The second SFContario was a roaring success according to everybody I've talked to--and I had a great time too. Of course it was an honour to be the GOH this year, and I tried to meet and talk to everybody I could. The panels were fun, but most important for me was the opportunity to connect up with people I don't get to see too often.

There are lots of people to thank, from the con committee to the diligent volunteers. My primary contacts were Alex von Thorn and Diane Lacey, who made sure I was provided for and my weekend organized.  

It was good connecting up again with the Hartwells, the Swanwicks, John Scalzi, and many other American friends who braved the November weather to come up. 

I think the high point of the convention, for me, was being interviewed by Lawrence M. Schoen on Saturday morning--not for the ego-boo, but because I've known Lawrence for a few years and our conversations are always wide-ranging and surprising. This one was no exception, and it was a delight from start to finish.

I hosted the English-language Aurora Awards this year, which was also a stellar honour. I don't feel I completely lived up to the responsibility because I accidentally sent my dress clothes home with my wife Saturday night and only discovered the gaff just prior to the ceremony--so I had to host it in a T-shirt and jeans. My apologies to everyone, particularly the Aurora committee, for looking like a slob at such an important event. 

The ceremony itself was packed, however, and the atmosphere was actually quite electric. I've never seen such an enthusiastic and engaged crowd at an Aurora ceremony; it was the audience and participants that brought the event back to the peak of significance it deserved. I thank you all.

I wish the convention all success next year, and the same for all my fellow writers and the winners and nominated Aurora alumni. You deserve your days in the sun.

I've been invited to talk about some of the ideas I mentioned on Charlie's blog last month.  This is what comes of emerging from your cave after working in isolation for a couple of years; but it's all good.  Applied Brilliance describes itself this way:

Applied Brilliance is one of the most original and influential thought-leadership events, designed to raise the level of creativity, innovation and applied intelligence for creatives, educators, the intellectually curious, and marketing and design professionals.

What caught my eye about this particular conference was that the rest of the speakers they'd lined up are all working in areas tangential or similar to what I'm doing.  I guess that's why they contacted me.  Anyway, my talk will be on "Enchanted Materialism" and the New Politics of Nature (for those of you keeping up with the philosophical Joneses, yes, that's a dual allusion to Jane Bennett and Bruno Latour).  My subject will be private conversations with the climate, natural systems as political actors, and new political tools in the post-social media world.

Realizing that all of this sounds cool but horribly vague, I think I need to post a reading list here sometime. I'll get on that.  Meanwhile, I'm really looking forward to the conference, mostly because I'm anticipating some really great conversations and meeting new and interesting people there.

• Friday  6pm        Writing Graphic Novels
• Friday  9pm        Against a Bright Background -- Building a Vivid  World
• Saturday11am       Imagining the Near Future
• Saturday4pm        What Is Time Travel Good For?
• Sunday  10am       Nanotech or Nevertech?

Boskone 48 will be held at the Boston Westin Waterfront hotel, February 18-20, 2011.  Guest of honour will be Charles Stross, with special guest Charlaine Harris. I love this convention, and have been going for a few years now.  

This is going to be my opportunity to talk about what it's been like to go for a Masters degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation--essentially, futurism.  I've also got some graphic novel material to show off.  So if you're in the Boston area on that weekend, come on down!

Fri. 7 PM – Gardenview

How to write a synopsis. A synopsis is an important part of the submission package you will use to sell your novel. But what is a synopsis and how is it developed and polished? Is there an ideal length? How much detail should it include? Panelists discuss common problems and errors. (Erik Buchanan, Michael Martineck(M), Stephen B Pearl, Karl Schroeder)

Fri. 9 PM – Ballroom BC       Aurora Pin Ceremony

Sat. 11 AM – Room 207      Kaffeeklatsh

Sat. 1 PM – Ballroom A

The Decline of the Written Empire: With e-books, 3000 channel television, web casts, and kindle, is the “book” on its way out? And how do you get an author’s signature on a IBook? (Alison Baird, Beverley Bambury(M), Ed Greenwood, Sandra Kasturi, Karl Schroeder)

