History Creator / RobertJSawyer

* FunWithAcronyms: Lampshaded in ''Starplex''. The human characters do this all the time, including naming the ship's AI computer system PHANTOM, but the aliens despise them for it.
** The aliens drew the line at acronyms within acronyms, such as when the humans tried to name the mobile waste collection machines PHART, short for "PHANTOM ambulatory remote toilet."

** Apparently, several of Sawyer's novels exist InUniverse in other novels. For instance, in ''Triggers'', one character watches ''FlashForward'', while in the NeanderthalParallax, one character recalls reading a serialized version of ''Illegal Alien'' and notes on how the situation there is different than what is going on at that moment.

* HarsherInHindsight: A rare InUniverse example in ''Triggers''. After the White House is destroyed by terrorists, a character wonders what will happen to an {{Expy}} of ''TheWestWing''. It continued filming, at least for the time being, a fact which is critical to the plot.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuMan: In ''Red Planet Blues'' and ''Mindscan'' the claim is made that humans who [[BrainUploading upload]] their minds into android bodies are not people afterward, on the belief they [[TheSoulless have no souls]], which in ''Mindscan'' is answered by asking "How do you know they ''don't'' have them?" ''Red Planet Blues'' just treats this as a quaint religious idea that most people don't bother with.

* PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs: ''End Of An Era'' features time travelers who pop into the end of the Cretaceous to discover that Earth's gravity was purposefully modified by Martians in order to breed biological war machines (aka dinosaurs) against a fifth planet in the Solar System orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. [[spoiler:In the evnd, the scientists cause the KT Extinction Event by turning off the anti-gravity generators, simultaneously killing off both the dinosaurs and the Martians. Essentially, phlebotinum created the dinosaurs. Taking it away killed them.]]

** The aliens drew the line at acronyms within acronyms, such as when the humans tried to name the mobile waste collectiom machines PHART, short for "PHANTOM ambulatory remote toilet."

** The aliens drew the line at acronyms within acronyms, such as when the humans tried to name the mobile waste collector machines PHART, short for "PHANTOM ambulatory remote toilet."

* FunWithAcronyms: Lampshaded in ''Starplex''. The human characters do this all the time, including naming the AI computer system PHANTOM, but the aliens despise them for it.
** It is stated that the aliens drew the line at acronyms within acronyms, such as when the humans tried to name the mobile waste collector machines PHART, short for "PHANTOM ambulatory remote toilet."

* PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs: ''End Of An Era'' features time travelers who pop into the end of the Cretaceous to discover that Earth's gravity was purposefully modified by Martians in order to breed biological war machines (aka dinosaurs) against a fifth planet in the Solar System orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. [[spoiler:In the end, the scientists cause the KT Extinction Event by turning off the anti-gravity generators, simultaneously killing off both the dinosaurs and the Martians. Essentially, phlebotinum created the dinosaurs. Taking it away killed them.]]

* DoAndroidsDream: ''Mindscan'' features a technology for copying a human personality into immortal android bodies. The elderly and people suffering from terminal illnesses undergo this process, being replaced with the copy before leaving for an extralegal moon base to live out their last days in luxurious retirement. However [[spoiler:when one of the recipients finds out that a cure has just been discovered for his condition and wants to take his old life back from his copy]] the legality and humanity of the android duplicates is brought into question.

* InformedAttribute: The Wreeds supposedly evolved brain structures that are incapable of comprehending numbers larger than 46, but to whom the solutions to ethical quandaries that vex humans are as obvious and self-evident as simple arithmetic are to us. When they're asked to actually ''answer'' our ethical quandaries, however, they get very squirrely.

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: {{Subverted}} with the Neanderthals in ''Literature/TheNeanderthalParallax'' books, who never had a concept of an afterlife or gods to begin with due to different brain structures[[spoiler: (though {{played straight}} with the finale of the trilogy, when a magnetic pole reversal people's minds across human!Earth by first stimulating, then eliminating paranormal, mystical or religious beliefs. With them gone, peace breaks out in the Middle East, among other improvements)]].

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: {{Subverted}} with the Neanderthals in ''Literature/TheNeanderthalParallax'' books, who never had a concept of god or an afterlife due to different brain structures[[spoiler: (though {{played straight}} with the finale of the trilogy, when a magnetic pole reversal people's minds across human!Earth by first stimulating, then eliminating paranormal, mystical or religious beliefs. With them gone, peace breaks out in the Middle East, among other improvements]].
* PhlebotinumKilledTheDinosaurs: ''End Of An Era'' features time travelers who pop into the end of the Cretaceous to discover that Earth's gravity was purposefully modified by Martians in order to breed biological war machines (aka dinosaurs) against a fifth planet in the Solar System orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. [[spoiler:In the end, the scientists cause the KT Extinction Event by turning off the antigravity generators, simultaneously killing off both the dinosaurs and the Martians. Essentially, phlebotinum created the dinosaurs. Taking it away killed them.]]

* WhatMeasureIsAMan: In ''Red Planet Blues'' and ''Mindscan'' the claim is made that humans who [[BrainUploading upload]] their minds into android bodies are not people afterward, on the belief they [[TheSoulless have no souls]], which in ''Mindscan'' is answered by asking "How do you know they ''don't'' have them?" ''Red Planet Blues'' just treats this as a quaint religious idea that most people don't bother with.

* HiveMind: The end of [[spoiler: ''Triggers'']] ends up with humanity evolving into one, which in a {{subversion}} is presented as Earth becoming a {{utopia}}.

* HiveMind: The end of [[''Triggers'']] ends up with humanity evolving into one, which in a {{subversion}} is presented as Earth becoming a {{utopia}}.

