The science fiction radio play Pieni suuri koodinmurtaja (Little Big Code Breaker) produced by the Espoo sf club ESC will be broadcast by Radio Helsinki on Christmas Eve at 6 PM. It can be listened to over the air (in the Helsinki region), or over the internet (link is on the station’s site).
I wish you all happy holidays and a great new year 2008!
There was definite holiday cheer on the bus to the pub meeting today. It was full of young people carrying loads of booze and a real-honest ghetto blaster with them, so the bus trip was one big party. (I was later told that they probably were chemistry students from the Uni, back from a cruise.) What better way to start an evening? Even if they would have deserved some kind of a cruel (and hopefully unusual) punishment for their criminally poor taste in music. But I digress…
Despite the non-traditional date, a dozen or so people found their way to the mafia today. This was the second time we gathered at “the new place,” and I think it is definitely more comfortable and versatile for our purposes (and the others seemed to agree), so you’ll probably find us there from now on.
The day’s smoffing concerned mainly the Christmas party (that seems to have progressed on its own while we were at the pub)—it’s next Saturday. There was also speculation about a possible Finncon in Turku in 2011—a thought that doesn’t sound as completely impossible now as I would have said only a month ago. We’ll see. Ben and Pasi discussed their sekrit project, very sekritly, but it’s a sekrit, so no more about that for now.
Before the topics went into politics and religion (as they not uncommonly do), we discussed some sf stuff also. Really, we did! Although more about tv than books, but anyway. Torchwood began on Finnish tv yesterday. Based on the comments of those who had seen it, it didn’t gather any new fans (at least not yet), but on the other hand wasn’t as reviled as in the British discussions I saw when the series originally debuted. The ‘comment of the day’ honorable mention goes to Ben (wondering about the new Bionic Woman), “Why on Earth would anybody be interested in watching a new version of a crappy 80s sf show… oh, wait: Galactica… I’ll shut up now.”
Here’s a photo of today’s gathering (with most of the people present):
Let’s have a competition: I’ll buy a beer at the next mafia for the first person who correctly identifies all the zines on the table. (Those who were present are naturally not eligible to participate.) Any takers?
Since the first Thursday of December is Independence day, the Turku pub meeting will be held a day earlier, on Wednesday the 5th. So, head to Pub Bremer tomorrow at six to talk some sf and have a couple of beers with other fen!
A dozen or so persons at the mafia today. Boldly ventured where no pub meeting had gone before—the other side of the pub, which I think was better suited for the meeting than the room we’ve previously occupied, and the gathering might well migrate there in the future. Varjomafia was officially disapproved of for having a competing meeting at the same time. Lots to talk about many things, including (already) some ideas for next year’s book fair. Some pathetic nerds talked about their Facebook antics. Everybody not impressed by its greatness (but it is quite handy a thing nevertheless). New members of the TSFS board present at mafia—that was great! Ben peddled the latest (and quite handsome) ish of Enhörningen. Boris Hurtta distributed an E.A. Poe pamphlet (a translation) and challenged people to recognize the language it was in. No free drinks needed to award those succesful in the challenge.
The new issue of Turu Mafia Zine (#23) has words about CMX’s wonderful new album Talvikuningas, plus the great US sf metal band Slough Feg. Also comments about a couple of new tv series (Bionic Woman, Moonlight, and Journeyman). And a little stuff about fanzines too. If you didn’t get one at the pub meeting, the issue is available from me for a SASE.
Bül ökmet rai, hai ükulai!
PS Due to the first Thursday of December being Independence day, we decided to have the December mafia on Wednesday the 5th.
PPS On the bus home I finished J. Pekka Mäkelä’s latest novel, Nedut. It is even better than Alshain (and that is saying quite a bit). I think it can be said J. Pekka is the top science fiction writer in Finland at the moment. More on Nedut later (probably in the next issue of the zine).
November starts with a Thursday, so come meet people at Bar Bremer this week (and get a free fanzine, technology permitting)!
So, November 1st it is. We start around six, and everybody is welcome!
