The second Usva International, a special issue of the Usva zine, is out. It showcases contemporary Finnish fantastic fiction in English. The 2007 issue contains short stories by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, Juha-Pekka Koskinen, Anne Leinonen (the Atorox award–winning story The Otherling), Tiina Raevaara, Petri Salin, and M.G. Soikkeli. In addition the issue contains an excerpt of J. Pekka Mäkelä’s new novel Nedut.
The zine is a free PDF download, so go check it out!
Next year’s Finncon (in Tampere, July 26–28) opened its website today at <2008.finncon.org>. Mostly general announcements and basic info about the GoHs so far, but more to come, of course.
Note to Swedish fen: you have an official agent for Finncon 2008. Contact Michael Pargman if you have any questions about the upcoming Finncon.
Finncon 2009 in Helsinki is living up to their promise of being the biggest Finncon yet. They’ve announced their Guests of Honor will be George R.R. Martin and Alastair Reynolds. Both are already known in Finland and have fans here which should bring in some extra folk (what’s a couple of thousands more at a Finncon).
In the meantime, don’t forget next year’s Finncon in Tampere either.
It’s the first Thursday of the month again, so let’s meet at Bar Bremer at six. See you there!
Andy Sawyer, course director of the science fiction studies MA program at the University of Liverpool and reviews editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, is speaking at the University of Jyväskylä this Thursday as part of the “Cult and Identity: Conference on the study of cults and audiences” event. His subject is “The Enchanted Duplicator and Other Fables: British Science Fiction Fandom in the 1950s”. Among other programming at the event is also a presentation by Irma Hirsjärvi on sex and gender in sf literature. Don’t miss this if you just have a chance to be there!
The Finlandia Award nominees for this year have been announced, and there are a couple of familiar sfnal names in the mix. Magdalena Hai’s K...
