Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Identity Theft: And Other Stories (Robert Sawyer) Paperback – March 31, 2008
| Price | New from | Used from |
|
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial | |
|
Paperback
"Please retry" | $6.95 | — | $3.24 |
|
MP3 CD, Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry" | $12.96 | — |
This new collection by the man Anne McCaffrey calls "an absolutely marvelous writer" includes Hugo Award nominee "Shed Skin," Nebula Award nominee "Identity Theft," and Aurora Award winner "Ineluctable." In these pages, you'll discover the dark secret of the only priest on Mars, revisit H.G. Wells's Morlocks, and learn what really happens when aliens beam us the Encyclopedia Galactica.
- Print length386 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRed Deer Press
- Publication dateMarch 31, 2008
- Dimensions5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-100889954127
- ISBN-13978-0889954120
"Devoted" by Dean Koontz
An Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller.| Learn more
Popular titles by this author
Editorial Reviews
Review
-- Booklist
"At the end of this book, author Robert Sawyer announces not to expect any more short stories any time soon. Not because he doesn't like writing them, many of the seventeen included here were requests for various anthologies, but because novels pay better for the time and effort involved. . . One can only hope he doesn't stay in novel format for too long."
-- SFCrowsnest.com
"Sawyer's latest collection is highly entertaining and thought-provoking; the book has something for almost any science-fiction fan. It is a testament to Sawyer's talent that it is not necessary to be a sci-fi fan to enjoy his writing; this is a collection of great stories that just happen to be set in the future."
-- Quill & Quire
About the Author
Robert J. Sawyer is the author of the Hugo Award-winning Hominids, the Nebula Award-winning The Terminal Experiment, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winning Mindscan, and the #1 Locus bestseller Calculating God, plus 13 other novels. He lives just outside Toronto, Ontario.
Product details
- Publisher : Red Deer Press; 1st edition (March 31, 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 386 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0889954127
- ISBN-13 : 978-0889954120
- Item Weight : 11.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,662,535 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7,480 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books)
- #28,828 in Short Stories Anthologies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Robert J. Sawyer is one of only eight writers ever to win all three of the world’s top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He has also won the Robert A. Heinlein Award, the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award, and the Hal Clement Memorial Award; the top SF awards in China, Japan, France, and Spain; and a record-setting sixteen Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“Auroras”).
Rob’s novel FlashForward was the basis for the ABC TV series of the same name, and he was a scriptwriter for that program. He also scripted the two-part finale for the popular web series Star Trek Continues.
He is a Member of the Order of Canada, the highest honor bestowed by the Canadian government, as well as the Order of Ontario, the highest honor given by his home province; he was also one of the initial inductees into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
Rob lives just outside Toronto.His website and blog are at sfwriter.com, and on Facebook, Twitter, and Patreon he’s RobertJSawyer.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Introduction by Robert Charles Wilson spends more time referring to the many sources for information on RJS than saying anything original. He does recommend the book.
- "Identity Theft" (Down These Dark Spaceways, 2005) is about mind transfers into artificial bodies. One transfer disappears and a detective is hired to find him.
- "Come All Ye Faithful" (Space, Inc., 2003) concerns a reported miracle on Mars.
- "Immortality" (Janis Ian's Stars, 2003) considers the social mores of the sixties.
- "Shed Skin" (The Bakka Anthology, 2002) poses questions about morality and eternity.
- "The Stanley Cup Caper" (The Toronto Star, 2003) involves a Canadian internal matter.
- "On The Surface" (Future Wars, 2003) draws from H.G. Wells.
- "The Eagle Has Landed" (I, Alien, 2005) views humanity from an alien perspective.
- "Mikeys" (Space Stations, 2004) turns the tables in favor of the underdog.
- "The Good Doctor" (Amazing, 1989) is a short pun story.
- "Ineluctable" (Analog, 2002) brings aliens to the Solar System.
- "The Right's Tough" (Visions of Liberty, 2004) presents returning astronauts with a quandary.
- "Kata Bindu" (Microcosms, 2004) solves a problem on the Moon.
- "Driving a Bargain" (Be VERY Afraid, 2002) exposes the problems with a bargain.
- "Flashes" (FutureShocks, 2006) explains why everybody is frustrated with news from the Galactic Encyclopedia.
- "Relativity" (Men Writing Science Fiction As Women, 2003) looks at relativity from the female point of view.
- "Biding Time" (Slipstreams, 2006) is another tale about Martian mysteries.
- "Postscript: Emails From the Future" (The Globe and Mail, 2008) was written in 2008 as a prediction of the business news of 2018. The author seems to have some things right so far, but we will have to wait for the final results.
- About the Author gives a short synopsis of RJS's career, awards and website.
- Robert J. Sawyer Books lists the works published under the RJS imprint.
These tales cross many boundaries. Of course, so do the novels. They do prove that RJS is a versatile writer. He also brags a lot, but he has a lot to brag about.
This might be the last collection from Sawyer. He points out that the work required and the pay received for short stories are disproportional to that for novels. OTOH, he seems to write short works by invitation, so another short story COULD appear if the right person asked him.
Highly recommended for Sawyer fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of strange happenings in unusual locations. Read and enjoy!
-Arthur W. Jordin
There are some good stories in here: "Mikeys" was quite well-done; "Kata Bindu" was an interesting take on the typical moon colony story; and "Flashes" was a very good thought experiment about the Earth suddenly receiving "pages" of the "Encyclopedia Galactica".
However, too many of his stories take a post-religious view of the future, either outright denying the existence of the soul in favor of some nebulous definition of humanity ("Shed Skin") or mocking (and even villainizing) those who hold religious beliefs ("O Come All Ye Faithful").
There's also the ridiculous notion (as I mentioned in my previous review) of current fads and dubious theories being presented as real and enduring ("Emails from the Future"). There's even a "post-government utopia" story ("The Right's Tough") that is such utter nonsense that it is laughable that someone would conceive of the Earth functioning that way for more than a week.
Another problem I have with his stories are the hit-or-miss quality of them. There are some, as I said before, that are good, but others are like lesser-quality "Twilight Zone" episodes ("Ineluctable", "Driving a Bargain", ) or the insipidly bad "The Good Doctor" (yes, I get what he was doing there - it just failed horribly!). Even the first and last stories ("Identity Theft" and "Biding Time"), which are detective stories that take place in the Martian colony of New Klondike, are intriguing, but leave something to be desired. While I was surprised by the perpetrator (and their motive) in one story, the other one I saw coming a long way before the big reveal.
I know I shouldn't expect every short story in any anthology to be a great story. However, I would hope that more than half of the stories would be less blatantly "trans-human and post-religion is the future" frustrating and would be more entertaining.
This is the last time that I take a book off the library shelf just because I think I recognize the author's name.





