Miss seeing your fannish friends? Looking for something fun to do this summer? It’s time for some speculative fun. Join us online at reCONvene 2020!

The New England Science Fiction Association and Boskone are excited to announce reCONvene 2020, NESFA’s new one-day online science fiction convention. Boskone’s sister con will be held online on August 15, 2020, from 11:00 am-5:00 pm (Eastern U.S. Time). Our program includes six hours of fantastic science fiction, fantasy, and horror discussions with some of today’s most exciting authors.

Buy a Membership for reCONvene!

Memberships are available now for $10.00 and are available to anyone, anywhere! To register, please click the red button below to visit the reCONvene 2020 website.

Who’s Coming?

reCONvene is excited to welcome YOU along with more than 50 authors and artists to join us for our inaugural online science fiction convention. While we’re still confirming reCONvene’s speaker list, here’s a partial list of program participants who will be joining us online on August 15, 2020:

• Joe Abercrombie
• Steven Barnes
• Ted Chiang
• P. Djèlí Clark
• Br Guy Consolmagno SJ
• Aliette de Bodard
• Alan Dean Foster
• Andrea Hairston
• Charlaine Harris
• Stephen Graham Jones
• Aleron Kong
• Victor LaValle
• Sharon Lee
• Alastair Reynolds
• Rebecca Roanhorse
• John Scalzi
• Karl Schroeder
• Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Martha Wells
• Micah Yongo

What’s on the Program?

Our program will feature six hours of programming through Zoom that will include panel discussions to science talk, gaming, kaffeeklatches and more. ReCONvene’s full program is nearly complete, and here are a couple panels to whet your appetite.

The Allure of Pre-Tech Epic Fantasy
The popularity of fantasy set in pre-tech times continues to captivate the imaginations of readers and writers alike. What is it about these pre-industrial fantasies that spark the imagination? What place does science hold in these stories? Is the pre-tech age particularly well suited for epic fantasy? What makes these rural or low-tech stories and characters so compelling? Our authors discuss some of the opportunities and challenges related to pre-tech fantasy as well as what they love most about this fantastic genre.

The AI Among Us
AIs are here, slipping through our everyday world, crunching numbers, sorting data, and learning at an exponential rate. However, general artificial intelligence still remains a far off digital dream. Has AI failed us? Has innovation stalled? What can researchers learn from science fiction regarding sentient AI systems? What grains of innovation inspiration might still remain untested within the pages of novels and will increased computing power help us to bridge that uncanny gap?

Finding our Humanity in Horror
What is more human than the need to understand or the need to survive? From the disparate to the depraved, horror subverts our expectations and turns our known world into a chaotic series of events that undermine our control of the world around us. How does horror force us to see ourselves more clearly through the distortion of fear? What role does psychology play in turning the screw on our own terror, and why is it so difficult to look away? As our world fills with plots and themes straight out of a horror novel, why are we drawn to the genre even more strongly? And how can horror compete with real life without going over the top?

How Your Membership Fees Are Used

ReCONvene 2020 is a volunteer run convention. Memberships are available for a flat fee of $10, and we’re grateful for any supporting contributions received that will help to cover the basic event costs. Any additional funds received will go toward future program costs for reCONvene and Boskone in order to enable us to bring services to future events such as American Sign Language services, closed captioning, the New Voices Program, and memberships for those in need. Membership registration is available at www.reconvenesff.com.