We've had a lot of wonderful guests in Extropia, but next Sunday we're going to have a very special visitor! 

Robert J. Sawyer (SF Writer in SL) will be joining us for a discussion of his novels and his visions of the future, in life extension, robotics, artificial intelligence, SETI, inter-species ethics and many more fascinating topics. And, he'll be sticking around afterwards to join the Extropia Book Club in a discussion of his latest novel, Rollback,  just named as a finalist for the Hugo Award!

Please join us at noon, in the Central Nexus in Extropia Core, Extropia, Second Life!

Robert J. Sawyer — called "the dean of Canadian science fiction" by The Ottawa Citizen and "just about the best science-fiction writer out there these days" by The Denver Rocky Mountain News — is one of only seven writers in history to win all three of the science-fiction field's top honors for best novel of the year:

• the World Science Fiction Society's Hugo Award, which he won in 2003 for his novel Hominids;

• the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award, which he won in 1996 for his novel The Terminal Experiment;

• and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, which he won in 2006 for his novel Mindscan.

Rob is also the only writer in history to win the top SF awards in the United States, China, Japan, France, and Spain. In addition, he's won an Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada as well as nine Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards ("Auroras").

Maclean's: Canada's Weekly Newsmagazine says, "By any reckoning, Sawyer is among the most successful Canadian authors ever," and Barnes and Noble calls him "the leader of SF's next-generation pack."

Rob's novels are top-ten national mainstream bestsellers in Canada, appearing on the Globe and Mail and Maclean's bestsellers' lists, and they've hit #1 on the bestsellers' list published by Locus, the U.S. trade journal of the SF field. His seventeen novels include Frameshift, Factoring Humanity, Flashforward, Calculating God, and the popular "Neanderthal Parallax" trilogy consisting of Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids.