Science Fiction Writer
ROBERT J. SAWYER
Hugo and Nebula Winner

HOME • MENU • Search:

Many reading groups and book clubs have enjoyed novels by Robert J. Sawyer. The following questions may help stimulate an interesting discussion about Wake. (These questions might also suggest essay topics for students studying the book.)

Email Rob with a list of the first names of the members of your book club, the title of the book by him your club is reading, and one postal address, and Rob will send you personally autographed bookplates for every member of your group. (Bookplates are self-adhesive labels you can put inside your own copy of a book — they're free and they're fun!)

Note that these questions reveal much of the novel's plot; to preserve your reading pleasure, please don't look at these questions until after you've finished reading the book.

1. Do you think a Webmind could evolve on the World Wide Web?

2. Wake is structured in a series of parallel, thematically resonant storylines. Did that structure work for you? How was Hobo like Webmind? How was Sinanthropus like Caitlin?

3. Why do people adopt different personae on the Web? (Caitlin is Calculass, Wong Wai-Jeng is Sinanthropus). We see how these personae can be used for good. But in real life, too often we see how they can be used by sexual predators and con men. If we could, should we make the Web no longer anonymous?

4. Do you agree with Caitlin that all information should be free? The University of Tokyo funded the development of the eyePod and paid for Caitlin's operation. Are they entitled to a return on their investment?

5. Do you use the Internet for banking? Shopping? Gambling? Do you use it to download movies, music, or software for free when you know you should really be paying for it?

6. How successful are the characters at communicating with each other even though they may not be the same species? (Hobo and Shoshana, Hobo and Virgil, Caitlin and her dad, Sinanthropus and his blog readers, Caitlin and Webmind.)

7. ApeNet, Steven Pinker, Stephen Wolfram, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are all real — Harl Marcuse and his Institute are not. Does the mixing of fact and fiction, in an area you may know nothing about, worry you? Given this book is fiction, do you think that Sawyer makes it clear when he is stating fact?

8. Sawyer touches on the politics of science. Are you surprised at the infighting, money grubbing, and the "cult of personality" that exists underneath the impartial surface of the scientific community?

9. We see what a boon the Internet is to Caitlin, who has been blind since birth. What other groups benefit from the interconnectivity of the Web?

10. Do you believe that Homeland Security or other organizations are reading all your email? If so, are you careful about what you say in your email, or on your blog or website?

11. Wake takes place in China, Japan, Israel, the USA, and Canada. Very disparate places, and yet in instant contact with each other on the Web. Has the Web made the world a smaller place? Has the Web made the world a safer place?

12. There's a lot of science in Wake. Were you able to follow Sawyer's explanations for concepts like: Zipf plots, Shannon Entropy, and cellular automata? Did the science make the book more interesting, or did you find it distracted from Caitlin's story?

13. Have you used the websites Sawyer refers to in Wake? (Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, Cyc, YouTube, Google Images.) Are there any others you think that the Webmind should be shown?

14. Do you relate to the Apollo 8 references at the end of the book? Was it before your time? Or, perhaps of no interest to you? Or, do you get choked-up, like Anna Bloom does, when you see a picture of the Earth taken from space? If you don't feel the emotion yourself, is it enough that Anna does?

15. Caitlin wants to be Annie Sullivan to Webmind's Helen Keller. In Wake, Caitlin turns 16 at the end of the book. How likely is it that she will be a guide/friend to Webmind for the rest of her life, as Annie was to Helen? And given that Webmind is not human, what will happen after Caitlin dies?

More Good Reading

Download this Book Club Guide in Adobe Acrobat Format
More about Wake

Book Club Guide Index
Book Club Guide for The Oppenheimer Alternative
Book Club Guide for Quantum Night
Book Club Guide for Triggers
Book Club Guide for Rollback
Book Club Guide for Mindscan
Book Club Guide for Hominids
Book Club Guide for Calculating God
Book Club Guide for FlashForward
Book Club Guide for Factoring Humanity
Book Club Guide for Frameshift
Book Club Guide for Illegal Alien
Book Club Guide for The Terminal Experiment
Book Club Guide for End of an Era
Book Club Guide for Golden Fleece

My Very Occasional Newsletter