Boskone 45

Boskone is a regional Science Fiction convention focusing on literature, art, music, and gaming (with just a dash of whimsy). Join us as we explore the worlds of the human imagination.

February 15-17, 2008, Westin Waterfront, Boston, Massachusetts.

Guest of Honor: David Weber
Official Artist: Dean Morrissey
Special Guest: Bruce Coville
Featured Filker: Seanan McGuire

NESFA Guests
NESFA Press: Howard Waldrop

My Schedule:

Friday  6pm        Space War: How Would It Really Be Waged -- and Why?

        Walter H. Hunt     (hotc@walterhunt.com)   (M)

        Karl Schroeder     (karlds@rogers.com karl@kschroeder.com)

        Christopher Weuve

    Why bother making war in space? Economics? It seems unlikely a
    sufficiently advanced level of technology could annihilate the costs
    of distance without alleviating local scarcities. Ideology? Outside
    of Ming the Merciless (war as an enthusiastic hobby), who needs
    converts (or enemies) that badly? Defense? Is this remotely
    plausible against, say, hyperkinetic impactors or sunbuster bombs?
    We ll try to imagine actually credible space war methods -- and
    motives-- that could make this hoary SF trope anything more than a
    bunch of tripe.

 Friday  8pm        Applied SF: Using SF in the Real World

        Karl Schroeder     (karlds@rogers.com karl@kschroeder.com)

    When he's not writing science fiction, Karl Schroeder is a
    consulting futurist for government and industry. Sounds interesting?
    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?

• Saturday4pm        Autographing

• Sunday  10am       Kaffeeklatsch
• Sunday  12:30pm    Reading (0.5 hrs)

          Karl Schroeder     (karlds@rogers.com karl@kschroeder.com)

• 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.)