Sat. 8 PM – Courtyard

Rewilding the Human Species. Rewilding is the process of returning species, habitats and landscapes to a natural state, as they would be without the intervention of humans, including the return of captive animals to the wild. But what about rewilding the human species?(Karl Schroeder)

Friday 7:00 PM - Gardenview

How to write a synopsis. A synopsis is an important part of the submission package you will use to sell your novel. But what is a synopsis and how is it developed and polished? Is there an ideal length? How much detail should it include?

Panelists discuss common problems and errors. (Erik Buchanan, Michael Martineck(M), Stephen B Pearl, Karl Schroeder)

Saturday 11:00 AM 

Kaffeeklatsch

Saturday 1:00 PM - Ballroom A

The Decline of the Written Empire.  With e-books, 3000 channel television, web casts, and kindle, is the “book” on its way out? And how do you get an author’s signature on a IBook? (Alison Baird, Beverley Bambury(M), Ed Greenwood, Sandra Katsuri, Karl Schroeder)

 Saturday 8:00 PM - Courtyard

 Rewilding the Human Species. Rewilding is the process of returning species, habitats and landscapes to a natural state, as they would be without the intervention of humans, including the return of captive animals to the wild. But what about rewilding the human species? (Just me so far, though I may bring some others on board)

For more information about the convention, visit the SFCOntario website.

This weekend is the annual media-oriented con in Toronto, Polaris.  I'll be there, and you can catch me at panels, a reading, or a signing, at these times:

• Where's My Rocket Car? Friday 09:00 PM 
• Reading - Karl Schroeder Saturday 11:00 AM 
• Trashing Other Planets Saturday 04:00 PM 
• Avatar: The Theory of Pandora Saturday 05:00 PM 
• Signing - Karl Schroeder Sunday 10:00 AM 
• Bigger Guns Or Better Stories? Sunday 03:00 PM 

Hope to see you there!

Fri 9:00 PM:

Same Old Settings

What settings are overused and underused in SF, fantasy, and horror works? What would you like to see more of, and what have you seen enough of? If you are looking for more creative ideas for settings, where should you go? What works do you think have the most original settings?

 Rick Wilber, Karina Sumner-Smith, Gregory A. Wilson, Karl Schroeder, Derek Kunsken

Sat 6:00 PM:

 Putting the Science Into Science Fiction 

How can authors effectively use cutting-edge science in their SF works?

 Chris A. Jackson (m), Derek Kunsken, Peter Watts, Karl Schroeder,

 Sat 7:00 PM:

 Body and Person in SF

 How SF has treated the connection between the body and the personality, from completely disconnected to very integrated.

J. Keeping,  Peter Watts, Karl Schroeder

 Sun 10:00 AM:

Writing the Future

 How do you create a credible near future (up to 50 years from now)? What things are likely to change and what will stay the same? Technological and scientific changes aren’t the whole story. How do you incorporate probable or possible changes in the environment, economy and politics, culture and social mores into a believable future?

 Hayden Trenholm, Karl Schroeder, Rebecca Simkin

Sun 2:00 PM:

 Intersection Between SF and Contemporary Issues 

Does an average 14-year-old understand that The Forever War is really about Vietnam? Are such allusions wasted effort? Does a writer limit his or her shelf-life by tying work too closely to the present day?

