Trivia / Quintaglio Ascension

• Acclaimed Flop: The Quintaglio Ascension has been critically well-received and won numerous awards. Despite this, according to Robert J. Sawyer, they are his least-read books; supposedly the cover art on the Ace and Tor editions, which were lavishly illustrated with anthropomorphic dinosaurs, made people reluctant to even give them a chance. When the rights to the series reverted back him, Sawyer self-published them in eBook and hardcover editions with Minimalistic Cover Art to try to mitigate this.
• Executive Meddling: "Far-Seer" was originally meant to be a standalone novel; however, Rob Sawyer's publisher encouraged him to make it into a series.
• Most Writers Are Human: Word of God states that the reason Quintaglios have so many inexplicable and often counter-intuitive similarities with humans is because he didn't think that readers could empathize with completely alien protagonists, and also that he had trouble getting the first book published because editors thought a series without any humans in it wouldn't sell.