Robert J Sawyer - Iterations and Other Stories

Overall Ratings:

World-Building Rating: Awesome, the sheer variety of the settings in these stories is impressive.
Characterization: Great (would be Awesome if not for the story Uphill Climb)


Robert J Sawyer, often referred to as the Dean of Canadian Science fiction, is an excellent author. I'm sure you don't need my word for it, but if you haven't checked his work out yet you should. His writing flows well, his characters are interesting, and there's a uniquely Canadian flavor to his work overall.

Iterations and other stories is a collection of 22 short stories by the author, each with an Author's Note giving interesting background information on the piece. What I like most about this collection is that it gives such a wide view of the genre; the stories are so diverse in their themes and settings and characters that you won't get bored reading it. The range is huge, from a story about a kid who is bullied in gym class, to a story about a cold-blooded serial killer who participates in a very intriguing alternative to the death sentence to a story from the point of view of martians.

I particularly liked "Lost in the Mail", "Gator", "Iterations", "Ours to Discover", "Last but not Least", and "If I'm Here, Imagine Where They Sent my Luggage", but they are all interesting stories in their own right.

Mild SPOILERS Ahead: 

"If I'm Here, Imagine Where They Sent my Luggage" is one of my favorites. It delivers so much detail in so few words. I especially liked it because of the interesting way in which travel works and the way that the Author set limitations on this. The ending was also particularly good, because it leaves the reader hanging, not sure whether the traveler found his way back or whether that last, angry thought sent him on another - even worse - detour!

Generally speaking, Sawyer does a good job of characterization and it seems effortless, you just sink into the perspective of the characters. However, there is one story, "Uphill Climb", which was very difficult to get into. It's a short piece, but even on the second reading I found it very difficult to imagine the characters or figure out what they are doing or talking about. There are only three characters, one seems to be a dinosaur-like alien, the other one I couldn't figure out at all, and the third is a robot. By the end of the story I realized where the author was going with this, but it wasn't in a "it all makes sense" kind of way, it was more like "Oh, I see what point he was trying to make with this..." and I still hadn't figured the characters out. I like the point he was trying to make, but I feel that it could have been so much more effective. I think that it could have done with spending more time inside the characters' heads, spending more time on their motivations, and perhaps not having them be so weird or describing them a little more so we can visualize them better. Out of the entire book I'd say this was the weakest piece.

Finally, I want to comment on "Ours to Discover" which exemplifies what I mean about Sawyer's uniquely Canadian touch. This piece is set in Toronto hundreds of years after some kind of apocalyptic event. It's another short piece that gives a huge amount of detail in very few words. The survivors, led by an inquisitive child, are venturing back out into the open and rediscovering some aspects of Canadian Identity.

Finally, I want to talk about "Just Like Old Times" which has one of the most cruel perspective characters I've ever encountered. This main character is a cruel, cold-blooded murderer who elicits no sympathy from the reader. But no matter how much you hate him, you can't hate the story. It's well written and the concept of chronotransference is so intriguing, that the story deserves a place right at the top with the best Science Fiction stories. The fact that sawyer manages to do all this with such a despicable main character is a tribute to his talent.