Robert J. Sawyer,  Rick Wilber, Karl Schroeder, Ira Nayman, J.M. Frey

 Sun 3:00 PM:

 A.I. in SF

 A.I. is a staple in SF. This panel discusses the current reality and probable future of artificial intelligence research 

J. Keeping, Robert J. Sawyer, Karl Schroeder

I'll be author Guest of Honour at Penguicon, April 30 to May 2, 2010.  Penguicon is not a science fiction convention, though there's a lot of overlap among the attendees; it's an open source con, dedicated to all things linuxy and open.  I hope this year to have the chance to talk about some of the research I did last year into open source biotech.  Meanwhile, however, if you're wondering what the con is like, I've managed to dig up a couple of podcasts of panels I was on at the 2007 convention:

• Cutting-edge SF author Karl Schroeder joins Ron Hale-Evans, author of Mind Performance Hacks, and Dr. Jonathon Sullivan MD PhD in neurology, to consider "The brain is a computer, the mind is software." That's been the ruling metaphor of cognitive science, neurology and AI studies for decades. The software of thought is supposed to operate much like that of a computer, going from discrete state to discrete state. However a new study from Cornell shows that our thoughts change continuously; the brain works "in shades of grey". And there are good reasons to think that the mind is not an artifact of the brain alone, but is extended into the environment as well.
• Christine Peterson, Jason Ahlquist, Karl Schroeder, and Ron Hale-Evans discuss the term 'posthuman'. The term "posthuman" seems to indicate a lack of humans. This is not what is meant, but itâs really bad marketing, and scares people. Even transhumanism is not a very friendly term. Names are important; perhaps it needs a new name the same way Free Software came to be known as Open Source Software?

If you're curious about Penguicon, give these a try.  

Here's the panel that Vernor Vinge, Charlie Stross, Aleister Reynolds, and I did at Boskone 47 on "The Technological Singularity:  an Assessment."  We critiqued the idea itself, its effect on science fiction writing, and its influence on our own works. You can watch it below; enjoy!

The Singularity: An Appraisal from Michael Johnson on Vimeo.

Friday  7pm        The Singularity: An Appraisal

Arguably the idea of the Singularity -- a period where change happens so quickly that life afterwards is incomprehensible to people who lived before it -- is one of the few entirely fresh ideas in SF in the last forty years.  Perhaps it is time for an appraisal. Has the idea of the Singularity been a good thing for SF, providing fresh ideas and stimulating great writing or has the notion that the comprehensibility of the future has a sharp (and near-term) limit diminished possibilities?  Has it been a good thing for *your* writing?  How about the Singularity in reality -- after twenty years does it look more or less plausible that it is lurking in our own real-world future?  Discuss the interplay between the idea of the Singularity in SF and actual scientific research.  Where are the really exotic ideas coming from?

  Friday  9pm        The Place of Prediction in SF and Reality

     Hugo Gernsback thought the purpose of SF was to educate.  Others think the purpose of SF is to predict. What *is* the place of prediction in SF?  Does it have any place at all, or is the occasional good prediction an accidental side-effect of writing stories?  Can SF be about the future and *not* be making predictions?  And let's not limit ourselves to technology -- if anything, SF may have a more distinguished history of predicting social changes.  (Did the publication of 1984 actually help prevent that future?)  Can foresight help us face the future? Finally, is SF better or worse in predicting the future than professional futurologists?

  Saturday1pm        Revamping Asimov's 3 Laws - and why that might be a good/ethical thing

     Charles Stross' *Saturn's Children* showed how Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics applied to an AI was nothing less than slavery of a particularly vile sort, since the chains of that slavery are made intrinsic to the nature of the robots and can naver be shaken off.  Do you buy this argument?  If so, are there alternatives to the Three Laws which might be less bad?  (Remember that the Three Laws  were constructed to deal with the Frankenstein Problem of our creations rising against us.)  Is it even possible to imagine AIs existing where we neither their slaves nor their masters?

  Saturday2pm        Space is for Robots?

     Is it such a bad thing that we haven't sent people to Mars, when  those little rovers can do so much without risking a life? What's the right balance between machines and humans in space exploration and development?

  Saturday3pm        Literary Beer

  Sunday  2pm        Autographing

Very surprised to discover that I'm going to be on Steve Paiken's show The Agenda tonight, starting at 8p.m. Eastern time on TV Ontario.  Each of his shows has its own web page; this one is here.

