More World to Worldcon

The members of this year’s Worldcon have voted. The votes have been counted, and the result is clear: Helsinki will host the 75th World Science Fiction Convention, on August 9–13, 2017.

The result will be officially announced (along with the convention’s name, membership rates, and the Guests of Honor) at the Saturday morning business meeting (8 PM Finnish time), but the vote count is not contested and there is no doubt about the result. Helsinki got 52 % of the first place votes, and therefore won the election in the first round.

The Helsinki bid was an amazing international effort of people all over the world who supported Helsinki and the idea that a convention called ‘Worldcon’—no matter how it got the name or how American it’s traditionally been—should travel around the world so that more sf lovers could participate. I was positively surprised at how many voters shared this view, rather than the traditional “I want a Worldcon I can drive to” one. I’m pretty sure this will be one of the most international Worldcons ever (and it is only the fourth time Worldcon will be held in a country whose main language isn’t English). Congratulations to the bid and especially the future Worldcon chairs Saija Aro, Crystal Huff, and Jukka Halme—you’re up to your necks in it now (although quite happily so, I’m sure)!

Worldcon is a wonderful event that always brings hundreds of authors and thousands of other sf fen together, and I’m glad many new people get to experience it in a couple of years. And when the opportunity rises (as it will), participate—Worldcon is a group effort. It's not a trade show to sell stuff to consumers, it’s what we all together make it to be. Worldcon is a convention for sf fen, organized and paid for by its members, so don’t miss this opportunity to take part in something unique!

Jukkahoo for GUFF

My friend and co-conspirator in fandom Jukka Halme is running for GUFF. That means the Going Under Fan Fund, which exists to provide funds to enable well-known fans from Europe and Australasia to visit each other’s national (or other) conventions and to get to know each other’s fandoms better.

Who gets to be the GUFF delegate is decided by fandom voting for their favorite. Jukka is running unopposed (the other choice is hold-over funds which means no delegate would be sent next year), but you should still go and vote since the vote includes a donation, which in turn makes the whole fund possible.

Give Jukka some love.
Vote for GUFF!

Jukka is a perfect choice for representing the Finnish fandom in Australia. He’s done a great deal for finndom, including running conventions, writing, editing, interviewing, networking, and speaking about fandom around the world. He is also already pretty well known around Europe; he’s been the fan guest of honor of a couple of Eurocons (in Sweden, and this year in Russia). The Australian fandom has visited Finland on a few occasions (and Australian fen are great), but very few Finns (at least that I know of) have returned the favor. It’s time to correct that and send this jolly good fellow to visit the Aussies!

In other words: go forth and vote! And since Jukka and I are co-chairs for next year’s Åcon I kinda need him to be able to come back as well, so give generously!

Here’s Jukka on a recent podcast talking to Shaun Duke. And last year a few of us did a Finnish sf discussion on the Skiffy and Fanty Show. You can also find Jukka on Twitter and Facebook.

Atorox Nominees 2015

The nominees for the 2015 Atorox Award (for best Finnish sf short story published last year) have been announced. This year the nominee longlist consists of 23 short stories.

Of the 23 nominees, 10 were published in various sf zines, and 13 in anthologies and short story collections. The obvious favorite of the nominators was the Osuuskumma anthology Ruumiittomat (new Finnish ghost stories) which garnered six nominees. The quarterly Portti zine amassed a total of five nominees between its four issues.

Archipelacon Call for Programme Participants

If you’re coming to Archipelacon next summer and would like to take part in the program, you can now volunteer to participate! There convention takes place over four days so there will be lots of different program items, and ideas from members are of course welcome.

The convention has also announced the first programme items: there’ll be an updated rerun on the “LGBT in Science Fiction” item that was so popular at Finncon last summer that all who wanted to see it couldn’t fit in the room—now’s your chance to see the item if you missed it last year. Other announced items include a talk on the differences between the Song of Fire and Ice books and the Game of Thrones tv series, an sf illustration presentation, and a discussion about new tv series.

Conference on Sf/f & Games Music

Suomen Etnomusikologinen Seura and the Musicology department of the University of Turku are organizing an open seminar day to discuss current news and trends in the research of science fiction, fantasy, and games music.

If you’re doing research in these areas and would like to present a paper, send your abstract to turkuscifi2015@gmail.com by March 15.

Date: June 12, 2015
Place: The University of Turku
Contact: Anna-Elena Pääkkölä, Inka Rantakallio

Emmi Itäranta a PKD Award Nominee

As you’ve probably already seen, the nominees for the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award have been announced, and one of the nominees is the wonderful Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta. Congratulations!

Tähtivaeltaja Has a Blog

Tähtivaeltaja hasn’t really had an online presence for quite a while. That has now changed at least a bit: Tähtivaeltajablogi has regularly updated content (mainly reviews) republished from the magazine, and promises also previews and articles published exclusively online in the future.