September 29, 2009 Literary Arts

The cream of consciousness

The ’dean of Canadian science fiction’ has the globe caught in a world-wide net

by Christopher Olson

Author Robert J. Sawyer imagines a day when there are as many interconnections on the Internet as in an entire human brain. GRAPHIC VIVIEN LEUNG

Wake Robert J. Sawyer Viking Canada 360 pp $24.95

Whatever it is, chances are Canadian science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer did it first.
“I started on the Internet before there was a World Wide Web,” said Sawyer, fittingly during a Skype interview. “When the web came into existence over a decade ago, I was the first science fiction writer and one of the first writers, period, to have a web page.”

Sawyer’s body of work is largely devoted to a scientific basis for the nature of consciousness. In his new novel Wake, the first in his planned World Wide Web trilogy, he advances the idea of the Internet becoming self-aware.

“The notion that [the Internet] might develop consciousness, that it would soon have as many interconnections as a human brain, was a really appealing notion from a science fiction point of view,” he said. “It’s an idea that’s been kicking around in the back of my head for years and I’ve finally gotten around to writing it.”

In the novel, Caitlin, an American girl transplanted to Toronto, receives an ocular implant to correct her blindness. This accidentally results in her gaining the ability to see the Internet in three dimensions—a technology which is bound to happen, intentionally or not, in the future, said Sawyer.

“The idea that you use a keyboard and a mouse to navigate all of the world’s knowledge, there’s no question that we’re going to have directed neural interfaces to the web, and that only makes sense,” he said. “The speed at which people type is way slower than the speed at which they think. The amount of data that comes out of even a 20-inch monitor is nothing compared to the full and immersive experience your eyes are taking in all the time.”

Sawyer acknowledged Arthur C. Clarke and his novella Dial F for Frankenstein as an influence on not only him, but also on the plot of Wake. Like the Internet in Sawyer’s novel, Clarke’s Dial F for Frankenstein depicted the International Global Telephone Exchange Network, the switching system for international telephone calls, becoming self-aware.

“All of us in science fiction build on what previous writers have done in the field,” explained Sawyer. “It is a genre that is constantly in dialogue with itself; we add to and expand from the visions of other writers and that’s the joy of it. Somebody else is going to, somewhere down the road, write responses to the things that I’ve written.”

Science fiction isn’t at risk of running out of new ideas, said Sawyer.

“Science keeps changing and that means there are always new things to write about,” he said. “A lot of what I write about comes from breakthroughs in quantum physics and that’s an ever-changing field as well.

“I’ve got enough ideas to keep me going until the end of time,” he continued. “The problem is not coming up with ideas, it’s in finding the time to flesh them all out into books. People will often come to a professional writer of any stripe, not just a science fiction writer, and say, ‘Here, I’ve got a great idea. You write it. We’ll split the money.’ They don’t understand that the writing is the marketable skill. Coming up with ideas, any chimpanzee can do that.”

Nevertheless, television producers David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga were enthusiastic about the concept behind Sawyer’s 1999 book FlashForward, which is set in 2009 and features a world-wide phenomenon in which every human being briefly experiences a minute or two of their lives 21 years from now. The two producers were so struck by the concept that they approached the author to produce a television serial, which premiered last week and now airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.

Sawyer is a consultant on every episode and will also be writing episode 16—if the Nielsen gods smile on the show and the network picks it up for a full season, that is.

Sawyer is no foreigner to the television market and wrote the series bible for Charlie Jade on the Space channel. Sawyer is just as happy to consult on the show as work on his next novel.
“I love to do research,” said Sawyer. “If I could find a way to be paid for just doing the research into things that interest me, without having to bother writing the novels, I would be a truly happy man. Writing the novels is how I feed my research habit.”

Sawyer doesn’t mind if his consulting work on FlashForward dips into his writing time.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s the kind of thing that almost never happens to any writer and you’re not going to hear me grousing, ‘Oh, my life, it’s so difficult, people are throwing money at me and making me famous and building a big television franchise based on my idea.’ It’s a wonderful thing and I feel blessed.”

To check out Robert J. Sawyer’s web page, visit sfwriter.com.
FlashForward airs on ABC Thursdays at 8 p.m.