The Kuvastaja award for the best Finnish fantasy book published in 2006 went to Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen for his novel Lumikko ja yhdeksän muuta. The jury describes the book as “a fantastic fantasy novel; such fireworks of ideas that many lesser authors would have milked it for several books; real fantasy that succesfully mixes small town milieu, ‘great artists’ that inhabit it, and local intrigue”.
The award is given annually by the Finnish Tolkien Society. Lumikko ja yhdeksän muuta is a worthy winner and an excellent novel that everybody should read! Partial Recall congratulates Pasi!
Duckmaster Don Rosa will be visiting Finland at the end of next month. Kvaak.fi reports he will be touring the country for a couple of weeks meeting his fans.Dr. David Ferro is a Associate Professor of Computer Science at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, USA. He has co-authored a book on the history of computing, an introduction to computer science, and articles on multi-modal user interface design. He is interested in software engineering culture and for the past year has been researching science fiction as an aspect of that culture. In 2007 he has been affiliated with the University of Tampere Computer Science TAUCHI unit in Tampere, Finland. He has taught a course on the history and social implications of computing there.
Sarjakuva Finlandia (“Comics Finlandia”) is a new prize awarded to a Finnish comics creator for a comics album, modeled after the Finlandia prize for literature. The award is given annually at the Tampere Kuplii event in Tampere, and the award sum is 5 000 euros.Got an e-mail from the Chief Executive of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, and she tells me they will be giving a special live performance of “the best of the Star Wars soundtracks” next month (Tuesday November 11). Atso Almila conducts.
The tickets are 5 euros, and the audience is encouraged to dress up in Star Wars costumes. The concert starts at 7 pm.
You can get tickets from Lippupalvelu or directly from the concert hall ticket sales (Aninkaistenkatu 9, (02) 262 0800 Mon–Fri 11–17). (We’ve already got ours!)
Some pictures I took at Eurocon last weekend:
The opening ceremony with the ESFS and Danish flags. There were stormtroopers on the premises, but I guess they mistook us for supporters of the Empire.
There were a couple of hall costumes at the con. I didn’t see these guys after the opening ceremony—maybe the stormtroopers got them?
Official ESFS meeting business. The good old officers were re-elected for another three-year term at the business meeting.
The Finnish party on Friday evening. Maija, Juha, and Anne tutoring the foreigners in the delights of salmiakki, vodka, and salmiakki vodka.
GoH Zoran Živković talked wise words at his speech. Seemed like a nice fellow.
The Finns outside the con building, enjoying great Czech beers kindly provided by Peter Pavelko (the second from the right—he blended in with the Finns marvelously).
Olav and Knud talking about important staff business with Carolina, who I think spent most of her convention gophering valiantly. At least that’s what she was doing every time I saw her.
The sf quiz. Note the score on the board (Jukka’s is the one on the right).
Those darn nice Italians that took Eurocon 2009 home to Fiuggi.
The ESFS awards looked… interesting this year.
There are more Eurocon pictures on my Flickr set. Others have also taken pictures.
Finncon fever might be in the rise. The Finnish party at Eurocon got very positive feedback and I think many more international fen are now aware of Finncon than before. According to one Eurocon report the best thing at the con was the Finncon 2009 ad that said George R.R. Martin is one of the Guests of Honor. We might have a reason to expect many more international fen at the 2009 con than usual. (And I’m hoping Finncon 2008 will see a surge of international members as well.)
The second Usva International, a special issue of the Usva zine, is out. It showcases contemporary Finnish fantastic fiction in English. The 2007 issue contains short stories by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, Juha-Pekka Koskinen, Anne Leinonen (the Atorox award–winning story The Otherling), Tiina Raevaara, Petri Salin, and M.G. Soikkeli. In addition the issue contains an excerpt of J. Pekka Mäkelä’s new novel Nedut.
The zine is a free PDF download, so go check it out!
Next year’s Finncon (in Tampere, July 26–28) opened its website today at <2008.finncon.org>. Mostly general announcements and basic info about the GoHs so far, but more to come, of course.
Note to Swedish fen: you have an official agent for Finncon 2008. Contact Michael Pargman if you have any questions about the upcoming Finncon.
