End of an Era

Robert J. Sawyer is Canada's new star in the field of 'hard' science fiction and has written several good novels. Sawyer is interested in astronomy and paleontology(read dinosaurs). Sawyer first pursued a career as a paleontologist but changed his mind and became a full-time writer instead.


In End of an Era two men travel back to the age of the dinosaurs looking for answers regarding the mass-extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. They arrive at the end of the Cretaceous period and start their investigation. They have no trouble finding dinosaurs, only there is something very peculiar about the ones they encounter...


Sawyer has written an exciting story, interspersed with some interesting facts about the dinosaurs and their extinction. Mind you, this is HARD science fiction, but I still had a good time. Sawyer also shows his sense of humour in this book. A good thing he did. This is really good 'old-fashioned' science fiction.


Sawyer has his own homepage.

The Far-Seer trilogy

This series is also known as The Quintaglio Ascension trilogy. The three books are allegoric stories about important developments in science. The first book is Far-Seer. Robert Sawyer inhabits an alien world far from Earth with intelligent dinosaurs or 'Quintaglios' as they refer to themselves. Just like Man the Quintaglios create myths and religion to explain their existance. The main character in Far-Seer is the quintaglio known as Afsan, an apprentice to the Royal Astrologer. Afsan is brilliant and begins to question the old view of the world and to think in a scientific manner. The title Far-Seer refers to the newely invented telescope.
This book can be viewed as an allegoric story concerning the development of science and its confrontation with static and religious views of the world. Far-Seer is essentially a retelling of the discoveries of the polish astronomer Copernikus during the Renaissance. He placed the Sun in the center of the solar system and replaced Ptolemaios's old astronomical system with the Earth in the center with his. Sawyer also demonstrates his knowledge of astronomy in this one.


In the second book, Fossis Hunter, the theme is Darwinism. Afsan has grown older and several new characters are introduced. In the third book finally, Foreigner, the ideas of Freud are presented. This series gets progressively better as you read them. The plots are more interesting and the story improves in Fossil-Hunter and Foreigner. If you're into dinosaurs you'll learn a thing or two in this series. There is something really optimistic about this series, Sawyer believes in science and in our ability to surmount diffuculties.