Åcon 4 has announced their Guest of Honor is British author Geoff Ryman. This is very good news—Ryman is an excellent writer (Air is one of the best books I’ve read in years) and also a wonderful and engaging speaker. As Åcons tend to be very fun conventions where it’s extremely easy to meet and chat not only with other fen, but also the guest, this is a convention you don’t want to miss!
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Åcon Announces Geoff Ryman as GoH
Åcon 4 has announced their Guest of Honor is British author Geoff Ryman. This is very good news—Ryman is an excellent writer (Air is one of the best books I’ve read in years) and also a wonderful and engaging speaker. As Åcons tend to be very fun conventions where it’s extremely easy to meet and chat not only with other fen, but also the guest, this is a convention you don’t want to miss!
Friday, September 25, 2009
Star Wreck on Amazon
The Finnish fan-made Star Trek (and B5) spoof Star Wreck is available for pre-order on Amazon.com. (Of course the movie was originally distributed as a Creative Commons–licensed download, so you can also find it on many download sites and get it for free, but if you want to support the creators and maybe have a sequel some day, buy the dvd.)
My feelings about the product itself are somewhat mixed, but I still think it’s a wonderful example of what a bunch of dedicated fans can do, and I know many people who like the movie very much, so I recommend checking it out for yourself.
My feelings about the product itself are somewhat mixed, but I still think it’s a wonderful example of what a bunch of dedicated fans can do, and I know many people who like the movie very much, so I recommend checking it out for yourself.
October Mafia
The October meeting is next week (Thursday October 1). Jaana Gustafsson has kindly offered to host the event, so it will be held at her house (Vanha Hämeentie 102). You can get there with bus nr 28; get off at the Kotimäenkatu stop, the yellow house opposite the bus stop.
Jaana and Wenla have promised to bake something to eat, and there will be coffee and tea. Bring your own drinks, and you can also bring things to eat.
Thanks for Jaana and Wenla for having us, see you there!
Jaana and Wenla have promised to bake something to eat, and there will be coffee and tea. Bring your own drinks, and you can also bring things to eat.
Thanks for Jaana and Wenla for having us, see you there!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Thesis on Pullman in Tampere
The comparative literature licentiate thesis of Maria Ihonen, MA, on “Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials as a fantastic, possible, and intertextual world” will be examined on Thursday, September 24 at the University of Tampere (details behind the link, in Finnish).
Friday, September 11, 2009
Hannu Rajaniemi in StarShipSofa
The very enjoyable science fiction podcast StarShipSofa features in its “Aural Delights” No 98 issue (September 2) the short story His Master’s Voice by Hannu Rajaniemi. Recommended!
The issue also has a poem, an opinion piece about supporting zines, and a piece of flash fiction.
The issue also has a poem, an opinion piece about supporting zines, and a piece of flash fiction.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Tamfan 2009
Tamfan, the fantasy minicon in Tampere, will be organized this year on Saturday, September 26 at the old library building in Tampere. This year the GoH is Anu Holopainen. The event will have some programming, a vendors room, a second hand sf sale, a dinner at the Viking restaurant Harald and an after party at the pub Kahdet Kasvot.
Tamfan is organized by the Smial Morel. The program starts at noon; there is no membership fee.
Tamfan is organized by the Smial Morel. The program starts at noon; there is no membership fee.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Rise of Women
There’s been a lot of discussion about women in the world of written sf (and especially the lack of books by women in the Hugo awards). Cheryl Morgan has written about this on several occasions, and on a comment on her blog Ipa asked about the rise of women in the Finnish sf competitions.
Out of curiosity, I compiled some data about the two main Finnish sf short story competitions (Portti and Nova), and the Atorox award. I have to say I was a bit surprised by the results.
The Winners and top 3 placements by men and women for three major Finnish sf awards. “m” and “w” indicate the winner, “t3m” and “t3w” how many men and women were in the top 3.
I had a gut feeling that the Atorox winners have been divided quite equally between men and women. And the data supports this: the prize has been won by a man 10 times and by a woman 14 times. (Two times a man/woman team has won, and once the winner was a pseudonym who hasn’t chosen to publicly reveal their identity, so I’ve marked them as “unknown”.) But looking at the distribution of these wins over time there is a clear trend towards women: during the last ten years, a man has won the Atorox only once, and that was ten years ago (the two team wins are also from the previous years, though).
Even more revealing is looking at the top 3, which I think tells a bit more about the general situation than just the winners. Overall, men have placed 44 times in the top three in the Atorox awards, and women 34 times (counting a team win and also a tie as ½ places). When looking at the first ten years of the award, only once were there more women in top three than men (and that one was Johanna Sinisalo finishing first, second and third with her short stories, so that tells more of her excellence than the abundance of women writing stories that year). The latest ten years show a different picture: only in 2000 there were more men than women in the top three, from 2001 to 2005 men and women were tied, and since 2006 there have been more women than men in the Atorox top 3.
