This year's Worldcon is virtual, so you can easily attend! Zip on over to the CoNZealand website to get registered and attend any or all of the events below. Particularly of note for me this year, you can come to my reading, attend my Kaffeeklatsch, or join the discussion on my idea of "thalience."

Future Laws

 Format: Panel

29 Jul 2020, Wednesday 10:00 - 10:50, Programme Room 1 (Webinar) (Programming)

Law changes when the world changes. When you can duplicate a person, who owns the house? Which one is married to the spouse? How do you define property when physical objects are almost worthless but computing power is in short supply? Is it ethical to genetically "correct" autism in the womb? We're going to have to decide.

 Format: Panel

29 Jul 2020, Wednesday 13:00 - 13:50, Programme Room 4 (Webinar) (Programming)

Will we ever fully disentangle from the physical? Blockchains, crytocurrency, differently organic sentinence. Will economic concepts of supply, demand, money, resources hold up? Evolve? Or be completely different?  And what might they look like?

Kaffeeklatsch: Karl Schroeder

Format: Kaffeeklatsch

31 Jul 2020, Friday 13:00 - 13:50, Kaffeklatch and Literary Beer Room (Programming)

Reading: Karl Schroeder

Format: Reading

 2 Aug 2020, Sunday 09:30 - 09:55, Reading Room 2 (Programming)

Format: Panel

 2 Aug 2020, Sunday 11:00 - 11:50, Programme Room 3 (Webinar) (Programming)

What are the challenges of SF set in the near future? What are good examples?

Thalience and Sentience

 2 Aug 2020, Sunday 13:00 - 13:50, Programme Room 4 (Webinar) (Programming)

Thalience and sentience. Is there really a difference? How do we tease it out?

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

I'll be tag-teaming with L X Beckett at Bakka Phoenix bookstore Thursday, Oct. 24.  We'll both be reading from and signing our new novels, which have some really interesting similarities.

Beckett's Gamechanger is set about sixty years later than Stealing Worlds, but they could almost be the same world. In my novel, we're balanced on the uneasy edge of the future; AI, self-driving cars, and murderbots aren't quite here yet, but people are already being displaced by their imminent arrival.  In Gamechanger, the whole whirlwind of change that cyberpunk shows us has come and--not exactly gone, but evolved in really cool ways.  Beckett's vision of the future is staggering, and I'm thrilled to be able to share the evening.

• ·        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.

Here's my schedule.  I'm not going to be in Dublin very long, so I'm going to prioritize meeting people and socializing over sightseeing.  You can expect to find me around the con most of the time from Thursday afternoon to Sunday.

Autographs: Thursday at 14:00

15 Aug 2019, Thursday 14:00 - 14:50, Level 4 Foyer (CCD)

Kaffeeklatsch: Karl Schroeder

16 Aug 2019, Friday 13:00 - 13:50, Level 3 Foyer (KK/LB) (CCD)

Reading: Karl Schroeder

16 Aug 2019, Friday 15:00 - 15:20, Liffey Room-3 (Readings) (CCD)

Space opera is for robots; soap opera is for people

Format: Panel

17 Aug 2019, Saturday 10:00 - 10:50, Liffey Hall-2 (CCD)

Will humans ever live long-term in space, or is it easier to let our ‘mind children’ go to the stars, whether as uploaded minds or independent intelligences? If humans (or AI) leave for space, would we miss them?

Lauren James (Walker Books) (M),  Diane Duane (The Owl Springs Partnership), Karl Schroeder (Tor Books), Laurence Raphael Brothers

What I learned along the way

Format: Panel

17 Aug 2019, Saturday 15:00 - 15:50, Wicklow Room-3 (CCD)

Writing is a many wondrous thing filled with highs and lows, but those lows can be really tough to navigate either after a great success or after a lack of success. Rejection is something every writer has to face, but how do writers keep writing in the face of failure? What lessons have they learned along the way? Our panellists share the ups and downs of a writing life.

Aliette de Bodard, Ian R MacLeod (M), Karl Schroeder (Tor Books), George Sandison (Titan Books), Nina Allan

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