Finncon 2009 in Helsinki is living up to their promise of being the biggest Finncon yet. They’ve announced their Guests of Honor will be George R.R. Martin and Alastair Reynolds. Both are already known in Finland and have fans here which should bring in some extra folk (what’s a couple of thousands more at a Finncon).
In the meantime, don’t forget next year’s Finncon in Tampere either.
It’s the first Thursday of the month again, so let’s meet at Bar Bremer at six. See you there!
Andy Sawyer, course director of the science fiction studies MA program at the University of Liverpool and reviews editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, is speaking at the University of Jyväskylä this Thursday as part of the “Cult and Identity: Conference on the study of cults and audiences” event. His subject is “The Enchanted Duplicator and Other Fables: British Science Fiction Fandom in the 1950s”. Among other programming at the event is also a presentation by Irma Hirsjärvi on sex and gender in sf literature. Don’t miss this if you just have a chance to be there!
The Guest of Honor at Åcon 2 is the British science fiction novelist Ian McDonald. McDonald is a PKD and BSFA award-winning author whose latest novels are the acclaimed River of Gods and Brasyl. His novella The Djinn’s Wife is currently nominated for the British Fantasy Award and the Hugo Award.
Åcon 2 will be held in Mariehamn on May 1–4, 2008.
(picture from McDonald’s Wikipedia page, licensed under GFDL)
If you’re thinking about going to Eurocon in Copenhagen next month, and haven’t registered yet, now is the time to act! The deadline for pre-registration is tomorrow, so sign up at the convention members page now!
At latest count, 15 Finns (+ 3 children) are going, but there is of course room for more. I’ve put up a Finnish-language info page at euroconiin.googlepages.com, and will be updating that about things that come up as the convention approaches.
Update Aug 8: The last-minute campaigning seems to have worked: I’m happy to report the total number of pre-registered Finns is now 18 + 3!
An anniversary mafia today: congratulations to Harri on his 50th! We had wine in honor of the birthday boy and it was sweet. The book fair planning progressed promisingly; it looks like there will be some sf programming at this year’s Turku book fair.
Also, some new people! Welcome to Riina & Jukka who’ve just moved to Turku from Joensuu (and to Maarit who also recently came from there)! Their loss, our gain.
Biggest mafia zine ever: 18 pages! In my time, I’ve edited several issues of Spin that were smaller than that… Must restrain myself better in the future.
The Viikinsaari picnic is in two days. See you there!
If you’re coming to the Viikinsaari picnic a week from now (and why wouldn’t you be), you will have an opportunity to purchase some official Finncon 2007 merchandise there (see pictures). The friendly Finncon organizers are bringing some over just for you.
Although this was the first Finncon shirt ever I didn’t purchase myself (because I think they are just fugly), you should of course judge for yourself. And if you like them, seize the opportunity and get some!
The (probably) most active Finnish sf forum, Risingshadow, has just published a sister site in English. Like its Finnish counterpart, the site is going to host sf news, discussion forums, and a sf book database. It’s not quite clear—at least to me—what the site is hoping to achieve (the book & writer database won’t concentrate on books published in Finnish; I’m not sure why the world needs yet another sf book listing, and I remain sceptical that the Risingshadow users would want to discuss things in English on another forum in addition to their usual hanging-out place), but hopefully that will become clear in the future. It remains to be seen also, if the discussion forum will focus more on sf than the Finnish one (where you have to wade through a bunch of general-interest-to-young-people topics to get to any discussion related to sf at all), but I’d say that this might be a promising place if you want to get in touch with Finns who read sf.
The English-language site can be found at en.risingshadow.net, and the Finnish one has moved to fi.risingshadow.net.
Tamfan is the sometimes-annual-and-sometimes-not fantasy minicon, held in Tampere and organized by the Smial Morel. This year’s con date is Saturday, September 29, and the place is Tampereen Yo-talo (Kauppakatu 10).
The guest of honor this year is the Kuvastaja-award-winning author Ilkka Auer.
The traditional findom picnic to Viikinsaari will take place on Saturday, August 4. The boat to the island leaves from Laukontori at noon (plus on the hour, if you want to arrive later), and you’ll find fandom barbequing at the gazebo on the far end of the island.
