Our science fiction convention is, of course, occuring early in the year 2000. But, everyone elso who is running a convention will being ConThis 2000 and ConThat 2000. We certainly don't want to run with the crowd.

It will also be our 12th science fiction convention here in Pittsburgh. Titles like Confluence 12 or Confluence XII will be appearing on other advertising such as flyers and programs. Everyone else who's doing a con that doesn't like tacking a 2000 onto their name will be taking this route as well.

And so, I hit upon the idea of Confluence 1900. The Y2K computer bug might be resetting all our clocks back to 1900 anyway so why not take advantage of it. A chance to look back to the turn of the century when the art of science fiction was less than 100 years old and had yet to distinguish itself as a true literary genre. Back when the "founding fathers" of science fiction, Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, were setting out fantastic visions of the future. What of their, and other's, visions become science fact? Where did their predictions go wrong? How do we of the 20th Century view our next hundered years and how does that compare to the way they viewed their next century?

Confluence 1900 is a theme for this website. There will certainly be panels exploring similar themes during the convention but we have too many good ideas and wonderful things to talk about to confine ourselves to that single theme for the whole convention.


[Return to Main Confluence Page]