My Boskone Schedule
What I'll be up to in Boston next weekend
These are preliminary items; I'm likely to have some stuff added for Sunday as well. Also, readings, signings, and Kaffeeklatsches are not yet scheduled so you can expect some action there too.
- Frida 6pm
Applied SF: Using SF in the Real World
Karl Schroeder
When he's not writing science fiction, Karl Schroeder is a consulting futurist for government and industry. Sounds like a perfect job? Hear all about it!
- Satur 10am
Building a Great Battle
James D. Macdonald, Tamora Pierce, Karl Schroeder
Whether it takes place in the expanse of space, an open field, or a dark street, what brings a great battle to life on the page? How must a writer manage pace and description so the reader gets a sense of the action? - Satur 12 noon The Appeal of the Lawless Elite
Alexander Jablokov
Beth Meacham
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Paul Park
Karl Schroeder
Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden has said, "Much of the genre works by appealing to our wish that the world s extra-legal violence be under the control of the kind of smart people we admire. The Second Foundation and the X-Men -- and, for that matter, the Scooby Gang and the Laundry -- are all, to some extent, basically the Ku Klux Klan, except that the extrajudicial violence they carry out is (we re assured) merited and just." Discuss. - Satur 2pm
Who'd'a Thunk It? Unexpected Uses of Technology Tobias
Buckell
Chad Orzel
Karl Schroeder
Charles Stross Numerous technologies wind up getting used for quite different purposes than their originators expected. Consider dynamite, bubble wrap, speed trap radar, screensavers, the Internet's massive if not main use as a conduit for pornography, and laser pointer cat toys. What other example suggest themselves? Does this phenomenon make basic research more desirable, or less? Is it ever discussed in SF? Consider some of the great SFnal inventions (the hyperdrive, AIs, cyperspace, anti-gravity, boosterspice, positronic robots, personal force fields). Can you extrapolate some unexpected uses for them? - Sunday sometime (not fixed yet): Space War: How Would It Really Be Waged -- and
Why?
(Pretty much what it says: Say we have a Galactic Empire or a hostile Mars or whatever. Take a realistic look at space warfare.) - Also Sunday Global Warming: The Realities
(The idea is not to debate whether or not it's real - of course it is -- but to take a scientific look at some of the more inflated claims and at some of the possible solutions.)
Dinner...AND a Show!
Oz