The picnic is a long-standing tradition in the Finnish fandom, and is an excellent opportunity to meet fen and get into touch with people from other cities, so I warmly recommend attending!
The return-ticket to the island costs 7 euros. Fandom will pretty certainly move to a bar somewhere around 5 PM at the latest—otherwise we would be in great danger of having to watch a tango performance by Eino Grön…
For a little while now, there’s been a “society for the weird” at Åbo Akademi, founded by Vilgot Strömsholm. It covers science fiction, fantasy, anime, hacking, literature, etc. They have around 30 members, and new ones are welcome. Those interested can contact Vilgot via e-mail.
(via Enhörningen)
Åcon was so much fun that we’re going to do it again next year. The (tentative at this point) dates are May 1–4, 2008 (yes, it starts on May Day). More info will follow later, but mark the dates on your calendar now. The membership fee will be the same as last time, 20 €.
Words and pictures about this year’s Finncon:
Photos:
Video clips:
Other stuff:
Finncon started on Saturday morning with opening words from captain Pirk; the warm-up act was Mike Pohjola with his appropriately lame puns (he continued much of the same during the day as a host/announcer for many of the program items). Pirk’s opening words were moderately funny (but then I’ve never found him more than that, so your mileage may vary), but only in Finnish despite all the foreign guests in the room, which was maybe not the best decision. Also, the opening ceremony didn’t note any of the guests of honor in any way, which I found a bit odd.
The main venue was the good old university building familiar from earlier Jyväskylä conventions. It wasn’t nearly as packed as Paasitorni last year, and the air conditioning was working better too (maybe because it wasn’t so damn hot outside this year). Even so, the place was quite crowded. I tried just hanging out for a while, but even though a lot of the anime program was happening in other buildings, the main lobby was still pretty packed, mostly with young people in anime costumes, so browsing the tables wasn’t that much fun and I quickly tired of it. In addition, the vendors’ tables were a big disappointment if you wanted to browse a lot of sf books and other such stuff—you can say the tables had a variety of stuff only if you count selling both manga and anime as variety. The fandom tables were packed away in a corner, with poor visibility and little room to browse and talk to people behind the tables.
The program clearly strived for diversity. There was a physics lecture (with dancing), Bollywood, mythical creatures of Finnish folk tradition, several items about queer & porn, writing, publishing and translating, fandom, and so on. And a lot of talk about manga and anime. On the other hand, a couple of sf fen with a more traditional taste said there were very few items that interested them, especially if one didn’t want to see very basic discussions such as “myths in science fiction” once again. Perhaps the thing that most bothered me in the programming was that there were no guest of honor speeches—usually my favorite con items—at all. Jukkahoo did a good job being very jamesliptonish (despite what he himself claims) on his GoH interviews, but come on—six guests of honor and not one speech!
Speaking of the GoHs: they were all wonderful people, and I’m glad I got to talk with them. Some I had met before (the Haldemans and of course Cheryl Morgan) and it was really nice to see them again. Liz Hand was great, and even though I didn’t talk to Ellen Datlow much, she too seemed to be a very interesting person with a lot of stories to tell. Nevertheless, I think this time there were too many guests of honor for an event this size. The reason to have a guest of honor is to bring a couple of individuals into the spotlight to celebrate their achievements. When there are just two days of con programming, there is no way you can bring in six guests of honor and not have them get lost in the crowd—at least to a degree—as just a few more people in the foreign-language panel discussions. I’m pretty sure the guests themselves didn’t feel unappreciated, though, which is of course the most important thing.
Another little snafu with the guests was the hassle with the other foreign “special guests” of the con. It didn’t seem it was clear to even the organizers themselves—not to mention to the audience—who was what, how they came to be, and what the heck were these special guests anyway. My suggestion to future con committees is to forget any extra categories such as “special guest”, “special foreign guest”, etc. Just have the guests of honor, and the rest are attendees. You can of course advertise some especially interesting members of the convention for example in the program book, if you like—and this would be a good opportunity to mention also for example people doing unusually many program items, in addition to prominent people traveling to the con from far away. But try to remember that the guests of honor should be special to avoid the PR mess this year seemed to have on their hands.
