Mariehamn in 2016

This is what happens when you let Eemeli out (in this case, to Smofcon) without proper supervision, is all I’m saying.

Åbocalypse Comics Anthology Announced

The Turku Comics Club has announced that the theme of next year’s comics anthology is very sfnal-sounding “Åbocalypse”. The black-and-white anthology will be published at the Helsinki book fair next October, and the deadline for submissions is April 30. More info from the anthology editor Maijastiina Vilenius.

Pépites Award to Seita Parkkola

Finnish author Seita Parkkola has won the “Pépites” award in the children/YA category for her novel Viima (“Une dernière chance” in French).

Viima is a middle-grade/YA novel that could be classified as “Finnish Weird”: the world in the novel is seemingly our everyday world, but soon it becomes clear that some things differ from our reality quite a bit. Viima, the main character, is 12 years old, and has been branded as a troublemaker. So he’s been sent to the School of Possibilities where “troubled children are put right”. The story turns towards the dystopian as the kids are constantly surveilled on and off school grounds, required to participate in mandatory after-school activities, and assigned friends and even girl and boy friends by the school. Parents are charged for every infraction of the child, and those whose parents can’t pay seem to disappear, never to be seen again.

Viima was nominated for the Finlandia Junior award (the Finnish equivalent of the Newberry award) in 2006. The novel has been translated in English as The School of Possibilities (review). A couple of excerpts (by a different translator) are available online.

Rajaniemi on The World SF Blog

Hannu Rajaniemi talks.

[…] I shamelessly handwave or bluff a lot of things that aren’t mathematics or physics (and a lot of things that are). TQT is often described as hard SF, but I’m not really trying to write hard SF in the vein of Egan or Benford: I don’t work out the equations as I go. For me, the more important consequence of having a scientific background is a degree of speculative rigour: trying hard to work out the consequences of the assumptions one begins with.

Krohn on Weird Fiction Review

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s Weird Fiction Review has published The Bystander—a self-contained excerpt from Leena Krohn’s excellent novel Tainaron. Go read! (Also, take a look around the site while you’re at it; there’s lots of interesting stuff there.)

Routasisarukset is a Finlandia Junior nominee

The nominees for this year’s Finlandia Junior literary prize (for YA and children’s literature) have been announced. One of the nominees is Routasisarukset, the first in a series of novels set in a dystopian 24th century by Eija Lappalainen and Anne Leinonen. Congratulations!

Pub Meeting on Thursday

The Turku pub meeting for November is this Thursday. We’re back in Teerenpeli for the winter.

The pub meeting starts at six; the reading group gathers at that time to discuss this year’s Atorox-winning short story Nahat by Anne Leinonen. If you want to participate but don’t have last year’s issue 3 of Portti handy, you can get the story from me, courtesy of Anne.

Welcome!