Tamfan on Saturday

The Tamfan 2006 fantasy convention will be held this Saturday (September 30) in Tampere. This year’s theme is fandom, and the guests of honor are distinguished Finnish fandom members Irma Hirsjärvi and Ben Roimola.

The con site is the student house of the Tampere university (Kauppakatu 10), and the doors open at 16:30.

(Unfortunately, the organizers scheduled the convention against another event, the Turku Book Fair.)

Smofia

Yesterday’s pub meeting was full of smoffing. There was a lot of talk about what to do with local sf activities and the local sf club zine. Too bad there weren’t too many persons from the club itself to take part in the discussion. (Have to try and remember some of the more feasible ideas and write them down for later use.)

Finncon was remembered fondly (some memories published in the mafia fanzine too). Ideas for the Turku book fair were thrown in the air; some will probably come to fruition. Talk about Swecon (a couple of potential members) and Åcon (some new members for that too). Some wild ideas for future mafia events as well—we’ll see if anything comes out of that.

All in all a bit different evening, but a succesful one, I’d say.

Pub Meeting on Thursday

First Thursday of the month once again, and time to meet other Turku fen at the monthly pub meeting. Bar Bremer at six, as usual.

There will be fanzines: Turu Mafia Zine has some Finncon memoirs, and if you missed my one shot “FCZ” at Finncon and would like to have it, here’s your chance for that too.

Finncon GoH Filks

The lyrics to the filks that were sung at the Finncon evening party are now available on the net. The filks, written for the guests of honor, are: Bye bye to the body and mind (for Justina Robson), Festival of Freshwater Squid (for Jeff VanderMeer, there’s also a Finnish translation), Gubben Rickard (for Rickard Berghorn), and Sarasvatin hiekkaa (for Risto Isomäki).

Finncon Videos from VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer has posted a couple of videos taken at the Finncon Saturday party on YouTube: the Ambergris filk performed by the Filk Freaks, and snippets from the mad scientist laughter competition.

Fandom Awards

There were many awards given out during Finncon. I’ve already blogged about the Atorox award (won by Jenny Kangasvuo), as well as the Tähtivaeltaja award that went to Risto Isomäki. Other awards at the con were:

• the Kosmoskynä award was given to Liisa Rantalaiho; this life achievement award is given by the Finnish Science Fiction Writers Association in recognition of advancing Finnish science fiction literature.
• first price in the Nova short story competition went to Mari Saario for her story Keveät (“The Light Ones”). Timo Saarto was second, and Tiina Raevaara came third.
• Mari Saario also took the first prize in the Hekuma contest for writing erotic stories with a short story called Sateenkaari 2256 (“Rainbow 2256”). In this competition, M.G. Soikkeli was in the second place, and the third prize went to Jenny Kangasvuo, who also won the Atorox. It seems it’s not lonely at the top after all, but there is room for at least two.
• The Espoo science fiction society ESC announced an award for “the Espoo sf act of the year,” which was given to Vesa Sisättö
• The Jet-Ace Logan Appreciation Society named the plot in the King Kong comic book, issues 7 and 8, as the most ridiculous way to conquer the Earth (which includes giant sea creatures and mechanical animals). Also, the most stupefying way to save the Earth was in the Fifth Element, where Bruce Willis activates Milla Jovovitch by kissing her

Finncon: Saturday Evening

The official Finncon party took place at the restaurant Kaisaniemi which was very nostalgic for me, because the first Finncon I attended had its party there too, in 1989. This time was definitely an improvement—no live band to begin with. The food was pretty good, and the place not too crowded. If it hadn’t been unpleasantly hot inside, it would have made an excellent venue for the party.



There was some programming, but not too much to get in the way. A couple of awards were given by The Espoo science fiction society ESC (the award is the big black gorilla, in the picture above second from the right) and the Jet Ace Logan Appreciation Society (shown below).



A couple of performances followed. Anne Leinonen and Katja Salminen read sample entries from the Hekuma erotic writing contest. There were a couple of small gems in the selection.



The Filk Freaks from Tampere had prepared customized filks for the guests of honor. Especially the first one about Ambergris and the Festival had the audience in stitches.



Eemeli Aro, a relatively recent but admirably energetic addition to the Finnish fandom, performed a mad, but funny “documentary” about science fiction fans.



A great idea (that I hope we won’t see at every con from now on) was the “mad scientist laugh contest”. I think “hysterical” describes the event very well, and some of these mad scientist–wannabes were downright scary!



People ate, drank and were merry, for they knew that tomorrow they would still have another day of Finncon left. It’s a good thing it was a very short distance from the restaurant to our hotel…