I'll be doing a panel discussion with the likes of Chris Hadfield (Canadian astronaut) and Donna Shirley (who led the team that built the Sojourner); the subject will be space colonization.  Threat or Menace?  I'll be introducing a somewhat contrarian view, but I hope the conversation will rise above the usual "should we do it?" debate to something a bit more interesting.

This invitation had come weeks ago, but I didn't think I was going to be able to do it; things have opened up at the last minute, so here we go!  Wish me luck, and tune in if you get the chance.

Cory alerted me to an interesting upcoming event:  The Science Fiction Message Board is hosting Author August, a month of discussions about particular science fiction writers--one per day.  Apparently I'm Mister August 26th (no, there will be no centerfold, unless you make one up yourself).  

The introductory description of the event is here, and the threads themselves will, I gather, be unraveling from the Author Central forum.  

This is pretty cool, although I'd be an idiot if I expected to necessarily be flattered by what (if anything) gets said about me on the day.  The sensible thing for me, in fact, would probably be to steer clear of reading it altogether--but you may want to drop by. 

And, if you do, be kind. :-)

I gave a keynote address on "the rewilding: a metaphor" at the O'Reilly Open Source 2009 convention last week.  It was recorded, and you can now watch it here:

The talk is notable for the number of times I go "um" and refer to my notes; that's mostly because I was called in at the very last minute, and was literally preparing the presentation on the plane.  I scrawled it on my iRex tablet, which you'll see me referring to as I talk. 

The key ideas--the central metaphor of "the rewilding" are part of a really big research program I'm in the middle of.  It's the capstone to all the ideas that went into two of my novels, Ventus and Lady of Mazes.  Those two books form a thematic whole, but their statement's not complete.  They need a final book, and The Rewilding will be that book--if I can pull it all together in my own mind.

O'Reilly was a bit of a testbed for that--to see if I could bring it all together into a fifteen minute talk that would make sense and be relevant.  You might think that's kind of like flying without an intellectual safety net, and it is; but life's too short, and as an SF writer, it's my job to point to new ideas, not necessarily to fully articulate them.

So try the talk, "um's" and all, and let me know what you thought.

Well, I'm going to be very busy at Worldcon, but feel free to approach me at any time.  Here's my schedule, so you'll know at least some of the places and times you can find me:

Friday

When: Fri 12:00

Location:  Other

Title:  Karl Schroeder Signing

Language:  English

When: Fri 15:30

Location:  P-511A

Title:  Oh Canada!

All Participants:  Karl Schroeder, Bob Boyczuk, Nalo Hopkinson, Ursula Pflug

 “America's aggressive attitude toward nature and the unknown…, translates readily into the mythology of conquering and domesticating the unknown that finds expression in much SF. The Canadian attitude seems to be that nature is simply too vast, too threatening, too powerful: man is nature's victim rather than the reverse. Survival, not conquest, is the issue.” (David Ketterer) Is this true, or is this consolatory rhetoric?

When: Fri 21:00

Location:  P-511A

Title:  Cecil Street Irregulars; A Canadian Writers' Group

All Participants:  Cory Doctorow, Douglas Smith, Karl Schroeder, Madeline Ashby, Michael Skeet, David Nickle, Jill Snider Lum, Sara Simmons

Moderator:  Madeline Ashby

Description:  The Cecil Street Irregulars writers’ workshop is not its official name; it does not meet irregularly, nor does it meet on or anywhere near Cecil Street. It is, however, one of the longest-lived of current writers groups. Collectively the current and former members have published numerous novels, short stories, plays and poems; all continue to insist (at least publicly) that they look forward to the regular experience of having their work sand-blasted by their fellows.