There were a couple of foreign fen visiting Finncon again this year. Not quite as many as last year (or at Åcon), but I met at least Tommy, Michael, and Ahrvid from Sweden, and Klaus and Tue from Denmark there. I think this is a good thing and hope the trend continues and grows—although very different from “normal” cons abroad (or maybe exactly because of that), I’m sure Finncon has a lot to offer to foreign visitors also. There’s plenty of programming in English available, and of course the guests of honor to meet. So if you’re reading this outside of Finland, mark the dates July 26–27, 2008 on your calendar for a trip to Finncon in Tampere.
This year’s con claims to be the biggest yet—around 7000 unique visitors—but didn’t feel nearly as crowded as last year’s. So in this sense the logistics were a lot better and distributing the program to several buildings a little distance apart seems to have worked. Still, I thought the “good old Finncon feeling” was largely missing from the con site (for reasons I mentioned earlier: being mostly crowded by anime fans and the lack of sf vendors and societies). Fortunately it could be found in the nearby restaurant, the legendary Sohwi, which the older fen seemed to gravitate towards on several occasions. Spending time in the bar has always been a big part of the fun of going to a Finncon, but sometimes it really seemed that’s where the real con and most of the science fiction discussion was this year. The evening party on Saturday was great fun, and the place was excellent (largely thanks to the big patio). I missed most of the masquerade because it was so hot inside I basically just grabbed my drink and dashed outside for air, but there were some gorgeous costumes, and the chaos costuming competition (where you made your costume on the spot with stuff provided by the organizers) was a terrific idea.
In spite of being plagued with illness, adversity, and plain bad luck, Jyväskylä managed to put up a con that ran smoothly and pretty well on time, with no major problems visible to the attendees, and they deserve credit for that. Thanks for the con, I’ll see you in Tampere in a year!
Atorox top 10 in 2007:
The restaurant Sohwi served good food, but stopped doing so regrettably early. The tabletop hockey tournament Finnconkampen was won (once again) by Pasinen (a new collective term we made up for all the persons called Pasi Something-nen, because there are too many of them in fandom). Next year’s Swecon has a special buy-Tommy-more-beer discount for the duration of this Finncon only. The con proper starts tomorrow with a short Pirkinning.
Heading for Jyväskylä. Or was it St. Petersburg? I forget…
(I see there’s some online reporting of the event already.)
The Atorox award for the best Finnish sf short story of 2006 will be given at Finncon on Saturday. The award is decided by the Finnish fandom (it’s “our Hugo”), and this year there were a couple of changes in the process (for the better). First, artificial limitations on how many voters a sf society can have no more exist (this change is more psychological than real, as individuals were able to vote separately also before, but I think it’s easier to participate as a member of an “official association jury” than a single individual). This is clearly a good thing and revitalizes the award, which I think shows in new groups having the largest jurys: Risingshadow 13 voters, Deathwriters 7, and Spektre also 7. It will be interesting to see if this has an effect on what kinds of stories will be succesful—especially when this year some of the older societies (HSFS, HySFK, and the Tolkien society, I’m looking at you) didn’t manage to send in a single vote between them. Shame on you!
Another new thing this year is the completely revamped vote counting system. Instead of giving points to stories, the voters just rank the best of them in order (using single transferable vote, pretty much as in the Hugo voting). I’m sure this is a good thing because it both simplifies the voting process and makes it pretty hard for an individual voter to game the system. Explaining to the audience how the results were calculated might be a lot more complicated than before, but on the other hand I’m pretty sure that only a very small minority will care about the technical details anyway.
One last thing: my Atorox predictions this year. Or guesses, more like it, because I’m usually pretty lousy in these things. But anyway, here goes: based on my general feeling about the stories, both how “Atorox-winner-y” they feel to me, and the comments I’ve heard from a few other people, I’m picking three stories I think will be in the top five.
