Christmas Party Time

Christmas is coming, and so is the opportunity to celebrate the season with friends in fandom. Several societies have announced their annual Christmas parties already.

The first one is TSFS, whose party will be held tomorrow (November 25) at 6 o’clock at the TYY sauna (Rehtorinpellonkatu 4 A). There’ll be festivities, snacks, the “famous” ruffle and a sauna. This year’s theme is James Bond (quite a timing—Casino Royale opens here tonight). Quite how they plan to fit together a Bond-style casino atmosphere with gambling and martinis, a party for the whole family with children running around, Christmas stuff, and going to the sauna, I’m not sure, but I hope it works out.

Spektre will celebrate together with TYR on Friday December 1 at club Domus, starting at six. They have selected surrealism and dreams as the theme for the year. Surrealistic clothing is optional. There will be games, cookie eating contest, reading of dreams, and a present exchange—bring a small gift with you. It’s a potluck, so attendees should take something to eat with them. More info available from Maria Manki.

The Jyväskylä sf society 42 will have a Christmas party on December 16. No further information yet.

Kari Nenonen Has Died

Kari Nenonen, author of several sf and horror books, translator, and an Olde Cavalier, passed away yesterday in Helsinki. He wasn’t very active in fandom in his last years, and I didn’t really know him personally, but it’s always sad when a member of fandom departs this life.

Pasi Jääskeläinen Speaks

Pasi (Ilmari) Jääskeläinen was interviewed by Nadja Nowak at YLE (Radio 1) today about his new novel, Lumikko ja yhdeksän muuta. A re-run will be on YLE1 on Sunday at 8:50, but you can also go and listen to the recording on the YLE site (mp3 link).

All Quiet on the Mafia Front

An unusually quiet mafia tonight, only six people present. Maybe it was the lousy weather (we’ve finally got the first snow of the year here in Turku, yay!) or the fact that many thought they’d meet each other anyway at Halloween parties on the weekend; who knows.

Didn’t stop the rest of us from having good and surprisingly sfnal conversation anyway. Somehow I don’t seem to be able to recall much of it afterwards (no, beer doesn’t have everything to do with that, thankyouverymuch), but there were books… and movies… and conventions… and, for some strange reason, a lot of talk about James Bond. (Which, by the way, is the theme of the Turku Christmas party on Saturday the 25th.)

The mafia zine was very short this time, due to the fact that I had too much stuff to write about (yes, there is a certain logic buried under that sentence). Main topic was a commentary on the “realist fantasy” literary manifesto of late in the Finnish fandom circles. Maybe I’ll write something about that here also (later).

Necrocomicon is in two days.

VanderMeer on Findom

SF Site has just published a column by Jeff VanderMeer, on which he discusses (among other things) his visit to Finland as Guest of Honor at Finncon 2006. As everyone who met him there already knows, he liked the Finnish fandom quite a bit, and on the column he says more nice things, like this:

I was impressed with how knowledgeable Finnish fantasy fans were and how seriously they took books and the authors they enjoyed. I have rarely if ever been confronted by readers who knew so much about what they loved.

Along with the column there are also three interviews conducted in Finland. So, go read Jeff’s words and listen to Jukka Halme, Toni Jerrman and Niko Aula (of Loki books) talk about sf.

Comics in Turku on Saturday

Necrocomicon is an event for everybody who’s interested in comics. Organized by the Turku comics club (“resurrected like a zombie, just for Halloween”), it promises to tackle all kinds of comics with an underground bent. You can meet comics artists, buy small press comics & zines, follow the programming, participate in comics-themed quizzes, etc.

The event is held at S-Osis (Rehtorinpellonkatu 6) and the doors open at 10 (in the morning, that is, if you can believe any comics artists are up by then). The comics-themed evening party starts at 8 at the same location; there’s a cover charge of 2 euros for those coming in after that. There will be live music, performed by Veltto Virtanen, Verde, Freakenstein, and Jumalan ruoska.

Update: If you want to get a head start, there will be pre-con-festivities on Friday night at the Cosmic Comic Café. (The comics club has an extra meeting at the same place on Thursday also, but the readers of this blog will be at the sf mafia at Bremer then—right?)

Turku Pub Meeting on Thursday

Welcome once again to Bar Bremer on Thursday at 6. Agenda is as usual: an open pub meeting for everyone interested in science fiction and fantasy to meet others interested in similar things and discuss everything (yes, even sf) over a few beers.