The Boskone Art show is a not-to-be-missed item. Boskone 50’s Art show held up to the its own prestigious standards with more than 100 panels, 2 special exhibits, docent led tours and special art demonstrations.

Congratulations to this year’s award winners!

Best in Show
John Picacio, “Hyperion-Final Figure Drawing”

* note that the link is to the illustration and not the final figure drawing

Chair’s Choice
Omar Rayyan, “Marinating the Goose”

Guard’s Choice (Fri-Sat)
Ruth Sanderson, “Fragile”

Guard’s Choice (Sat-Sun)
Ruth Sanderson: “Fragile”

Popular Choice
Lisa Snellings, “Quantum Circus Cat”

Staff Choice
Tom Kidd, Body of Work

Director’s Choice
Mike Maung, “69th Infantry, 1862”

Guest of Honor’s Choice
TBA

Judges’ Awards
Lisa Snellings, “Quantum Circus Cat”
Greg Manchess, “Bride of Frankenstein”
Ruth Sanderson, “Bird of Time”
Marianne Plumridge, “The Great Migration”
Joleen Flasher, “Sunset”
Jason Cheeseman-Meyer, “Spirit & Sinew”
Tom Kidd, Body of Work

Boskone is sharing the Westin with another event, so Friday’s dinnertime was interesting to say the least.

Plan ahead so you can grab a bite before Saturday night’s Skylark Awards.

Arisia and Boskone worked together to created this amazing Restaurant Guide and the companion Google Map.

Enjoy!

Boskone 50 is now in full swing! A busy Friday night filled with panels, like the popular and packed Singularity: There Can Be Only One with Charles Stross and Vernor Vinge to the ever-popular and delicious Boskone Reception featuring tables and tables of cake.

But you don’t have to take our word for it. Here are some twitter moments from Boskone 50 Day 1.

Check the schedule online or use your pocket program available at Registration. Also check Helmuth, the convention newsletter for updates. Click here for Helmuth Issue 1

As you may have heard, winter has arrived in Boston in the form of a giant blizzard that decorated New England with several feet of snow. (Remember to bring your boots!) However, the city is cleaned up and Boksone 50 is “game on!” 

Panelists, participants, and attendees are beginning to make their way to Boston as I write this post. We’re also looking forward to welcoming some late additions to the convention, including:

• Colin Harris
• George R. R. Martin
• Chad Orzel
• Steven Popkes
• Brianna Spacekat Wu & Frank Wu

If you haven’t checked out the schedule yet, you can access it via this Link To the Boskone 50 Schedule. Not only are you going to find some exciting new panels, but we’ve gone through 50 conventions worth of panels and decided to bring back some oldies but goodies for Boskone’s 50th Anniversary. So, get that highlighter out and start marking your schedules so that you don’t miss the event you have been dying to attend!

Now, go forth and enjoy! See you at the con.

To help your plan of attack for Boskone, the schedule is now available online!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

The Hidden Joys of Collecting: What’s on your shelf? The latest TARDIS coffee cup? A Captain Kirk action figure? A set of Harry Potter first editions? What is it about collecting that is so satisfying…and addictive? What new thing must you have? As you’ll see at the panel: us too.

Boskone Retrospective: Half a Century of Boskone: Join a star-studded roomful of previous Boskone guests as they reminisce about past Boskones. (In some cases, far, far past.) We’ll share what we love about the longest-running SF convention in the Hub of the Universe, and tell why we come back year after year.

Dataliths: Digging the Idea of the Programmer/Archaeologist: Our GOH Vernor Vinge has posited that as computing-based civilizations age, layers upon layers of legacy code build up in vast — let’s call them dataliths. Who gets to dig through them for valuable info? How do they do it? Isn’t our data already in pretty deep doodoo in this regard?