The first story is Fyto ja Ygg by Carita Forsgren. A bit unusual view on the “aliens conquer the Earth” theme, and might appeal to people who like the more traditional sf. Another pick is Toisinkainen by Anne Leinonen. Also science fiction, aliens, and other planets. A solidly written story, even if it didn’t appeal to me personally at all. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see this as number one. My third pick is my absolute favorite this year, Elegia nuorelle hirvelle by Hannu Rajaniemi. A splendid mix of post-singularity feel and traditional Finnish elements, this story would make an excellent representative of Finnish sf also abroad. I fear this is a bit too far-out for many readers, and therefore won’t win (even though it deserves to), but I’m hoping that enough voters see its greatness to at least make top five. Well, we’ll see the day after tomorrow.
Sad news from Juhani Hinkkanen: Leena Peltonen, one of Finnish fandom’s most prominent members since pretty much the beginning, died on July 5 in Tampere after a long illness. Leena was there during the early days of the Turku Science Fiction Society, the Tampere Science Fiction Society & its zine Portti, and Aikakone which she edited for a decade. Beside her knowledge and passion about science fiction and fantasy, she was also known for her culinary skills as well as translating, among others, such sf notables as Roger Zelazny, Robert E. Howard, Peter S. Beagle, M. John Harrison, and Colin Greenland into Finnish.
I can’t say I was ever very close with Leena (even before the falling out she had with some parts of fandom, me included, in the early 90s), but she definitely had an impact on my coming to contact with fandom. The first time I remember hearing about other people who were into science fiction was sometime in the late 1980s reading issues of Aikakone in the local library, and a couple of articles on Aikakone also lead to finding out about the world of comics outside what was available in the local general store. Just today, I was cleaning up some of my papers and came across what probably was my first “official” contact with fandom: a response letter about a short story I’d submitted to Aikakone in the late 80s. The story was far from publishable, but Leena’s comments were sharp, insightful and encouraging. That the story never got finished had to do with other things completely—a better critique a fledgling writer couldn’t have hoped for. A big personality is gone and will be missed.
Leena at the roadside picnic in Tampere a couple of years ago
Update: there will be a memorial event at Finncon on Saturday (6 PM to 8 PM, Lyhty at the university campus), and a memorial book will be at the info in the main building for the duration of the convention.
A long-time project of Findom is finally finished: the National board of patents and registration accepted Finncon as a registered association (on June 13). The official name is Finncon-yhdistys (“the Finncon association”)—a bit redundant, but that’s the form the board (of registration; not the association) wanted.
This will make arranging Finncons as a continuum a bit easier, because the association will be able to handle the finances from one year to the next (and individual organizing societies won’t have to include Finncon in their normal operation budget, which is usually a fraction of the event’s budget).
The founding organizations are the Helsinki Science Fiction Society, the Jyväskylä Science Fiction Society 42, the Finnish Science Fiction Writers Association, and the Turku Science Fiction Society.
Kirsi & Vesa signing the final round of official papers last winter in Tampere
Denmark’s NoFF delegate has been chosen. Tue Sørensen will visit Finncon in July. Tue writes the following greeting to Finns:
Hello! This is Tue Sørensen, duly designated NoFF representative from Denmark! I am 35 years old, and currently the president of the Danish sci-fi/fantasy/horror society “Fantastik”. Our society is pretty new; it was founded in 2003. I was vice-president for three years, and have been president since April 2006. We are a very social organization with café meetings, writing groups, movie nights, summer excursions, and lots of email discussion <http://news.fantastik.dk/>. We publish a quarterly magazine called “Himmelskibet” (The Sky Ship).
Personally I have been a complete science fiction and comics maniac since I was very little. I passionately collect comics and movies and of course science fiction novels. A few years ago I was an editor of the Danish online Comics Journal, and back in the late ’80s and ’90s I used to write a lot of letters of comment to the letter columns of Danish and American comics.
I am a bit of a classicist as far as SF goes; I still consider Asimov, Clarke & Heinlein to be the three greatest SF authors ever, and most of the really good and groundbreaking stuff was written in the 1940s–1960s. Of more contemporary names, my favorite SF authors are people like Joe Haldeman, David Brin, Iain M. Banks and Bruce Sterling. My favorite SF genre is space opera (galactic scale world-building, inter-stellar empires, etc.) and utopian SF, but unfortunately not many current writers are really doing proper space opera, nor utopian SF. I'm very open to recommendations, though. Always looking for interesting new stuff. Like the next Asimov! :-)
Other background details: I have previously studied Biology, English and History at university without finishing, but I plan to resume and finish my History education very soon. I currently work part-time as a postal worker at an International Post Center (night shift). I am an aspiring writer, very slowly working on both sci-fi stories and non-fiction (literary analysis).
