Trollpunk Movie In the Making?

Johanna Sinisalo’s Tiptree winner Not Before Sundown (Troll: A Love Story in the US)—translated into 11 languages so far—has been optioned for a movie version, says YLE news. The book has been optioned by an American fashion photographer Carter Smith, director of the awarded short Bugcrush. Sinisalo tells YLE she will be able to read the script and comment on it if the project will go on beyond planning stage.

Arctic Comics Festival in Kemi

The 25th Arctic Comics Festival takes place in Kemi this weekend (May 19–21). This year’s themes are the Finnish comics scene over the past 25 years, Duckburg and manga. Special interest to sf fen is the British guest David Lloyd who–among other things–is famous for co-creating and illustrating the V for Vendetta graphic novel (written by Alan Moore). Other international guests are Frédéric Boilet and Aurélia Aurita (from France).

Eurocon 2007 Announces New GoHs

Eurocon 2007 has announced two more guests of honor: in addition to the previously announced David A. Hardy and Anne McCaffrey, the convention will feature Stephen Baxter from the United Kingdom and Zoran Živković from Serbia. The announcement should be on their official web site soon.

The convention will be held September 21–23, 2007 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

TransVision Conference in August

On August 17–19 (and so partially coinciding with Finncon) there will be an international Transhumanism conference at the University of Helsinki. The event is called TransVision 2006: Emerging Technologies of Human Enhancement, and the focus will be “looking at recent and ongoing technological developments and discussing associated ethical and philosophical questions.”

Something Wonderful This Way Comes

Did you know it’s only

100

days to Finncon?

Warren Ellis Comes to Finland

The guest of honor at the Helsinki Comics Festival next September will be Warren Ellis. This should of course be of interest to anybody who likes quality science fiction (as well as comics), as Ellis is very much into science fiction and imagining the future, and many of his works (especially Transmetropolitan) represent some of the best science fiction in comics form available.

Poor Little Hugo

The Hugo award short story discussion at mafia tonight pretty much didn’t happen, as only a couple of persons had read the nominees. The first place in our vote went to Margo Lanagan’s Singing My Sister Down (even though I had to vote a few times to make sure the right nominee won). On second place (or first, if you want to get all uptight about only allowing one vote per person) was The Clockwork Atom Bomb by Michael A. Burstein. It’s clear that this year’s nominees didn’t generate much passion among the Turku fandom; maybe it’s time to stop these short story themes at least for a while.

Zine #12 was mostly about Justina Robson: I’d written a short introduction and also a review of Natural History (medium-length story short: wonderful book; read it). Also part 1 of my Atorox diary. Not as many nominees covered as I had hoped, but there’s still time for the rest of them.

All in all, a fairly succesful pub meeting. Things talked about included super-hero comics, Finnish sf short stories, upcoming Finncon and old tv series, and quite a few other subjects.

First Thursday

First Thursday of the month is coming again, and it’s time to meet other fen in a pub. Bar Bremer, Thursday at six. Special theme: Hugo nominees for the best short story. Links to the short stories can be found on the report of last month’s meeting (as well as all the other stuff you missed if you weren’t there).