I've got some really cool programming lined up for this year's Boskone, which will be happening February 12-14, 2021. To become part of it, head on over to https://boskone.org/.

The con has managed to pander to most of my obsessions this time around, so I'm looking forward to these panels. It's going to be great to be on these with old friends like Charlie Stross, Vandana Singh, Cory Doctorow, Toby Buckell, Allen Steele, Mark Olson and Walter Jon Williams. Check out the schedule, and I hope you can drop by!

Radical Economics in Speculative Fiction Format: Panel

12 Feb 2021, Friday 15:30 - 16:30, Burroughs (Webinar) (Virtual Westin)

Currently scholars from around the world are calling out the inherent injustice and destructive nature of endless economic growth. New economic theories are coming up, from degrowth and agrowth to eco-anarchism and eco-socialism. How does science fiction reflect these ongoing paradigm shifts in our world? How may we take these real world ideas and play with them in fiction?

S.B. Divya, Karl Schroeder, Vandana Singh, Charles Stross

Into the Great Unknown: Migration as Plot Format: Panel

12 Feb 2021, Friday 17:00 - 18:00, Griffin (Mtg Room) (Virtual Westin)

Floods. War. Famine. The 10 plagues of Egypt. Any number of calamities can cause peoples to move en masse from their home and travel into the great unknown in search of survival, safety, and security. Migration is depicted in various ways from caravans to generation starships. What do we need to consider when telling these stories? What can and / or should be left behind? How do we handle exploration into the unknown? What part might a people's history, or that of a character, play in the story?

Vandana Singh, Tobias Buckell, Carlos Hernandez (M) , Aliette de Bodard , Karl Schroeder

Reading: Cory Doctorow and Karl Schroeder Format: Reading

12 Feb 2021, Friday 20:00 - 21:00, Indy D (Mtg Room) (Virtual Westin)

Karl Schroeder, Cory Doctorow

Kaffeeklatsch: Karl Schroeder Format: Kaffeeklatsch

13 Feb 2021, Saturday 10:00 - 11:00, Indy B - Kaffee (Mtg Room) (Virtual Westin)

You must signup to participate in this session by clicking on the blue button to the right to "Sign up and add it to your schedule." Space is limited to 25 people.

Karl Schroeder

Are We Ever Getting Off this Rock? Format: Panel

13 Feb 2021, Saturday 19:00 - 20:00, Harbor Ballroom (Webinar) (Virtual Westin)

Could there be permanent settlement anywhere but Earth? What would it take to create a colony elsewhere in our solar system? The three most important factors in determining the desirability of a property are "location, location, location." What are the hot properties in our neck of the woods?

Allen M. Steele, Karl Schroeder, Kenneth Schneyer (Johnson & Wales University), Mark Olson

Imagining the World of the Future Today Format: Panel

14 Feb 2021, Sunday 13:00 - 14:00, Marina Ballroom (Webinar) (Virtual Westin)

It's typical in the science fictional future, for the human population to not be jobless or homeless while robots take over work of all kinds or the Earth (dystopic or post-apocalyptic futures excepted). How do we perceive the evolution of human work? How do we avoid the parenthetical exceptions above? Everything is on the table and the future is ours. 

Walter Jon Williams (Word Domination), Alastair Reynolds , Linda D. Addison , Allen M. Steele (M), Karl Schroeder

On Sept. 22, the gracious people at Polyplexus are hosting me for a 90 minute discussion about our planetary crisis and potential solutions to it that involve systems thinking--and, potentially, a turning-away from the linear, mechanistic industrial culture we currently have.

Go register on Eventbrite or Polyplexus.com to join the session. The session will be moderated by Laura Anne Edwards, NASA Datanaut and TED Resident.

Here's what I'll be up to--a particularly fun set of panels this year!

Reading: Karl Schroeder

Format: Reading

 14 Feb 2020, Friday 20:30 - 20:55

 Your Generation Ship Has Landed! Now What?

 14 Feb 2020, Friday 21:00 - 21:50

Our behemoth of a spaceship has been in transit since the days of our many-times-great grandparents. We've finally reached an Earth-like planet and are ready to go. What will our panel (of appointed/anointed/hereditary/elected?) leaders suggest doing first? Have they forgotten something important? Watch the panel map out our future and that of the human race on this, our new home. Then suggest your own ideas.

 100 Years From Now…

 15 Feb 2020, Saturday 12:00 - 12:50

 The world as we know it has changed dramatically in the last 100 years. How about the next 100? What might everyday life be like a century from now? What technological marvels will the near future bring? What social changes will take place? How about natural and human-made disasters? Overall — where will we be, and how will we get there? Is the Singularity coming? "Day Million"? Or will our grandchildren herd sheep and shiver in the dark?

Futuristic Societies in Science Fiction

 15 Feb 2020, Saturday 14:00 - 14:50

 Creatures that are part human and part machine. Sentient alien species. People living on ships and across time itself. The future is full of people. So what does it mean to be a person in the future? How might futuristic societies evolve based upon their surroundings and histories? How can we escape the perils and pitfalls of contemporary social norms in order to create societies that feel completely fresh and new?

