Finlandia Award Nominees 2018

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 Kolmas sisar and Siiri Enoranta’s Tuhatkuolevan kirous are nominees for best children & YA novel, and the general literature category nominees announced today include Hunan by J. Pekka Mäkelä. Huge congrats to both for the nominations!

Updated to include Enoranta, and a hat tip to Toni Jerrman for noticing I had overlooked a nominee!

Cultural Award to Turtschaninoff

Maria Turtschaninoff has been awarded by The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland. She received their 20 000 € “Big Cultural Prize” yesterday.

Turtschaninoff was commended for weaving stories that feature mythical worlds, nature, and strong women and girls. The English edition of Naondel (prequel to the excellent Maresi) was published just last month.

Sinisalo Nominated for Prometheus

Saw this on Twitter a couple of days ago: The Libertarian Futurist Society has released the finalists for the Prometheus Award in the Best Novel category. Among the finalists is our own Johanna Sinisalo with The Core of the Sun. Congratulations!

Samovar

Samovar is a new quarterly special issue of Strange Horizons that focuses on translated sf. They publish fiction and poetry in both the original language and an English translation.

The first issue of the magazine includes a short story Wither And Blossom (Oka ja kukinto) by a Finnish writer Suvi Kauppila. The magazine is free, so go take a look!

(Hat tip to Cheryl for posting about Samovar)

Finnish Weird #4

Finnish Weird is a zine that showcases contemporary Finnish Weird fiction. Issue #4 is out, free to download as an ebook or a pdf.

This issue features introductions of three Finnish authors, Magdalena Hai, J.S. Meresmaa, and Viivi Hyvönen, and also a short story by each of them.

The previous issues are also available for download.

Three Issues of Finnish Weird

This is already old news, but I didn’t mention it at the time, so I’ll fix that oversight now. The third issue of the Finnish Weird zine is out. It once again highlights contemporary Finnish weird fiction, translated into English. This issue’s stories are by Anne Leinonen, Johanna Sinisalo, Helena Waris, Leena Likitalo, and Magdalena Hai (the winner of this year’s Atorox Award). In addition there is an author spotlight on Helena Waris.

As always, the issue is available as a free download (epub and pdf), so go check it out! (Editor Toni Jerrman points out that an improved epub version of issue 2 is also available on the site.)

Big Book of Science Fiction

The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, is an undertaking which makes the word ambitious seem woefully inadequate. The book contains no less than 105 short stories and strives to cover the history and themes of science fiction.

I’m mentioning the book here because it contains two stories by Finnish authors, Gorgonoids by Leena Krohn and Baby Doll by Johanna Sinisalo. And of course over a hundred other stories.

You can read more about the project in the Kirkus review of Ann and Jeff.

Leena Krohn a World Fantasy Award Finalist

Leena Krohn’s Collected Fiction is a finalist in the 2016 World Fantasy Awards, in the best collection category.

The collection is published by the Cheeky Frawg Books, and is available both as a hardcover and an ebook.

Finnish Sf in Strange Horizons

Strange Horizons has published a short story by Sara Norja, called Water, Birch, and Blood. The story is free to read, go check it out!

The story is also available as audio in the Strange Horizons podcast.

Illustration by O. Horvath

New Kosmoskynä Webzine

The website for Kosmoskynä (the zine of the Finnish Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association) has been renewed, and now features a brand new webzine that will publish new stuff not seen in the paper zine (which from now on is published only two times per year). Two new short stories have been published, and columns and non-fiction articles will be published in the future as well. Go check the spiffy new site out!

All’s not that great though—when creating the new website, they’ve made the rookie web design mistake of purging all the old content from the site, including a quite large archive of information about and texts from the zine’s history. A damn shame from a fanhistory perspective, but I’m hoping this was just a cleanup for getting the new zine published, and the historical information will be added to the new site as well.

