Last Chance to Sign Up for BasedCon V

And A Review of BasedCon IV

Jul 10, 2025

Just one week left to register for BasedCon V, set for September 5-7 in Grand Rapids Michigan. The registration deadline has been extended to July 17. Note that the registration fee includes meals. The hotel must be booked separately; instructions sent upon registration.

Tired of watching your favorite sci-fi and fantasy franchises get hijacked by woke lectures and identity politics? Then come to BasedCon, a gathering for fans and creators for whom storytelling comes first, and ideological conformity isn’t a prerequisite for publishing or attending a con. No DEI checklists, no pronoun policing, just great books, bold ideas, and the freedom to say what everyone else is thinking but too afraid to admit. If you long for dragons, spaceships, and heroes who don’t need a sensitivity reader, BasedCon is your home.

BasedCon is a reboot of traditional science-fiction/fantasy conventions centered on unfiltered, reality-based dialog. This post summarizes the guests who will be attending and presents the receipts with content from last year’s BasedCon.

Featured guests include:

Rachel Fulton Brown – University of Chicago medievalist and Christian imagination advocate, blending Tolkien, poetry, and theology in her work and livestreams.
Alexander Macris – Harvard-trained entrepreneur and game designer, creator of Adventurer Conqueror King and founder of multiple media and gaming ventures.
Blaine Pardoe – Prolific bestselling author in military history, true crime, and science fiction, known for BattleTech novels and conservative commentary.
Bill Willingham – Acclaimed comics creator and writer, best known for the Eisner Award-winning Fables series.

Other Guests Include:

Patrick Abbott – Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and novelist, exploring faith and the psychological toll of war in his fiction.
Tony Andarian – Epic fantasy author and indie game developer, creator of Sanctum of the Archmage stories and modules.
D.S. Blake – Satirical sci-fi writer of the Exopreneurs series, known for dry wit and whimsical takes on cosmic mystery.
M.D. Boncher – Multitalented author and artist drawing on a broad range of life experience to create faith-infused speculative fiction.
Declan Finn – Award-winning urban fantasy and thriller author, known for fast-paced Catholic-themed adventures and Dragon Award nominations.
Dan Gainor – Media veteran and editor turned sci-fi author, writing in the Fae Wars universe and known for extensive journalistic experience.
Eric M. Hamilton – Author of Presidents of the Uncanny States of America, blending alternate history with supernatural storytelling.
Frederick Heimbach – Analog-published writer of speculative fiction with a background in podcasting and multiple novels to his name.
Herman Hunter – Pulp-inspired fantasy author mixing epic storytelling with classic genre influences.
Robert Kroese – Prolific sci-fi humorist, founder of BasedCon, and author of 35 novels, including the Mercury Falls series.
Ann Margaret Lewis – Sherlock Holmes and sci-fi writer with roots in licensed Star Wars fiction and classical vocal performance.
Joe Lewis – IT innovator and war-gaming champion, with patents in logistics and a long history in tabletop strategy gaming.
Morgon Newquist – Sword-and-sorcery author and RPG writer with a strong voice in indie fantasy and Southern storytelling.
Russell Newquist – Software engineer, martial artist, and bestselling editor of horror and supernatural thrillers.
Sarah Pierzchala – Award-winning novelist and essayist known for thoughtful, Northwest-set techno-thrillers and Catholic themes.
Lawrence Railey – Byzantine historian and AI expert collaborating on cyberpunk alt-history with sci-fi author Travis Corcoran.
Hans G. Schantz – Physicist, inventor, and science fiction author of The Hidden Truth series and The Wise of Heart.
Jamie Wilson – Conservative fiction promoter and publisher, founder of Conservatarian Press and co-founder of CLFA.

BasedCon IV 2024 Panels

Last year’s BasedCon delivered bold panels, fearless fiction, and unapologetically based conversations you won’t hear anywhere else.

Fairy Tales to Fight the Culture War

We all love re-telling fairy tales, using them as structures for our own stories, reframing them to point to current tensions, revealing them as the basis for our own sense of meaning and reality. In Tolkien’s words, they enable us to recover the truth, escape from the lies, and experience the consolation of eucastrophe—which makes it all the more painful when others take these stories and subvert them to their own purposes. And yet, isn’t this the whole point of re-telling the tales? In the woods with Granny Weatherwax, do we side with Red Riding Hood or the Wolf—particularly when Lily is using mirror magic to force the Happy Ending?

Crilly, A. Lewis, Willingham, Brown (mod.)

Making Connections in a Hostile Environment

As hostile extremists have consolidated their power over the publishing industry, literary events, writers’ organizations and awards, it has become vital for wrongthinking authors to band together and devise new ways of meeting each other and finding readers. Among other things, we’ll talk about Substack, Patreon, the Yggy author database, the Based SF&F Book Club, and of course BasedCon.

Schantz, Wilson, Kroese, Landry, Gainor (mod.)

Trends in Epic Fantasy

Is epic fantasy dying? How has the market been affected by big-name authors failing to finish their series? What explains the popularity of formulaic genres like LitRPG? Is there still a place for truly original fantasy?

Hunter, King, Andarian, Willingham A. Lewis (mod.)

Technology & Dystopia

Dystopias have been a staple of science fiction from the beginning, in part because totalitarian regimes depend on technology, and in part because of the genre’s tendency to extrapolate negative societal effects from technology (“If this goes on...”). Can a dystopia exist without advanced technology? Are we (as human beings and as writers) too quick to look at the negative effects of technology while overlooking the human capacity to adapt and overcome? Is projecting doom and gloom a luxury of people who are too insulated from reality by technology?

