the other individual.
His dinosaur tilted its head to look at the second rex, which was standing in profile. But as it did so, almost all of the dino’s mental picture dissolved into a white void, as if when concentrating on details the beast’s tiny brain simply lost track of the big picture.
At first Cohen thought his rex was looking at the other dinosaur’s head, but soon the top of other’s skull, the tip of its muzzle and the back of its powerful neck faded away into snowy nothingness. All that was left was a picture of the throat. Good, thought Cohen. One shearing bite there could kill the animal.
The skin of the other’s throat appeared gray-green and the throat itself was smooth. Maddeningly, Cohen’s rex did not attack. Rather, it simply swiveled its head and looked out at the horizon again.
In a flash of insight, Cohen realized what had happened. Other kids in his neighborhood had had pet dogs or cats. He’d had lizards and snakes—cold-blooded carnivores, a fact to which expert psychological witnesses had attached great weight. Some kinds of male lizards had dewlap sacks hanging from their necks. The rex he was in—a male, the Tyrrell paleontologists had believed—had looked at this other one and seen that she was smooth-throated and therefore a female. Something to be mated with, perhaps, rather than to attack.
Perhaps they would mate soon. Cohen had never orgasmed except during the act of killing. He wondered what it would feel like.
“We spent a billion dollars developing time travel, and now you tell me the system is useless?”
“Well—”
“That is what you’re saying, isn’t it, professor? That chronotransference has no practical applications?”
“Not exactly, Minister.
The system does work. We can project a human being’s consciousness back in time, superimposing his or her mind overtop of that of someone who lived in the past.”
“With no way to sever the link. Wonderful.”
“That’s not true. The link severs automatically.”
“Right. When the historical person you’ve transferred consciousness into dies, the link is broken.”
“Precisely.”
“And then the person from our time whose consciousness you’ve transferred back dies as well.”
“I admit that’s an unfortunate consequence of linking two brains so closely.”
“So I’m right! This whole damn chronotransference thing is useless.”
“Oh, not at all, Minister. In fact, I think I’ve got the perfect application for it.”
The rex marched along. Although Cohen’s attention had first been arrested by the beast’s vision, he slowly became aware of its other senses, too. He could hear the sounds of the rex’s footfalls, of twigs and vegetation being crushed, of birds or pterosaurs singing, and, underneath it all, the relentless drone of insects. Still, all the sounds were dull and low; the rex’s simple ears were incapable of picking up high-pitched noises, and what sounds they did detect were discerned without richness. Cohen knew the late Cretaceous must have been a symphony of varied tone, but it was as if he was listening to it through earmuffs.
The rex continued along, still searching. Cohen became aware of several more impressions of the world both inside and out, including hot afternoon sun beating down on him and a hungry gnawing in the beast’s belly.
Food.
It was the closest thing to a coherent thought that he’d yet detected from the animal, a mental picture of bolts of meat going down its gullet.
Food.
The Social Services Preservation Act of 2022: Canada is built upon the principle of the Social Safety Net, a series of entitlements and programs designed to ensure a high standard of living for every citizen. However, ever-increasing life expectancies coupled with constant lowering of the mandatory retirement age have placed an untenable burden on our social-welfare system and, in particular, its cornerstone program of universal health care. With most taxpayers ceasing to work at the age of 45, and with average Canadians living to be 94 (males) or 97 (females), the system is in danger of complete collapse. Accordingly, all social programs will henceforth be available only to those below the age of 60, with one exception: all Canadians, regardless of age, may take advantage, at no charge to themselves, of government-sponsored euthanasia through chronotransference.