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Caltech

World-Building: How Science Sculpts Science Fiction

Thursday, November 12, 2020
5:00pm to 6:00pm
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Online Event
  • Public Event

How do science fiction authors create their fantastical new worlds? How are they impacted by the latest scientific discoveries about exoplanets (planets outside of our solar systems)?

Join us for a panel of pre-eminent science fiction authors famous for their vivid imaginings of fantastical, fictional worlds as they describe their favorite fictional world, and then discuss the process of inventing a new world. Where do they take ideas from reality? Where do they choose to deviate from reality, and why? When does story trump science? What are the hardest and easiest parts of a brand new world for them to imagine? And finally, what responsibility do writers have when it comes to the public's science literacy?

Moderated by Phil Plait, the panel will feature Hugo award winners Becky Chambers, Mary Robinette Kowal, and John Scalzi, as well as Doctor Who writer Simon Guerrier. The panel will conclude with a moderated Q&A with the audience and the panel members.

► Zoom Registration Link

This lecture is sponsored by IPAC and the W. M. Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS).