Science Fiction Writer
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Hugo and Nebula Winner

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The Ontario Library Association has unveiled the ten-book shortlist for its second annual readers'-choice Evergreen Award. On the list: the science-fiction novel Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer.

The shortlist was compiled from titles nominated by librarians. Readers will vote for their favourite book during Ontario Public Library Week (October 16-22, 2006) through library Web sites and branch ballot boxes. Between now and then, the shortlisted books will be promoted in libraries provincewide.

To be eligible for the Evergreen Award, books must be by a living Canadian author, and can be either fiction or nonfiction. Sawyer's Hominids is the only genre-fiction novel to make the shortlist this year. Last year's winner was the novel Crow Lake by Mary Lawson.

At 12.5 million people, Ontario is the most-populous of Canada's ten provinces — home to four out of every ten Canadians. It contains both Canada's capital city of Ottawa and its largest city, Toronto; the 99-branch Toronto Public Library — just one of the systems participating in the Evergreen Award program — is the busiest public-library system in North America, with 325,000 patrons borrowing over half a million books each week.

The complete shortlist, alphabetical by author last name, is:

• Three Day Road
  by Joseph Boyden
  Fiction
  Penguin, 2005
  

• The Greek for Love
  by James Chatto
  Nonfiction (travel memoir)
  Random House Canada, 2005
  

• An Audience Of Chairs
  by Joan Clark
  Fiction
  Alfred A. Knopf, 2005
  

• Snowshoes and Spotted Dick: Letters From a Wilderness
  Dweller
  by Chris Czajkowski
  Nonfiction (memoir letters)
  Harbour Pub., 2003
  

• Sweetness In The Belly
  by Camilla Gibb
  Fiction
  Doubleday Canada, 2005
  

• The Girls
  by Lori Lansens
  Fiction
  Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2005
  

• Race Against Time
  by Stephen Lewis
  Nonfiction (CBC Massey Lectures)
  Anansi, 2005
  

• Lady Franklin's Revenge
  by Ken McGoogan
  Nonfiction (Biography)
  HarperCollins Canada, 2005
  

• Paul Moves Out
  by Michel Rabagliati
  Young-Adult Fiction
  Drawn & Quarterly, 2005
  

• Hominids
  by Robert J. Sawyer
  Science Fiction
  Tor Books, 2002
  

Hominids previously won the World Science Fiction Society's 2003 Hugo Award — the top international prize for SF writing — and was the "One Book, One Community" choice for Waterloo Region (consisting of the Ontario cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge, and surrounding communities) in 2005. Sawyer is also currently a finalist for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award for Best Novella of the Year.

Sawyer, 45, was born in Ottawa and now lives in Mississauga, Ontario. Hominids was his thirteenth novel; his latest — number sixteen — is Mindscan. Both are published by Tor Books, New York, and distributed in Canada by H.B. Fenn and Company.

• Information about the Evergreen Award.

• Information on Hominids.

• Book Club discussion group guide for Hominids.

• Sawyer author photo (print quality)

• Hominids book cover (print quality)

More Good Reading

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Rob won the 2003 Hugo!
Rob won the 1995 Nebula!

Rob's 2004 Premio UPC Win

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Press Backgrounder: SF Awards
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