Kirkus Reviews Finnish Weird

Kirkus Reviews has posted two very positive reviews of soon-to-be-released-in-English Finnish works: Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction, and Johanna Sinisalo’s The Core of the Sun.

Emmi Itäranta a PKD Award Nominee

As you’ve probably already seen, the nominees for the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award have been announced, and one of the nominees is the wonderful Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta. Congratulations!

Tähtivaeltaja Has a Blog

Tähtivaeltaja hasn’t really had an online presence for quite a while. That has now changed at least a bit: Tähtivaeltajablogi has regularly updated content (mainly reviews) republished from the magazine, and promises also previews and articles published exclusively online in the future.

Speculative Romance Roundtable

Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly has published a roundtable discussion on Finnish sf/f, with Anne Leinonen, Magdalena Hai, and J.S. Meresmaa participating.

The Blood of Angels Excerpt on Tor.com

The Blood of Angels, Johanna Sinisalo’s latest translation in English, was published earlier this year by Peter Owen. Tor.com has published an excerpt of this fine novel on their site, so you can head there and check it out!

Portti Competition 2014

The results of the annual Portti competition were announced in Tampere on Friday. The top 3 this year is:

1. Didin historiat by Oskari Rantala
2. Paha, maahasi pakene by Lotta Dufva
3. (tie) Takaisin valoon by Inkeri Kontro
   (tie) Punainen professori by Maarit Leijon

photo: Markku Soikkeli

Markku Soikkeli has written a report of the awards ceremony and the current state of the competition (in Finnish). Unfortunately the city of Tampere is ending their support for short story competitions, but the Tampere Science Fiction Society promises that the competition—that celebrates its 30th anniversary next year—will continue nevertheless.

The Dying Embers

The Dying Embers, a beautiful short story by Inkeri Kontro, is published on Strange Horizons. I bet you never knew you could fall in love with a sentient sauna, but go read the story and tell me you didn’t!

Cheeky Frawg Story Bundle

StoryBundle is currently featuring a Weird Fiction Bundle that has some amazing fiction from Finland and abroad as pay-what-you-want ebooks. The selection includes Datura by Leena Krohn and The Explorer & Other Stories by Jyrki Vainonen as well as books by Jeff VanderMeer, Stepan Chapman, Michael Cisco, and Amos Tutuola. The excellent anthology ODD?—Volume 1, edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer is also included.

Half of the profits from this bundle go to support the Helsinki in 2017 Worldcon bid. The bundle is available for two more weeks, so go check it out now!

Kalevi Jäntti Literary Prize 2014

The Kalevi Jäntti Foundation gives an annual literary prize to support young writers. This year the prize was given to two writers, Miira Luhtavaara and Antti Salminen. Salminen’s work, Lomonosovin moottori (“The Lomonosov Engine”) is definitely sfnal: it’s been described as an experimental work of prose poetry that tells of a dreamlike word where a mystical Lomonosov Engine makes various naturistic beliefs and laws of nature switch places to influence the destiny of whole mankind.

The prize is worth 17.000 €. Lomonosovin moottori is published by Poesia.

Finlandia Prize to Jussi Valtonen

The Finlandia Prize (the major literary honor in Finland) was announced yesterday. This year’s award goes to Jussi Valtonen for his novel He eivät tiedä mitä tekevät (“They Know Not What They Do”), published in September by Tammi. The book is a contemporary novel that reaches to a speculative near future, exploring (among other things) the development of technology and its effects on privacy and morality.

The prize winner was selected by Professor Anne Brunila who said about the book:

They Know Not What They Do is a mind-blowing work. It illuminates modern life with a rare sense of perception, without pointing fingers or moralizing. The reader finds the moral in him-or-herself. Ecoterrorism, animal activism, academic research, new technology with its digital universes, and a future in which reality and behaviour can be altered with technology and medicine, are all put into the spotlight.

The Finlandia Prize is given by the Finnish Book Foundation and is worth 30 000 €. More info about the book and the author, and reading materials, is available from the Elina Ahlback Literary Agency.