Pub Meeting Tomorrow

February was short and the pub meeting is upon us. So come to Bar Bremer tomorrow (Thursday, March 1) at six to meet fen and discuss all things sf!

Margaret Atwood Comes to Turku

Margaret Atwood—the author best known in sf circles for her dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale and the more recent Oryx and Crake—will be coming to Turku for the Turku International Book Fair (October 5–7, 2007). I doubt she’ll be discussing talking squids in space, though.

Finnish Sf Resources Site Back Online

Jussi Vainikainen’s great “Finnish Science Fiction Resources” site has been unavailable for a while, but has now moved to a new address and is available again.

Jussi’s site is an essential reference for anybody who wants to find links to Finnish sf societies, fanzines, and other resources, or search the extensive bibliography of sf published in Finnish.

Fandom Convergence

Saija and Eemeli’s wedding was celebrated on Saturday at Suomenlinna by a host of relatives and assorted fandom. Congratulations to the happy couple!

And also good luck with their next project—making sure we don’t run out of fen in the years to come! There were many helpful suggestions regarding the naming of the twins, but I’m happy to report that even though Eemeli said some of them were pretty close to the ones they’re actually considering, he promised “Destructotron” won’t be a candidate (might make a good nickname, though).

Update: I posted a couple of pictures on Flickr, if you want to see more of the wedding.

Pub Thursday

I just finished the latest issue of Turu Mafia Zine; that means the first Thursday of the month must be coming up again. So, if you are in Turku, come to Bar Bremer at six to meet other fen and drink beer!

Bubbles in Tampere

There will be a comics festival in Tampere on March 31, called Tampere kuplii. Organized by the Tampere comics society, the Tampere anime and manga society Hidoi, and Ropecon ry, the event will feature foreign guests Joakim Pirinen from Sweden and Achdé from France, and of course many Finnish comics creators.

 The event will take place at the Finlayson area, Finnkino, Werstas, Vanha kirjastotalo, Rupriikki and TTVO. There will be workshops, presentations, panel discussions, small press vendors, cosplay and more.

Loki Books Ceases Operations

Loki Books will stop publishing new books this spring. Founder and manager Niko Aula says, “Book sales circle around very few titles— —there is not much room for new books and so it’s time to stop being a publisher.”

This is very sad news. Loki was one of the best publishing houses in Finland and, despite its small size, produced some of the most interesting titles published in Finnish. During its almos 20 years in business, Loki has brought to us Finns such names as J.G. Ballard, Iain M. Banks, Stefano Benni, Italo Calvino, Jonathan Carroll, Simon Ings, Jonathan Lethem, Ken MacLeod and Jeff VanderMeer. It has also published Finnish sf authors, like Kimmo Lehtonen and Jyrki Vainonen (for example his novel Perintö which won the Kuvastaja award for last year’s best fantasy novel).

I raise my glass to Loki, and hope others (Kirjava and Like come to mind) will continue the struggle to get good sf out in Finnish.