by Chadwick Ginther - Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 10:00am
A Double Shot of Short Fiction
is best known for his award-winning hard sci-fi novels, and rightly so. Sawyer has won every major prize in the field for his long-form work. However, his short fiction chops should not be ignored. Both Iterations and Other Stories and the just-released Identity Theft and Other Stories bring together a career-spanning collection of stellar short stories.
As with any short story collection, there will be entries that speak to an individual reader more than others, but I defy you to find a bad story in this particular bunch. For myself, personal standouts include "Iterations", "The Hand You're Dealt" and "Just Like Old Times", all from Iterations and Other Stories. From Identity Theft and Other Stories I especially liked the titular novella, the story "Come All Ye Faithful", and what Sawyer says may be his last short story, "Biding Time". If that is the case, then I sure wouldn't mind reading a novel about Alex Lomax, the hard-boiled Martian P.I. who stars in "Identity Theft" and "Biding Time".
You don't read science fiction? Don't worry, Sawyer has also won the Canadian Crime Writer's Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story, and has been nominated for Horror's Bram Stoker Award. Both of his short story collections go beyond tales of aliens and starships. What's more, Sawyer's short fiction -- like his novels -- is both uniquely Canadian and of the world. Among other things, his writing is full of philosophical questions ("sci-phi" as he likes to call it), grapples with the intersection of science and theology, and (best of all) even contains the occasional dinosaur.
See Also:
Robert J. Sawyer, an Interview
Hugo and John W. Campbell Shortlists Announced
Canadian Robert J. Sawyer Wins China's Top SF Honour
| Categories: Staff Pick, SciFi & Fantasy, Mystery & Crime |
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