The Kalevi Jäntti fund gives out awards to promising young writers. This year, three authors have received the award, and one of them is Emmi Itäranta for her debut novel Teemestarin kirja. The novel is a dystopic tale of a future world that is almost out of water. The novel is beautiful and I’m very happy it gets recognition. The prize is worth 16 000 euros.
Update: According to YLE news, Teemestarin kirja will be published in English by HarperCollins in USA, Britain and Australia in 2014.
This has been covered, in addition to the Finnish papers, in at least Variety & Hollywood Reporter (and of course spread all over Facebook and Twitter), so you’ve probably seen it already, but: the Iron Sky team’s next film (together with several international players) will be Jeremiah Harm, a hard-boiled sf action flick based on a graphic novel by Alan Grant and Keith Giffen. In addition to the international cast and crew, they will once again be collaborating with fans, so check out the team’s blog for further information along the way.
No mention on the official web site yet, but according to a tweet from Energia, Iron Sky was awarded the Audience Award and a Special Jury Mention at the Utopiales science fiction festival in France. Congrats!
The “Turku newsletter” is a new project that sends an e-mail on the 1st of every month. The newsletter covers sfnally interesting things that happen in the Turku area during the month.
The e-mail is distributed via the Turku sf society mailing list. This is a low-volume list that everybody interested is invited to join (no membership required). The newsletters are also archived, so you can read them via the web if you prefer.
The archive plus a link for joining the mailing list can be found on the list info page. The first newsletter came out yesterday, and covers events in November.
November starts this Thursday, and that means that the monthly pub meeting is upon us once more. See you at Teerenpeli on Thursday at six!
URS has published a new anthology, Me emme valehtele ja muita Puolueen hyväksymiä novelleja (“We do not lie, and other stories endorsed by the Party“). These will be for sale at the pub meeting, so come take a look!
Spefi-Vantaa is a new one-day minicon that will be held at the Tikkurila library April 13 next year. There will be a guest of honor (a good one, but not officially published so I can’t reveal who she is yet) and other programming, in the same vein as the Tamfan and Turconen minicons. More info on the website, or from Ella Peltonen.
Kontrast, this year’s Swedish national convention, starts on Friday. There are a couple of Finnish program items scheduled this year.
This year, for the first time ever (as far as I know) there’s a Finnish language program item. Suomikummaa (Saturday 2 PM) is a discussion about new and interesting Finnish sf books, in Finnish (apparently there are quite a few Finnish speakers in Swedish fandom and Uppsala who might be interested in finding out about good books to read in Finnish).
On Saturday there’s also a program item about the recent elephant in the Finnish fandom: the Helsinki Worldcon bid presentation (6 PM). The Helsinki bid doesn’t have a table at the convention, and Eemeli, the bid chair, is not attending, so if you have questions about the bid, come here and ask Jukka everything you want to know about the bid.
On Sunday at 11 I’ll be chairing a panel discussion about what’s currently happening in the Finnish fandom. This item is in English, so if you’re interested in our doings here in Finland, welcome!
There are many interesting program items at Kontrast, and quite a few Finns participating in other items as well. Hope to see you at Swecon!
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...