Demonstration: Steampunk Martial Arts: Characters in the perilous worlds of steampunk study a variety of martial arts. Whether to fight off ruffians, prepare for a duel at dawn, or try to fit into their fancy trousers for an upcoming ball, the people of our world’s Victorian age did, too. Come experience the elegant weapons of a more civilized age—the Higgins Academy of the Sword’s Grand Assault, an exhibition of authentic gaslamp martial arts.

Boskone Code of Conduct

Be respectful and courteous towards others. We expect you to understand that you need to ask before you touch and that no means no. Harassment of any kind, from intimidation to illegal behavior will not be tolerated. This policy applies to your interactions with everybody. We also expect you to refrain from illegal, destructive, and hazardous conduct.

Violation of this policy can result in action by the con committee ranging from warnings, to having your badge yanked with no refund, to permanent banning. Action by the convention in no way precludes the injured individual or the hotel from pursuing whatever remedies, civil or criminal, as they see fit.

If you feel you are being harassed, please let the Con Chair or a NESFA Officer know. If necessary please ask a Committee member to find one of those people for you. You will be treated with respect and your concerns will be taken seriously. All names involved will be kept confidential to the extent possible, but any accused has the right to know enough detail to be able to defend him or herself.

Please note that other behaviors, including but not limited to destruction of hotel property, can also result in the actions described above.

Boskone is a members’ only event and the con committee reserves the right to determine who may be a member.

Parties in a hotel room are considered the responsibility of the person who rented the room. Thus, a person throwing a party in his or her hotel room has the right to eject any person from his or her party if he or she deems that the person is behaving inappropriately.

(Also posted online at: https://b59.boskone.org/about/policies/)

Boskone is less than 2 weeks away! See what people are saying on Twitter:

When tweeting about Boskone, use #boskone. You can also follow us at @boskonenews.

In an age where many science fiction conventions focus on the pop culture aspects of science fiction, it’s refreshing to find a con that also emphasizes and celebrates actual science and technological detail.

Boskone’s Hal Clement Science Speaker brings together both a passion for science and science fiction to honor the man for which the award was named.

Hal Clement (Harry Clement Stubbs) combined a love of science, teaching it for over 40 years, with a love for science fiction and writing. He published over 15 books and numerous stories and articles over his career. He attended the first Boskone and became a Boskone fixture, attending 40 consecutive conventions.

This year’s Hal Clement Science Speaker is Jordin Kare.

Dr. Jordin Kare is a lapsed astrophysicist and a former freelance rocket scientist. He’s a senior inventor at Intellectual Ventures, where he designed the first (real) laser mosquito killer. He’s an expert on laser power beaming and laser propulsion, and co-founder and chief scientist of LaserMotive,Inc.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STEi_plwa6o]

He’s also a long-time fan and filker, who has been attending Boskones for 38 years and was the Featured Filker for Boskone 37.  His filking skills inspired this fun cover by Andrew Ross.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNaXMAdAemI]

At Boskone 50, Jordin Kare will give several talks Laser Launch, 50 Ways to Leave Your Planet, and It Came from the USPTO (weird & silly patents) and appear on a panel on Beaming Power from Space. He will also perform in a filk concert.

One of the popular events at Boskone are the many sword fighting demos held in the Galleria.

This year, we are happy to have the participation of both the Higgins Armory Sword Guild from Worcester, MA and Kunstbruder from Medford, MA.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94MObU2dWP4]

One of the panels at Boskone 50 will be a discussion of the short story “Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu, originally published in the March/April 2011 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. If you’d like to read the story in preparation for the panel discussion, IO9 is hosting a digital version of the story on their site. Click on this link to access “Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu.

Panel Description:

Ken Liu’s 2011 short story “Paper Menagerie” is the first fiction to win all three of SF’s major honors: the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. Let’s all read it beforehand, then talk. How does it do what it does? What makes a story so popular? What makes a story great?

Please note that the date and time for the panel discussion has not yet been released, but we’ll update this blog post with that information soon.