Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

75 years ago today, the world’s first atomic bomb was tested. One of the key personnel involved with that was J. Robert Oppenheimer – the subject of prolific Canadian author Robert J. Sawyer’s latest novel, The Oppenheimer Alternative.

A few weeks back, he chatted with Paul Simpson about the challenges of writing about a real person and all that was involved with the creation of the book.

The thing about writing prose fiction is in a sense, even though it’s fictitious, you’re still writing autobiography because you get inside the character’s head. You’re not saying, ‘Here’s what so and so said about him and here’s the transcript of the speech that he gave’. You actually get to hear the inner monologue the character had and then acted.

Click here to read the full interview

and here for our review of The Oppenheimer Alternative.

Our previous interviews with Sawyer are also available – from 2012, and from 2016.