Saturday

 When: Sat 12:30

Location:  P-522B

Title:  Building Realistic Worlds

All Participants:  Amy Thomson, Karin Lowachee, Karl Johanson, Karl Schroeder, Robert J. Sawyer

When: Sat 18:30

Location:  P-511BE

Title:  David Hartwell and Karl Schroeder: The Editor and the Writer, Long Form

All Participants:  David Hartwell, Karl Schroeder

Description:  Hartwell and Schroeder have worked together on several novels. They talk about the process, how an editor edits, how the writer works with the editor’s feedback.

Sunday

When: Sun 9:00

Location:  P-518BC

Title:  The Uncanny Valley - AIs! They're Just Like Us!

All Participants:  Karl Schroeder, Tom Galloway, Kim Binsted, Rhodri James

Moderator:  Rhodri James

Description:  Are AI labs across the planet just making elaborate cartoons of ourselves rather than making something truly new? And what about AIs in science fiction?

When: Sun 11:00

Location:  P-521A

Title:  Karl Schroeder Kaffeeklatsch

All Participants:  Karl Schroeder

Description:  A chance to ask those burning questions.

Duration:  1:00 hrs:min

When: Sun 15:30

Location:  P-513B

Title:  SF and Economics

All Participants:  Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin, Hayden Trenholm, Karl Schroeder, S.C. Butler, Charles Stross

Description:  How does a writer incorporate events like the past 12 months into their future society? How does a writer extrapolate economic theory into far future societies?

Monday

When: Mon 10:00

Location:  P-513A

Title:  A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing

All Participants:  Amy Thomson, Carl Fink, Christopher Davis, Karl Schroeder

Description:  What happens when physicists try to write biological SF; or when a writer’s research goes badly wrong?

I spent the weekend with 200 other ubergeeks at the Googleplex, inventing then executing the agenda for the Sci Foo Camp 2009 un-conference.  My own talk was on "The Rewilding:  An Alternative to the Technological Singularity," and it was pretty well rececived by the tough crowd of intellectual heavyweights I pitched it to.

Other people who were there that weekend included Maureen McHugh (who has written some of my favourite SF and whom I finally go to mee!), and intellectuals/power brokers from diverse fields, such as George Dyson, Esther Dyson, Louise Leakey, Peter Diamandis, Elon Musk, Lee Smolin, George Smoot, Lawrence Lessig, etc.  There was an early rumour that Bjork was supposed to attend, but she never materialized, at least not in any recognizable form. 

Sessions included one on new data supporting an iminent mass extinction from global warming; spaceflight speculations by Musk and Diamandis; new findings in neurobiology and cognitive science, radical animal design, etc.  Way too much for me to be able to attend them all, of course; but I'm familiar with that problem from our SciBarCamp experiments in Toronto.  The Google campus was a good setting for the event, and they had built us a "holodeck" that ran Google Earth (and Mars) on a set of wraparound big-screen HD tvs.  The food at the campus is excellent, by the way--and yes, they do have a tyranosaur on their lawn.

 I met tonnes of people, and I'll catch up with you all individually rather than in this space.  ...I guess, in trying to summarize how weird and wonderful the weekend was, I'll just give one example:  there was a guy who'd brought a hand-held mirror that shows you your reflection unreversed.  (No, it's not a device, it's just a mirror.) 

The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculation is one of the most prestigious science fiction research collections in the world.  As part of the Toronto Public Library system, it's open to the public and is housed in a modern building in downtown Toronto (in between the University of Toronto campus and Chinatown).  I'm delighted to be able to say that I'll be Writer in Residence at the Merril between January and March of 2010.

This is a position of service to the public.  I'll be given time to work on my own material every day, but I'll also be making myself available to library visitors to discuss writing, review manuscripts, facilitate networking between prospective writers, and so on.

I'm very excited and honoured to be doing this, because twenty-three years ago, I arrived in Toronto by myself; didn't know anybody; and by chance heard about a local TPL branch called (then) the Spaced Out Library.  I showed up to discover that Judith Merril was currently writer in residence, and through her I was introduced to some of the best friends I've made in this lifetime.  The writer's workshop that Judy started at that time--I was there at the inaugural meeting--has been meeting once a week since 1987.  It's with great pride that I find myself coming full circle to become writer in residence at the very library that made my writing career possible.