The Portti competition is juried, and the jury doesn’t know the name of the writer when reading the stories, so there shouldn’t be any bias based on name recognition in the results. If memory server, the jury stayed much the same in the early years, but went through some changes in the early 2000s—if one believes men and women write different types of stories, one could of course say the new jurors prefer stories written by women and this explains at least a part of the balance shift towards women winners.
The Nova competition has been criticized in some circles (at least half-jokingly) as a “women’s competition” where you can only succeed by writing feminist, sentimental fantasy where women are the center of the story. I haven’t paid much attention to these opinions (which often seem to be complaints about, “they don’t like my stories even though they are great” in disguise), but looking at the Nova statistics, the competition has never been won by a man (once there was a tie for the winner), and only twice has the top three not had a majority of women.
At first this might be seen as supporting the conspiracy theory, but on the other hand, 1) the jury doesn’t know who the writers are when judging the texts, so there isn’t a knowing conspiracy to award women, 2) the jury has changed over the years many times so it isn’t the matter of the same people always awarding similar texts, and 3) the Nova competition isn’t alone in this trend, it is just more pronounced there.
One thing is certain by looking at the numbers, though: at the moment, women are much more succesful than men as sf short story writers in Finland. Since 2001 a man hasn’t won the Atorox or Nova even once, and Portti only twice. In Atorox and Nova, there have been more men than women in top 3 only once. Why this is so might make an interesting discussion.
The data was compiled using the Nova web pages and Jussi Vainikainen’s excellent sf resources (Portti and Atorox).
Out of curiosity, I compiled some data about the two main Finnish sf short story competitions (Portti and Nova), and the Atorox award. I have to say I was a bit surprised by the results.
The Winners and top 3 placements by men and women for three major Finnish sf awards. “m” and “w” indicate the winner, “t3m” and “t3w” how many men and women were in the top 3.
The Atorox Award
Awarded annually to the best Finnish sf short story published the previous year. Popular award (voted by juries of sf societies, but pretty much anybody interested can vote). Awarded since 1983.I had a gut feeling that the Atorox winners have been divided quite equally between men and women. And the data supports this: the prize has been won by a man 10 times and by a woman 14 times. (Two times a man/woman team has won, and once the winner was a pseudonym who hasn’t chosen to publicly reveal their identity, so I’ve marked them as “unknown”.) But looking at the distribution of these wins over time there is a clear trend towards women: during the last ten years, a man has won the Atorox only once, and that was ten years ago (the two team wins are also from the previous years, though).
Even more revealing is looking at the top 3, which I think tells a bit more about the general situation than just the winners. Overall, men have placed 44 times in the top three in the Atorox awards, and women 34 times (counting a team win and also a tie as ½ places). When looking at the first ten years of the award, only once were there more women in top three than men (and that one was Johanna Sinisalo finishing first, second and third with her short stories, so that tells more of her excellence than the abundance of women writing stories that year). The latest ten years show a different picture: only in 2000 there were more men than women in the top three, from 2001 to 2005 men and women were tied, and since 2006 there have been more women than men in the Atorox top 3.
Portti Competition
The Portti zine has organized a short story competition since 1986. I don't have full data available, so I’ve only looked at the winners. There too I see a trend: in the early years the competition was dominated by men, but lately women have been stronger (since 2003 four wins by a woman, only two by a man).The Portti competition is juried, and the jury doesn’t know the name of the writer when reading the stories, so there shouldn’t be any bias based on name recognition in the results. If memory server, the jury stayed much the same in the early years, but went through some changes in the early 2000s—if one believes men and women write different types of stories, one could of course say the new jurors prefer stories written by women and this explains at least a part of the balance shift towards women winners.
Nova Competition
Another juried short story competition is Nova, organized by the FSFWA and TSFS. Nova is a much newer competition (it started in 2000) and is targeted at new writers. Many of the Nova winners have since had success in other competitions and awards as well, including this year’s Atorox winner Mari Saario and the 2007 winner Jenny Kangasvuo.The Nova competition has been criticized in some circles (at least half-jokingly) as a “women’s competition” where you can only succeed by writing feminist, sentimental fantasy where women are the center of the story. I haven’t paid much attention to these opinions (which often seem to be complaints about, “they don’t like my stories even though they are great” in disguise), but looking at the Nova statistics, the competition has never been won by a man (once there was a tie for the winner), and only twice has the top three not had a majority of women.
