The 2008 Windycon Science Fiction Convention

This weekend I'll be battling my way around the Windycon Science Fiction convention. Windycon, one of the country's larger science fiction conventions, opens Friday Nov 14 and continues through Sunday Nov 16. The theme for this the 35th Windycon is military science fiction and features topics like “Child Soldiers“, “Evolving War“, “Strategy, Tactics, Logistics: What Are They and Why Do I Need to Know?“, and “Mistakes That Go Boom” – to name just a very few. This year the convention will be held at the brand new Westin Lombard – Yorktown Center in Lombard, IL.

Following is my Windycon programming schedule.

Digital Art: Artist Meets Technology Cypress B, Friday 6:00pm:

The panelists will discuss the whats and whys of digital art. The emphasis will be on science fiction digital art: otherworldly planetscapes, three-dimensional aliens, and colors you never saw under our yellow sun. In addition to myself, the other panelists are David Mattingly, Windycon's Artist Guest of Honor, and science fiction author Roland Green.

Interstellar Warfare: How exactly do you do it Walnut, Saturday 2:00pm:

This panel's description reads: Interstellar warfare is the blood and bones of military SF, but how do you run a war in space? Given the physical limits of communication, how does a general direct a war? And what are we fighting over anyway? Planets? Wormholes? The Horsehead Nebulae? Join our panelists as they discuss this basic topic. At last year's Windycon I participated in a panel that discussed the subject of planetary and interstellar governments and the issues that such a system would face. So you could say that last year's panel was on how to bureaucratize the galaxy and this year's panel is on how to destroy it. The other panelists are M. D'Ambrosio, R. Garfinkle, J.L. Nye, and M. Shepherd-Moscoe.

Selling Space With Space Art Ballroom AB, Sunday Noon:

The actual title of my presentation is “Using Art to Promote Space Exploration“. My talk includes an overview of the history of space art and how space art has been used, and can continue to be used, to promote space exploration. I developed this presentation specifically for the International Space Development Conference which was held in Washington DC earlier this year.

If you're curious, you can read about my participation in Windycon 2007 and Windycon 2006.

See you at Windycon. Jim

| Return to the Blog Index | This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 8:53 am and is filed under Presentations, SF Cons.