Gallagher, J. Lewis, Schantz, Pierzchala, R. Newquist (mod.)

A Culture Without Books

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” - Cicero Over the past 15 years, ebooks have gone from a tiny niche market to surpassing physical books in sales. In many ways, ebooks are a Godsend: they’re cheap to produce, easy to distribute, and highly portable. But there are downsides, too: Amazon has a near-monopoly on ebook sales, giving them tremendous power over readers and authors. They can even censor books after publication, reaching into their customers’ devices and changing or removing content. Beyond these obvious issues, how has our society’s transition from books as physical objects to books as data affected us psychologically and spiritually? Are we in some way impoverished by a dearth of physical books in our surroundings? Are we seeing the beginnings of a backlash against ebooks?

Kroese, Brown, M. Newquist, Laupheimer, Wilson (mod.)

Artificial Intelligence in Publishing

Over the past two years, artificial intelligence applications have gone from a niche interest to a major factor in all aspects of the publishing industry. How is AI being used for book cover design, audiobook production, and writing? How will this affect the quality and quantity of works produced? Are novelists going to be replaced by AI? What are the legal issues involved with using AI in a creative work? What are the pitfalls of using AI? Is the AI backlash real?

Odle, J. Lewis, Jacobsen, Railey (mod.)

Alternate History and Secret History

We’ll take a look at these two very popular and closely related genres. What’s the difference between alternate history and secret history? What are the conventions of these genres? Why are we so interested in alternate histories? What can these genres do that others can’t? What are the pitfalls of writing in these genres? What are some of the best examples of these genres?

Kroese, Railey, Himebaugh, Hamilton, Williamson, Schantz (mod.)

Humorous Science Fiction and Fantasy

Why so serious? If it’s a story of human beings (or human being-like things) there’s going to be comedy. From situational comedy to farce and satire, from knock-knock jokes to slapstick, adding the right kind of comedy at the right time can bring readers back for more. Join us as we discuss the pratfalls and pitfalls of comedy in SF&F.

Kroese, Boyd, Himebaugh, Blake (mod.)

Going on the Offensive in the Culture War

The cultural landscape has changed dramatically since the first BasedCon in 2021. Based creators have gotten organized, Twitter (AKA X) has been liberated, and the public is sick of woke entertainment and smear campaigns. Is it time to go on the offensive? What are some ways to proactively reclaim the culture and undermine the efforts of the enemy?

Gainor, Pardoe, Willingham, Schantz, M. Newquist (mod.)

The History (and Future?) of Science Fiction

A discussion of the history of speculative fiction movements or periods (Gothic, Classical, Pulp, Golden Age, New Wave, Cyberpunk, Post-Cyberpunk, Realistic Science Fiction, etc.) and where the genre is headed next. In a world of independent publishing, with millions of new books coming out each year, does it even make sense to talk about “movements” anymore? How do Neo-Pulp, Iron Age, Isekai, LitRPG, and other movements and subgenres fit int?

Gallagher, R. Newquist, Schantz, Gainor (mod.)

Has the Left Lost the Plot?

The arts and the entertainment industry have long been dominated by left-leaning individuals. Despite (or because of?) this, they have produced a plethora of high-quality movies, novels and other works of fiction, many of which promote traditional values such as courage, loyalty and the importance of family. Many observers have noted, however, that in the past few years, the quality of entertainment has declined precipitously. From The Rings of Power to the latest Marvel abomination to the mediocre works winning Hugo Awards, the left seems to have forgotten how to tell a compelling story. What happened? Will the trend reverse? Is there an opportunity here for wrongthinking creators?

Willingham, Pardoe, M. Newquist, Gainor (mod.)

Has Publishing Forgotten About Men?

Traditional publishers don’t seem interested in selling books to men anymore. Is this because publishing is dominated by women, or perhaps because our culture is hostile to masculinity? Is it true that men don’t like to read? Are men more difficult to market to? Are men’s tastes more varied than women’s, generally speaking? Is there an opportunity for indie authors/publishers to meet the demand for books that appeal to men?

Finn, Williamson, Shuerger, Pardoe, Humphreys (mod.)

Religion and World Building

We’ll look at the relationship between religion and world building. How does the author’s religion affect world building? How can religion add flavor to a setting? What makes a fictional religion feel real? How does religion as flavor differ from religion that is essential to the story? How can different religions compete or cooperate to create drama?

Brown, Abbot, Hunter, Pierzchala, Gallagher, A. Lewis (mod.)

Catechism and God’s Entry into Time

Catechism and God’s Entry into Time: Old English Poetry, Alice in Wonderland, and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons Catechism, historically, begins with telling a story in time: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). For modern Christians, this storytelling typically involves discovering Jesus of Nazareth as an historical figure — the “Jesus of history” who lived in the Roman province of Judea a generation before the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70. For ancient and medieval Christians, the exercise was somewhat different. The problem, for modern Christians wanting to participate more fully in the long tradition of our faith, is that this ancient and medieval version of the story often sounds like nonsense worthy only of a children’s tale — or myth — “a tale begun in other days, when summer suns were glowing — a simple chime, that served to time, the rhythm of oar rowing — whose echoes live in memory yet, though envious years would say ‘forget.’” And yet, somehow, we need to learn to tell it, if we are, with Alice and the hobbits, to find ourselves in the same tale still, if only we knew where to begin without falling down the rabbit hole into the Mordor of lost time — and unbelief.

Rachel Fulton Brown, Hans Schantz (intro)