Finncon: Saturday Evening

The yesterday party was a typical Finncon party—in good and bad. The bar, Telakka, was too small and way too hot to be comfortable. Fortunately there was a terrace outside, but it was crowded, so you had to choose between sitting and breathing. The lines for the bar were quite long.


Of course, the place being crowded also meant lots of people to talk to.


The masquerade worked—or didn’t, depending on your expectations—as usual. The trend nowadays is unfortunately to have the masquerade at the bar,
which usually means there’s no stage and too many people to really see
the contestants. I think Cheryl is getting used to the Finnish way of doing masquerades, but the other judges probably were in for a bit of a surprise if they expected anything like the Worldcon masquerade. Instead of doing serious costuming, the Finns tend to just whip up costumes and concentrate more on having fun. (Of course there occasionally are some really fine costumes too.)

Maybe this had something to do with the judges deciding to go for a bit more unorthodox way of creative awarding: instead of traditional scoring, there were awards for the most unexpected costume (the Inquisition), the most obvious brown-nosing (the Petri Hiltunen characters), and so on.

Finncon: Saturday

Got to the convention center a couple of hours later than I’d originally planned (thanks to the party yesterday), but still with plenty of time to wander around the convention and catch a couple of program items.


Tampere-talo is working pretty well as a venue for Finncon. Inside, it’s not too crowded, and the air conditioning seems to be coping (if only barely) even though it’s rather hot outside.


The main hallway is certainly a step up from the usual. Very nice.


The closer you get to the end where most of the anime programming (and vendor space) is, the hotter and more crowded it gets. Still, at least the whole place doesn’t look like this.


The Helsinki societies brought a cool TARDIS to the con!


There’s lots of lobby room and places to sit down for a bit of rest or chatting with people. The only thing missing is a decent bar (or if there is one, I haven’t found it yet).


Genre criticism panel. The panel was a bit unevenly composed: when you have four very knowledgeable critics, who in addition know each other well and very obviously have talked about these things before, the two Finns in the panel didn’t have much to contribute (and six is usually too many for a panel anyway). The panel didn’t stay on topic that well but contained a lot of interesting discussion anyway.


Farah Mendlesohn was interviewed by “James Lipton”. A good talk that was way too short and felt hasty—this item should have had a slot twice the length it now was.


The whole Sorsapuisto was overtaken by people in costumes. Thank goodness it wasn’t cold and rainy—it would have been a disaster if all those people would have tried to fit inside Tampere-talo!

That’s it for now; the evening party is about to start. More reporting later.

Tähtifantasy Award to Ngugi wa Thiong’o

The winner of the second annual Tähtifantasia award for best translated fantasy book was announced at Finncon. The winner is Variksen velho by Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

The jury described the novel as a political satire full of dark humor that has the absurdism and richness typical of African storytelling. Wa Thiong’o’s characters and use of language were praised by the jury, who also noted that the novel expands the definition on fantasy, proves that it is written also outside the west, and introduces the African mythology and culture to us.

The award is given by the Helsinki Science Fiction Society. The jury consisted of critic Jukka Halme, critic Aleksi Kuutio, critic and editor Anne Leinonen, and Osmo Määttä from the Risingshadow fantasy forum.

Susi Vaasjoki Wins Atorox

The Atorox award for best Finnish sf short story published last year was announced at the Tampere Finncon a moment ago. This year the award goes to Susi Vaasjoki for the short story Taruntekijä (“Story Maker”) which also won the Portti short story competition. Carita Forsgren came second for Trio Org and Jussi Katajala third for Vetehinen (“Water Spirit”). This was the 26th time the award was given.

The top ten this year is:

1. Susi Vaasjoki: Taruntekijä
2. Carita Forsgren: Trio Org
3. Jussi Katajala: Vetehinen
4. Tuomas Saloranta: Lihan lapset
5. M.G. Soikkeli: Maan langat, Marsin hiekat
6. J.K. Miettinen: Jäytää
7. Mari Saario: Keveät
8. (tie)Heikki Nevala: Herra Tvist
   Petri Salin: Exit only
10. Heikki Nevala: Kauhun kaksi huonetta

More info on the competition is on the TSFS Atorox page.

Finncon – Friday

The Finncon Friday went as expected. I hear there was a lot of good quality programming in the science department as well as the writing one. Of course I missed all of that. But during the evening there was the mighty Finnconkampen: the tabletop ice hockey tournament.



The winner, once again, was Pasinen.




The very nice Czech delegation to Finncon:




There was quite a good turnout on the terrace of the Telakka pub, discussing this and that about science fiction:

Rauni Lintula Wins Nova

The results of the Nova short story competition for beginner sf writers was awarded tonight at Finncon. The top three this year are:

1. Rauni Lintula: Marva
2. Marketta Niemelä: Västäräkki
3. Juha Huhtakallio: Nukkekoti

Congratulations to the winners!

In Tampere

Have arrived in Tampere for Finncon. Traditionally missed all of Friday’s programming; now waiting for the evening festivities to commence.