At first this might be seen as supporting the conspiracy theory, but on the other hand, 1) the jury doesn’t know who the writers are when judging the texts, so there isn’t a knowing conspiracy to award women, 2) the jury has changed over the years many times so it isn’t the matter of the same people always awarding similar texts, and 3) the Nova competition isn’t alone in this trend, it is just more pronounced there.
Conclusions
I don’t think here is enough data here to draw any definite conclusions. For example, I don’t have any statistics about how many texts have been submitted to the competitions by men and by women, or what is the distribution of men and women of all published stories (eligible for Atorox). I’d like to know, though, and at least the latter would be possible to calculate, although it would take some effort. Also I don’t know the gender distribution of either the competition juries or the Atorox voters, so I can’t even venture a guess about if these are at all relevant. Another thing I haven’t looked at is whether the types of texts that win prizes have changed (between science fiction and fantasy, for example).One thing is certain by looking at the numbers, though: at the moment, women are much more succesful than men as sf short story writers in Finland. Since 2001 a man hasn’t won the Atorox or Nova even once, and Portti only twice. In Atorox and Nova, there have been more men than women in top 3 only once. Why this is so might make an interesting discussion.
The data was compiled using the Nova web pages and Jussi Vainikainen’s excellent sf resources (Portti and Atorox).
Zombie Walk Oulu
Zombie Walk is an event where people dress as the living dead and walk through the city. The fourth Zombie Walk in Oulu takes place on September 19, and the theme of the walk is “dead and living dead celebrities”. The walk starts from Rotuaari at 6, everybody interested is welcome to join the forces of the living dead.
Thursday Mafia Report
There was quite a crowd in Hirvi last night—apparently lots of folks watching the football game. We managed to find a table where all fit well enough, though (and far enough from the tv not to be disturbed by the sports or the sports fans). A nice amount of people attended, including one first-timer (and hopefully a new regular). Talked quite a bit about the line between hard and soft science fiction, the guests of next year’s Finncon, the book fair and possible programming for it, and other important things like pets, food, and so on.
There was some talk about possible meeting places nearer the city center (have to go and check some new places out once they open, although I think Hirvi worked pretty well even with the sports crowd), and a new sfnal activity was also invented: we decided to occasionally (about once a month, at least in the beginning) start having “sf lunches” at different places in town. More on this later, but if you’re interested in joining, drop me a note and I’ll inform you when the lunches start.
Next month’s mafia will be a special occasion, but more details later on that as well.
There was some talk about possible meeting places nearer the city center (have to go and check some new places out once they open, although I think Hirvi worked pretty well even with the sports crowd), and a new sfnal activity was also invented: we decided to occasionally (about once a month, at least in the beginning) start having “sf lunches” at different places in town. More on this later, but if you’re interested in joining, drop me a note and I’ll inform you when the lunches start.
Next month’s mafia will be a special occasion, but more details later on that as well.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Pat Cadigan GoH of Finncon 2010
A piece of Finncon news I’m very happy about: Pat Cadigan will be a Guest of Honor of Finncon 2010! Cadigan has been writing science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, etc. for 30 years, and is also active in promoting science fiction and fandom, and otherwise doing good in the world. A worthy GoH in other words, plus a wonderful speaker.The Finncon 2010 GoH lineup is looking very good: Ellen Kushner, Pat Cadigan, Sari Peltoniemi, and Liisa Rantalaiho.
DaimonCon in October
The FSFWA Tampere section will organize DaimonCon, a minicon about the graven images in sf, in October. There will be a introduction about “hard sf and religion” by Markku Soikkeli, discussion about the topic, and a movie, a “classic of messianic science fiction,” Silent Running. An issue of the Kosmospenaali fanzine will also be published at the event (if you want to contribute, contact Soikkeli).
Saturday, October 10, 4 PM to 9 PM
Katajikonkatu 1 H 31
More info from Markku Soikkeli
PS If you are planning on going to Tampere to see the Ender’s Game play, the Spektre folks are going on the previous night (October 9), so this would be a good opportunity to do both on the same trip. Contact Päivi Itäpuro for details.
Saturday, October 10, 4 PM to 9 PM
Katajikonkatu 1 H 31
More info from Markku Soikkeli
PS If you are planning on going to Tampere to see the Ender’s Game play, the Spektre folks are going on the previous night (October 9), so this would be a good opportunity to do both on the same trip. Contact Päivi Itäpuro for details.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Pub Meeting on Thursday
The monthly Turku pub meeting is on Thursday, in Kultainen hirvi, from 6 PM onwards. Talk about interesting books & movies, other sf phenomenons, and other interesting stuff, accompanied by a couple of beers. Welcome!
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