NoFF Guest from Denmark

The Danish fandom is having a vote to send a NoFF (The Nordic Fan Fund) delegate to Finncon at Jyväskylä in July. The candidates are Tue Sørensen, Knud Larn, and Klaus Æ. Mogensen. More about the candidates on the Fantastik site. 

(via Fanspan)

Summer Mafiathingy

Very warm weather today (when driving from work, the meter read 29°), so naturally we gathered inside a pub to talk sf. Quite a bit of talking about this year’s Atorox nominees. Quite a lot of different opinions too, but two short stories that seemed to be generally liked were Hannu Rajaniemi’s Elegia nuorelle hirvelle, and Kuvat eivät valehtele by Petri Laine and Anne Leinonen (curiously, both were published in the same issue of Portti, along with another favorite of many, Fyto ja Ygg by Carita Forsgren—so if you want to buy just one issue of one zine to read Finnish sf, I think Portti 2/06 would be a pretty safe bet).

The collective discussed also old covers of Spin (for the 30th anniversary exhibition at the International book fair next autumn) and travel plans to Finncon in July (among many other things, of course). Later a few of us went to visit the comics people at their pub meeting at Cosmic Comic Café. Some of them seemed a bit surprised about a bunch of loud sf fen that suddenly came to sit by them and started a vocal debate on philosophy…

Tomorrow Is Pub Night

Welcome everybody to Bar Bremer tomorrow at six for the traditional Turku sf pub meeting! Since the Atorox voting deadline is today, I suspect there might be some talking about last year’s Finnish sf short stories. But that won’t be the only topic of discussion, so if you haven’t read those, that doesn’t mean you should not come!

There will be a new issue of my zine tomorrow with an Åcon report plus the continuing travels of Juliette & Damien in Europe.

Giant Ape Hunt in Espoo

The Espoo sf club ESC arranges a summer picnic with a GIANT APE HUNT theme on Sunday June 10. The apes have been determined to most likely dwell on the Iso Vasikkasaari island off the Espoo coast. M/S Aurora will depart from Otasatama in Otaniemi at 20 minutes past noon; the ferry trip costs 4 €.

Recommended gear includes among others: a pith helmet, personal valet, binoculars, khaki outfit, anthropological and esoteric literature, a portrait of Her Majesty, gin, and giant ape bait. Survivors will gather at Café Merenneito after the trip.

Finncon Update

The programming in English is now available on the con web site.

Also, if you’re in need of a place to stay, most of the accommodation mentioned on the web site is full, but according to the housing page (as of yesterday; in Finnish only), at least the Hotel Vuolake still has rooms available.

Åcon, Day 2 (and Night)

Friday had the morning (and early afternoon) off from the official con programming, so Harri and I took a stroll in Mariehamn. Generally rather pretty a town, with some... Interesting architecture. Shopped for souvenirs, and then stopped for a pint downtown. Quite a few Finnish and Swedish fen were about, and soon we had a good group sitting there, enjoying the warm spring sun and bheer.

Friday was pretty much a GoH day programwise, starting with an interview where he shared his thoughts on different literary movements, his novels and other writings, and why on Earth he’s called Hal anyway. He was also one of the panel members on my only scheduled program item (or so I thought at the time), the pixel-stained technopeasant wretching. I think it went pretty well, thanks to the active panelists and good comments from the audience.

After a dinner break it was time for the Guest of Honor speech. Hal Duncan read from Vellum (he’s very enjoyable a reader; I'd really like an audio book version of Vellum read by the author) and talked about growing up in Glasgow, becoming who he is today, and a good deal about the “new literary movement”, Infernokrusher!

The other program items—not surprisingly—dealt with books, first with the different genre awards we have, and then about collecting books. The latter item was less than serious, though— they said the s-word more than once during the conversation.

The program concluded with the “sf liars’ club” that I was shanghaied to participate in. The idea was to pick a member from the audience and ask them a difficult sf-related question. Us panel members then each told them our version of what the correct answer was, and they had to guess who was telling the truth. And when they got it wrong we mocked them. We got to mock many.

The night continued at the bar, and after it closed at the lobby bar; after that too closed people went to have room parties. If you hear people talking about the party where to get in you had to have your underwear photographed, or the musical between 4 AM and 9 AM, just don’t believe a word of it. The last to stay up and the first to get up got to share breakfast. And so the 24-hours-a-day convention continues.

Some other things that were going on in Mariehamn on Friday:

• It was the international museum day, so entrance to many museums was free. Including the one with the authentic pirate flag and other stuff.
• There apparently is a biker convention of some kind going on.
• Irma and Anne (or Blom and Mila, as they want to be called from now on) told tall tales about the spa they visited. I’m almost prepared to accept the 1.5-hour chocolate massage, but I think the complimentary football team was laying it on a bit thick.
• There was a zombie punk band night with live (if you can call them that) bands performing.

Åcon, Day 1

After Ölcon (not that it was just drinking beer—the bar also ran out of champagne) we arrived safely in Mariehamn. The boat from Sweden was also just unloading passengers, so we met most of the rest of the Åcon crowd and headed for the hotel Adlon.

The registration went smoothly, and everybody pretty much seemed to park themselves at the terrace bar (the only place where you can smoke; luckily the weather was sunny if not too warm). So we had the “extremely formal” opening ceremony there, mc’d by Jukkahoo. Greetings to Eemeli (the chairman in absentia) from everyone!

The first day was very informal, with general chatting on the terrace, and spelling bee/linguistics discussion “program” going on inside. The one “real” program item was a game of Hangman, judged by the organizers. The audience seemed to appreciate the capriciousness of the judges and take the abuse in stride.

The bar was nice—and empty since people were sitting outside—but closed unfortunately early today (it being a weekday, and a public holiday to boot), but the lobby bar is still open. The pizzas were reported to be excellent.

Meeting friends, talking, drinking and generally smoffing around—a pretty good opening day, I’d say.