Given Robert J. Sawyer's reputation as one of the most positive-thinking sci-fiwriters on Earth, you might assume he would take exception to Stephen Hawking's recent warnings that alien contact might not go well for humans.

Sawyer, after all, took CanLit icon Margaret Atwood to task in 2003 for adding to what he saw as the excessive pessimism in modern sci-fiwith her grim dystopian novel, Oryx and Crake.

Last week, Hawking punctured that E.T. image of the friendly alien when he questioned whether it's a good thing to advertise our whereabouts to what may be a technologically advanced species.

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