My favorite movie of all time is Highlander. There Can Be Only One!! :-)
Fantastic regards!
– Tue
Saturday, July 7 is the date of findom’s traditional picnic to the Suomenlinna island in Helsinki this year. You’ll find fen there from around noon.
If you’re thinking about going to Finncon in July but don’t have a place to stay or otherwise can’t spend the whole weekend, TSFS is arranging a bus trip to the con on Saturday. The bus will leave from Turku early in the morning, and return the same evening. The bus stops in Tampere, so you can also join the trip there.
The trip needs around 20 people to happen, so if you’re interested, contact the organizers now, or before Midsummer at the latest. See the TSFS announcement for details and contact info.
The Danish fandom is having a vote to send a NoFF (The Nordic Fan Fund) delegate to Finncon at Jyväskylä in July. The candidates are Tue Sørensen, Knud Larn, and Klaus Æ. Mogensen. More about the candidates on the Fantastik site.
(via Fanspan)
Very warm weather today (when driving from work, the meter read 29°), so naturally we gathered inside a pub to talk sf. Quite a bit of talking about this year’s Atorox nominees. Quite a lot of different opinions too, but two short stories that seemed to be generally liked were Hannu Rajaniemi’s Elegia nuorelle hirvelle, and Kuvat eivät valehtele by Petri Laine and Anne Leinonen (curiously, both were published in the same issue of Portti, along with another favorite of many, Fyto ja Ygg by Carita Forsgren—so if you want to buy just one issue of one zine to read Finnish sf, I think Portti 2/06 would be a pretty safe bet).
The collective discussed also old covers of Spin (for the 30th anniversary exhibition at the International book fair next autumn) and travel plans to Finncon in July (among many other things, of course). Later a few of us went to visit the comics people at their pub meeting at Cosmic Comic Café. Some of them seemed a bit surprised about a bunch of loud sf fen that suddenly came to sit by them and started a vocal debate on philosophy…
The programming in English is now available on the con web site.
Also, if you’re in need of a place to stay, most of the accommodation mentioned on the web site is full, but according to the housing page (as of yesterday; in Finnish only), at least the Hotel Vuolake still has rooms available.
Friday was pretty much a GoH day programwise, starting with an interview where he shared his thoughts on different literary movements, his novels and other writings, and why on Earth he’s called Hal anyway. He was also one of the panel members on my only scheduled program item (or so I thought at the time), the pixel-stained technopeasant wretching. I think it went pretty well, thanks to the active panelists and good comments from the audience.
After a dinner break it was time for the Guest of Honor speech. Hal Duncan read from Vellum (he’s very enjoyable a reader; I'd really like an audio book version of Vellum read by the author) and talked about growing up in Glasgow, becoming who he is today, and a good deal about the “new literary movement”, Infernokrusher!
The other program items—not surprisingly—dealt with books, first with the different genre awards we have, and then about collecting books. The latter item was less than serious, though— they said the s-word more than once during the conversation.
The program concluded with the “sf liars’ club” that I was shanghaied to participate in. The idea was to pick a member from the audience and ask them a difficult sf-related question. Us panel members then each told them our version of what the correct answer was, and they had to guess who was telling the truth. And when they got it wrong we mocked them. We got to mock many.
The night continued at the bar, and after it closed at the lobby bar; after that too closed people went to have room parties. If you hear people talking about the party where to get in you had to have your underwear photographed, or the musical between 4 AM and 9 AM, just don’t believe a word of it. The last to stay up and the first to get up got to share breakfast. And so the 24-hours-a-day convention continues.
Some other things that were going on in Mariehamn on Friday:
The registration went smoothly, and everybody pretty much seemed to park themselves at the terrace bar (the only place where you can smoke; luckily the weather was sunny if not too warm). So we had the “extremely formal” opening ceremony there, mc’d by Jukkahoo. Greetings to Eemeli (the chairman in absentia) from everyone!
