SF giant Larry Niven and SF up-and-comer Tim Pratt are speaking together this weekend at FICTION SCIENCE, a fascinating USC conference on science fiction. The event's free and there's a ton of amazing stuff on the bill.
We live in a science fictional world. Every day another futuristic projection made in the past turns into the reality of the present. Science fiction and science fact have become all but indistinguishable. "Special effects" are no longer particularly special, and fictional worlds, hoaxes and alternate histories are sometimes more real than reality itself. Science fiction turns its readers into early adopters; it helps prepare us for the future however it unfolds. Science uses this imaginative resource to think beyond its paradigm boundaries. TransFormations 3: Fiction Science examines how science and science fiction mutually inform one another and shape not only our sense of the future but also our understanding of the present.