Kaffeeklatsch: Karl Schroeder

 15 Feb 2020, Saturday 16:00 - 16:50

 Autographing

 15 Feb 2020, Saturday 17:00 - 17:50

• ·        Digital Dystopia, a talk with Cory Doctorow, at Toronto’s Word on the Street festival, Sept. 22.
• ·        Seeding Utopias and Resisting Dystopias, at Toronto Public Libraries starting Sept. 23.
• ·        I’ll be interviewed in the VR space Sansar by Draxtor on Friday, Sept. 27th 2:00 p.m. EST. Get a Sansar account and join us!
• Scintillation, October 11-13. I’ll be attending this small but intense literary SF convention, in Montreal.

I'll be in Vienna in early April, speaking at the European Digital Media Awards ceremony. To get a sense of the flavour of the upcoming talk, I was interviewed by journalist Chris Sutcliffe.  You can read the interview here.

An excerpt:

“It’s funny: I’ve included augmented reality in my stories for 20 years now. As it finally becomes a viable technology, I find myself doubting it more and more. At first it seemed natural and convenient that we should want to explode the images and interfaces currently inside our screens out onto the physical world. But that may be a terrible idea for a number of reasons...

Boskone is held at the Boston Weston Waterfront, close to all the best action in downtown Boston.  I'm flying in Thursday night so I'll be available to chat, sign and read from Friday afternoon onwards. 

Here's my final schedule. What's on here matches closes my current obsessions, and a lot of these topics are front and center in Stealing Worlds.  So expect me to be vocal, opinionated, and engaged!

The Most Alien Aliens

15 Feb 2019, Friday 16:00 - 16:50, Burroughs (Westin)

How can you design a really GOOD alien? How can writers/artists imbue their creations with a genuine sense of otherness? What do our depictions of aliens tell us about ourselves?

James Cambias, Dr. Stephen P. Kelner Jr. (Ascent Leadership Networks) (M), Jeffrey A. Carver, Laurence Raphael Brothers (Freelance), Karl Schroeder

Near-Future SF

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 12:00 - 12:50, Harbor II (Westin)

1984 was published in 1949. 2001: A Space Odyssey was published in 1968. Neither was predictive ... at least for the year they were putatively about. Should science fiction set in the near future try to be prophetic? Can it avoid becoming dated? Does it always have to be dystopic? There’s a lot of it out there these days, but what makes a near-future story successful?

Fran Wilde, Michael Swanwick, Karl Schroeder, Paul Di Filippo (M), Brett James

Economics in SF/F Worlds

Format: Panel

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 14:00 - 14:50, Burroughs (Westin)

Whether you deal in coin, platinum, electronic credits, or chickens, all societies rest upon an agreed-upon economic foundation. However, fantastic fiction rarely features a reference to any body that establishes and monitors a financial system. How important is it to see a working (or failing) economy in an SF/F world? Can you realistically have a cashless society (Star Trek) or a civilization run by orcs (LOTR)? What are the economic drivers that keep these worlds turning? Fellowships that cross multiple borders to throw away precious metal objects so rarely pay well. How do our heroes and villains survive without visible incomes of any kind?

MR Richardson (Room 10 Publishing) (M), Fonda Lee, Karl Schroeder , Steve Miller (Liaden Universe), Mr. Walter H. Hunt (Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts)

Reading by Karl Schroeder

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 15:00 - 15:25, Griffin (Westin)

Autographing: James Cambias, Daniel M. Kimmel, Bracken MacLeod, Karl Schroeder

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 16:00 - 16:50, Galleria - Autographing (Westin)

Kaffeeklatsch: Karl Schroeder

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 17:00 - 17:50, Galleria - Kaffeeklatsch 1 (Westin)

If Only It Were Real

16 Feb 2019, Saturday 20:00 - 20:50, Griffin (Westin)

What science fiction concept, other than space travel, would you most like to see realized? Flying cars? Matter replicators? Time travel? Why? What would be the impact on civilization of this wish fulfillment? Flying cars crashing into buildings, replicators putting manufacturers out of business, time travelers running wild, oh my!

Alan Brown (M), Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Mary Anne Mohanraj (Speculative Literature Foundation), Karl Schroeder

The Limits of Automation

17 Feb 2019, Sunday 10:00 - 10:50, Burroughs (Westin)

When, how, why, what? Following up on last year's "The Future of Work" ... How far can we reasonably project that automation of jobs will advance in the real world in the next 10 years? Why? What limits to automation are presently visible? What plausible limits have we not yet encountered? What about the longer term? What jobs can we reasonably expect will be completely automatable in years to come? We'll focus on technical aspects, not so much on societal acceptance, and not at all on societal impact.

Mark Olson (M), Jeff Hecht, Karl Schroeder, Laurence Raphael Brothers (Freelance), Brianna Wu

When Robots Take Over (Our Jobs)

17 Feb 2019, Sunday 11:00 - 11:50, Burroughs (Westin)

Twentieth-century history shows that automation can increase productivity and stimulate new employment. More recent developments, however, haven't always been so productive or stimulating (e.g., grocery store self-checkouts). Are we nearing a point of no return — when technological advances chiefly function to replace human labor? What happens to society once work gets scarce, and stays that way? And what might the transition to that brave new (jobless) world entail?

Mark Olson (M), Karl Schroeder, B. Diane Martin, John P. Murphy, Brianna Wu