The Helsinki Art Museum will feature an exhibition of the Making of Iron Sky (September 28 to January 20):
The exhibition showcases material from the making of the film, from costumes to storyboards to scale models. Production: Helsinki Art Museum and Blind Spot Pictures
(via Enhörningen)
The Turku Castle is currently featuring an exhibition of strategy and role playing games.
The Risingshadow.net site has announced a shortshort fiction competition. The theme of the competition is ”shadow rising”, and the deadline is at the end of the year. The winning stories will be published in Usva, and there will be some book prizes as well.
Anne muses about the significance and practicalities of the Atorox award. Go read and comment at the blog!
Ernest Cline, the author of the excellent Ready Player One, will visit Helsinki in the beginning of September. There will be an extra pub meeting at St. Urho’s Pub on Tuesday, September 4 where fen have a chance to meet with the author from around 7 PM.
The Finnish translation of Ready Player One has just come out, translated by J. Pekka Mäkelä. The book is an excellently entertaining read, especially if you grew up in the 80s or have an interest in either pop culture or computer games. (I don’t care much for games, but was completely hooked by the book and enjoyed it very much). Highly recommended!
The Arts Council of Finland has given out its annual grants to writers, among them some familiar names. Congratulations to Timo Parvela (5-year grant), Tiina Raevaara (1 year), and Maria Turtschaninoff (1 year) for getting support to continue writing more fantastic fiction!
On Wednesday, we were saddened to learn of the passing of Harry Harrison, 87. Harrison was an SFWA Grand Master, inductee of the SF Hall of Fame, and Worldcon Guest of Honor. In addition, he was a co-founder of the World SF organization (a forum where writers from the West and the East could meet discuss their work). He also had a small but significant role in the Finnish fandom.
The Finnish “First Fandom” has been named Dinosaurs, after their US counterpart. The Finnish Dinosaurs consist of founding members of the first Finnish sf-society, Turun Science Fiction Seura, and their generation, plus one person from abroad: Harry Harrison. There was a good reason behind including him among the Finnish Dinosaurs.
Harry Harrison had an influential role in the formation of the Finnish science fiction fandom. Harrison had met Finnish fen in Sweden and later in Helsinki at King-Con in 1982. During these meetings he gave valuable advice on how to organize science fiction societies and conventions; he also advised on how to avoid schisms inside fandom. Accordingly, Leena Peltonen, a translator, editor, critic and chief editor of the Aikakone fanzine, brought with her the official Dinosaur badge to Harry Harrison, when he was an author guest of the Jyväskylä Arts Festivals in July 2005.
Several of the Finnish fen met Harry in Helsinki, Jyväskylä, or Copenhagen at different cons. He is widely remembered as an approachable, kind, funny, and intelligent person with whom lengthy conversations were had, in a civilized manner over glasses of red wine. It came as quite a surprise to him when the young generation, especially the women, proved to be ardent fans of the Stainless Steel Rat.
Several of Harry Harrison’s works have been translated into Finnish:
(This post was authored together with Liisa Rantalaiho and Irma Hirsjärvi. Photos by Joanna Kurki. Bibliography from Jussi Vainikainen’s sf resource site.)
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...