* BigBrotherIsWatchingYou: Presented as a ''good'' thing in ''Literature/TheNeanderthalParallax'' and the ''[[{{Literature/WWWTrilogy WWW Trilogy}}]]''. Sawyer also believes this in RealLife.

* BigBrotherIsWatchingYou: Presented as a ''good'' thing in ''Literature/TheNeanderthalParallax'' and the ''{{Literature/WWWTrilogy WWW Trilogy}}''. Sawyer also believes this in RealLife.

* ''Relativity''

* AIIsACrapshoot: The Terminal Experiment provides an interesting example in that the AI in question started out as human. The protagonist is a scientist who's trying to test his theories of the soul using his friend's brain scanning technology. They scan a copy of all the linkages in his brain into a computer database and make three versions – one is unaltered from the original as a control, the second has all linkages relating to the body removed as a simulation of life after death, and the third has all linkages relating to knowledge of death and dying removed as a simulation of immortality. Eventually the consciousnesses break out into the electronic world at large. Then people negatively involved with the protagonist's life start showing up dead. Now the protagonist has to figure out which version of himself is capable of killing other human beings. [[spoiler: It was the unaltered version that was a straight copy of his own brain. It knew it was a copy and decided since it could get away with the murders it would go right ahead.]]
* BigBrotherIsWatchingYou: Presented as a ''good'' thing in ''Literature/TheNeanderthalParallax'', ''Literature/WWW'' and to a lesser extent ''Triggers.'' Sawyer also believes this in RealLife.
* BrainUploading: The premise of ''Red Planet Blues'' and ''Mindscan.''

* DoAndroidsDream: ''Mindscan'' features a technology for copying a human personality into immortal android bodies. The elderly and people suffering from terminal illnesses undergo this process, being replaced with the copy before leaving for an extralegal moonbase to live out their last days in luxurious retirement. However [[spoiler:when one of the recipients finds out that a cure has just been discovered for his condition and wants to take his old life back from his copy]] the legality and humanity of the android duplicates is brought into question.
* FalseRapeAccusation: Both played straight and thoroughly subverted in ''Factoring Humanity''. The main character is accused of molesting his daughter, and he is known to the reader (but not the other characters) to be innocent. A major plotline involves him striking up a friendship with a teacher who was falsely accused of raping one of his students. They discuss how their allegations have affected them and the older peer comforts the main character. Near the end of the story [[spoiler:the teacher admits that he actually did it.]]

* HiveMind: The end of [[''Triggers'']] ends up with humanity evolving into one, which, in a {{subversion}}, is presented as Earth becoming a {{utopia}}.

* TuringTest: {{Subverted}} In Robert J Sawyer's WWW Trilogy, where an AI emergent from mutant web packets with a damaged time-to-life counter is proven to be intelligent on account of how it *fails* the Turing test.
** More accurately, it proved that it/he actually was an AI rather than a human with a really good internet connection who was up to something. The AI in ''The Terminal Experiment'' and ''Mindscan'' pass automatically, since they are [[BrainUploading copies of human minds]].
* WhatMeasureIsAMan: In ''Red Planet Blues'' and ''Mindscan'' the claim is made that humans who [[BrainUploading upload]] their minds into android bodies are not people afterward, on the belief they [[TheSoulless have no souls]], which in ''Mindscan'' is answered by asking "How do you know they ''don't'' have them?"

* DoAndroidsDream: ''Mindscan'' features a technology for copying a human personality into immortal android bodies. The elderly and people suffering from terminal illnesses undergo this process and sign all their property over to the copy before leaving for an extralegal moonbase to live out their last days in luxurious retirement. However [[spoiler:when one of the recipients finds out that a cure has just been discovered for his condition and wants to take his old life back from his copy]] the legality and humanity of the android duplicates is brought into question. Both here and in ''Red Planet Blues'' people object to androids on the belief they [[TheSoulless have no souls]], which in Mindscan is answered by asking "how do you know they ''don't'' have them?"

* TuringTest: Subverted In Robert J Sawyer's WWW Trilogy, where an AI emergent from mutant web packets with a damaged time-to-life counter is proven to be intelligent on account of how it *fails* the Turing test.
** More accurately, it proved that it/he actually was an AI rather than a human with a really good internet connection who was up to something. The AI in ''The Terminal Experiment'' and ''Mindscan'' pass automatically, since they are [[BrainUploading copies of human minds]].

* StayWithTheAliens: In ''Calculating God'' [[spoiler:the aliens take the main character, who happens to be dying of cancer, with them]].

* DoAndroidsDream: ''Mindscan'' features a technology for copying a human personality into immortal android bodies. The elderly and people suffering from terminal illnesses undergo this process and sign all their property over to the copy before leaving for an extralegal moonbase to live out their last days in luxurious retirement. However [[spoiler:when one of the recipients finds out that a cure has just been discovered for his condition and wants to take his old life back from his copy]] the legality and humanity of the android duplicates is brought into question. Both here and in ''Red Planet Blues'' people object to androids on the basis that they [[TheSoulless lack souls]], which in Mindscan is answered by asking "how can you prove they don't?"

* DoAndroidsDream: ''Mindscan'' features a technology for copying a human personality into immortal android bodies. The elderly and people suffering from terminal illnesses undergo this process and sign all their property over to the copy before leaving for an extralegal moonbase to live out their last days in luxurious retirement. However [[spoiler:when one of the recipients finds out that a cure has just been discovered for his condition and wants to take his old life back from his copy]] the legality and humanity of the android duplicates is brought into question.

Robert J. Sawyer is a Canadian Science Fiction author. His novels mainly deal with the conflict between science and mysticism/religion.

* The ''Literature/TheNeanderthalParallax'' trilogy:

* The ''[[Literature/WWWTrilogy WWW]]'' trilogy:

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