Åcon, Day 2 (and Night)

Friday had the morning (and early afternoon) off from the official con programming, so Harri and I took a stroll in Mariehamn. Generally rather pretty a town, with some... Interesting architecture. Shopped for souvenirs, and then stopped for a pint downtown. Quite a few Finnish and Swedish fen were about, and soon we had a good group sitting there, enjoying the warm spring sun and bheer.

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:

• It was the international museum day, so entrance to many museums was free. Including the one with the authentic pirate flag and other stuff.
• There apparently is a biker convention of some kind going on.
• Irma and Anne (or Blom and Mila, as they want to be called from now on) told tall tales about the spa they visited. I’m almost prepared to accept the 1.5-hour chocolate massage, but I think the complimentary football team was laying it on a bit thick.
• There was a zombie punk band night with live (if you can call them that) bands performing.