The first day was very informal, with general chatting on the terrace, and spelling bee/linguistics discussion “program” going on inside. The one “real” program item was a game of Hangman, judged by the organizers. The audience seemed to appreciate the capriciousness of the judges and take the abuse in stride.
The bar was nice—and empty since people were sitting outside—but closed unfortunately early today (it being a weekday, and a public holiday to boot), but the lobby bar is still open. The pizzas were reported to be excellent.
Meeting friends, talking, drinking and generally smoffing around—a pretty good opening day, I’d say.
To celebrate winning the Tähtivaeltaja award, The Tree Club is selling the winning novel Troikka at a very good price at their webstore: 15 € is not much for a good hardcover, so go get yours while they last!
The Finnish fandom gathered at the fourth Tähtivaeltaja Day minicon yesterday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Tähtivaeltaja, and it was a lot of fun!
For a small and rather informal happening, the program was pretty well thought out. There were a few panel discussions about current sf in literature, tv, and movies, a GoH speech and of course talk about the birthday hero, the Tähtivaeltaja zine.
The Tähtivaeltaja award was given to Stepan Chapman’s novel The Troika. The following discussion about this unique book was quite interesting. Who knows, if I were to re-read the novel after listening to them talking about it, I might this time actually understand some of it.
The Guest of Honor was interviewed by Pekka Manninen. I meant to listen to the conversation at the bar, but the PA technology didn’t quite come through. From what I gathered, the discussion about his works went along nicely and everyone was enjoying it—not the least the guest himself.
A couple of discussions handled the state of sf today, both in Finland, and in general. An interesting topic, but not an easy one, because it’s obviously been discussed before, and there’s only so much you can say in your allotted hour, so it’s extremely difficult to get to any new, profound truths. But I still think it’s important to keep having the discussion and try to look at things from a new perspective every now and then. The same goes for the tv and movie discussions—although it might be a good idea when you’re having a panel about current tv series to get together a bunch of panelists that have actually all watched the same series. Nobody seemed to like Doctor Who, by the way—all spoiled by the American standards of tv, I say.
The “definitive Tähtivaeltaja discussion” made—if it wasn’t already clear to everyone—evident how huge the impact of Tähtivaeltaja has been on fandom here. Several prominent fen confessed that they might never have come into fandom, or be what they are today, without Toni and Tähtivaeltaja. The punk attitude, the fearless exploration of new and different subcultures, old boozing reports, and the versatility of content were all subjects of discussion. The images projected in the background tended to concentrate on “the two main reasons for reading Tähtivaeltaja in the first place” and the shocking imagery used by the zine during the years, bringing a nice contrast to the discussion that got quite serious at times. I felt that the actual sf content and its quality in Tähtivaeltaja was neglected a bit, but on the other hand those should be obvious to anybody who opens the zine itself.
As the evening progressed, the programming got a more humorous streak. The “around the world” quiz had questions such as, “The second winner of the Tähtivaeltaja award was Joanna Russ’s The Female Man. How many pages did I read before giving up?” The “sell a book” contest is already a tradition at these events, and the winner was once again Ilja Rautsi, with his personal (to say the least) style of reading an excerpt of a book backwards.
The whole day had a very warm and friendly feel to it, and moving around in the bar and the lobby to meet people was very easy. I met many old and not-so-old friends—talked a lot with Miska, Sari and Kenneth, for example. And had a good conversation with J. Pekka and Jukka (one of my oldest friends in fandom, whom I hadn’t seen in ages due to his staying abroad for the last couple of years) about serious and not-so-serious aspects of writing, blogging, etc. And talked to some comics fans from Turku (who I never seem to get to meet except in Helsinki)—extra thanks to Petteri for the ride to Helsinki, by the way! Gave out a few copies of my fanzine. Exchanged too few words with a lot of other friends. And didn’t even say hi to everyone I had planned to.
I declare this Tähtivaeltaja day a success, again. If you didn’t go, you should have, and you’re poorer for missing it! Rock on!
What others are saying (in Finnish unless specified otherwise):