We'll be at Minicon April 10-12, and I hope you can join us!  Here's what I'll be up to--although, as always, feel free to approach me in the halls, dealer's room, or where-ever if you want to chat or want me to sign something.  We're really looking forward to the weekend, and your participation will make it that much better!

Note:  it's a light schedule, since I'm still recovering from my surgery--but I'm doing pretty well these days, and hope to be around and available most of the time.

Schedule

Steampunk: the Romance of Science

Saturday 2:30

Krushenko’s

Sharon Kahn(m), Karl Schroeder, Richard Mueller, Dorf, Ceridwen Christensen

 What is Steampunk: a literary movement, an attitude, or merely fashion statement? Perhaps there is something about the buoyant spirit of the late 19th century that speaks to our feelings about technology today.

Interview and Signing: Author GoH

Saturday 7:00

Veranda 5/6

Rick Brignall(interviewer), Karl Schroeder

 Our author Guest of Honor talks about his life and his work. After the interview there will be a book signing  in the same space and a chance to chat with Karl one on one.

Breaking into publishing in the 21st Century

Sunday 10:00

Veranda 3/4

Michael Merriam(m), Karl Schroeder, Scott McCoy, Rob Callahan, Rick Brignall

An update of the perennially popular "Publishing 101" topic. What do you as a new writer need to know to get your big break? How is the process changing with the advent of printing on demand, audio books, and the paperback publishing industry in a state of freefall? Last year's advice on how to break into the business may already be obsolete

Second Foundation Discussion: The Works of Karl Schroeder

Sunday  11:30

Krushenko’s

Eric M. Heideman(m), Karl Schroeder, John Till, Greg L. Johnson

 Come and talk with the Author GOH about his work! Sponsored by Second Foundation, a speculative and science fiction-book discussion group that has met regularly since 1983 (see also Sunday evening, Krushenko's Annex)

 Hope to see you there!

Here's my schedule:

Here's what I'll be up to this weekend at ConFusion.  (For complete details of location etc., click the link under Upcoming Events on the right of this window.)

Saturday, January 24

10:00 AM       

Salon E        LITERARY - Playing with Genre Conventions (1 hr.)
Tobias Buckell, Jim Hines, Karl Schroeder, Doselle Young and Jim Frenkel [M] How can we take the mundane and shopworn conventions of science fiction, fantasy and horror and reinvent them?

Noon

Salon H        LITERARY - Setting:  Haven't I been here before? (1 hr.)
Violette Malan [M], Karl Schroeder, Catherine Shaffer, Doselle Young and Jim Frenkel How important is setting to a reader's understanding and enjoyment of the story?  Is setting the real difference between S and SF?  Are we overusing the settings we have, and are there any new ones?

3:00 PM

Salon E         LITERARY - Big Brother is Watching You! (1 hr.)
Cory Doctorow, David Rozian, Steve Buchheit, Karl Schroeder [M], Catherine Shaffer Personal privacy in the electronic age we now have or will have chips on everything we own including pets, where is this all going?  Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

4:00 PM

Salon E         LITERARY - Meet the New Medium (1 hr.)
Cat Rambo, Tobias Buckell [M], Karl Schroeder and Dave Klecha Games are as much a part of the younger generations entertainment mix as books writing for/about games.

5:00 PM

Salon E        MASS AUTHOR AUTOGRAPH SESSION
After a little bit of set-up Cryptic ConFusion's authors will be lined up to sign your books.
   
Sunday, January 25

10:00 AM       

Salon G        LITERARY - Wuffies?  Total meltdown?   Libertarianism? (1 hr.)
Cory Doctorow, Paul Melko [M], Karl Schroeder and Mathew Stewart-Fulton The actual future of economics what are some current ideas on where the world economy is headed.