Dinner on the Robman

In 2004, Mike Resnick was commissioned to edit an original anthology for the Science Fiction Book Club entitled Down These Dark Spaceways. It consisted of six novellas, all by award-winning SF writer, all hard-boiled-detective SF.

The Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in Spain sponsors the world's largest cash prize for science-fiction writing, the 6,000-euro Premio UPC de Ciencia Ficción -- which happens to be given for novellas. Mike Resnick, Jack McDevitt, and I all submitted our manuscripts from Down These Dark Spaceways. The Premio UPC (called "the most important science fiction award in Europe" by Brian Aldiss) uses blind judging -- the jurors receive the manuscripts with pseudonyms attached. When Jack, Mike, and I submitted our novellas, we made a pact: if one of us should win, he would have to take the other two (and their spouses) out to dinner next time we were all together at the same con.

And, well, I won (and, in fact, it was my third time winning the Premio UPC -- a record). My novella was "Identity Theft," which also went on to be nominated for both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, and is under option to a Hollywood production company. And this weekend Jack, Mike, and I are all together here at Oasis 20 in Orlando, Florida, and so I took them out, along with their wives, to a nice steak-and-seafood place called Fishbones. We were joined by Michael Bishop and his wife Jeri. A great time was had by all!



Left to right around the table: Jack McDevitt, Maureen McDevitt, Michael Bishop, Jeri Bishop, Carolyn Clink, Robert J. Sawyer, Carol Resnick, Mike Resnick.

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site