Suomenlinna Picnic 7.7.

Saturday, July 7 is the date of findom’s traditional picnic to the Suomenlinna island in Helsinki this year. You’ll find fen there from around noon.

Bus to Finncon

If you’re thinking about going to Finncon in July but don’t have a place to stay or otherwise can’t spend the whole weekend, TSFS is arranging a bus trip to the con on Saturday. The bus will leave from Turku early in the morning, and return the same evening. The bus stops in Tampere, so you can also join the trip there.

The trip needs around 20 people to happen, so if you’re interested, contact the organizers now, or before Midsummer at the latest. See the TSFS announcement for details and contact info.

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.