Beyond the Iron Sky

The time of the summer is coming when Energia rolls out on the open road and visists all the interesting happening we have here in Finland.

The first of the major festival is Finncon 2008. The Finnish science fiction and fantasy convention held together with Animecon 2008, the largest Finnish anime convention.

This year the conventions are held right here in Tampere. To be more exact, they’re held in Tampere Hall, some 10 meters straight ahead from this office chair I’m sitting on. So, obiously Energia will be there, but more about that later…

The rest of the con looks to be awesome. There’s always been a great atmosphere at Finncon, even though the last few years have been pretty crowded with minimum of 5000 people attending. This is the first ever Finncon/Animecon held in Tampere and the venue is the Tampere Hall, largest congress center in the nordic countries. So overpopulation shouldn’t be a problem this year.

The crowd saluting Emperor Pirk at Finncon 2007

The guests of honor at Finncon are M. John Harrison, Farah Mendlesohn and Charles Vess. The guests of honor at Animecon are Ms. Mandu, artist duo formed by Nina von Rüdiger & Johanna Koljonen. The Finnish guest of Honor is going to be cartoonist and illustrator Petri Hiltunen, who is also known as a strong advocate of movies with underwater Nazi Zombies battling sharks.

Johanna Sinisalo will be talking about Iron Sky and Moomins. Even Mr. Fukov is going to be there, though he’s going to be disguised as the mild-mannered reporter Janos Honkonen.

There’s pretty much everything, so check out the programme here.

Getting to Tampere

Anyway, if you’re not yet planning on coming now is the time to start hunting bargain plane, train or buss tickets for the weekend of 26th to 27th of July. Those of you living here in Finland should know how to get to Tampere, for the foreigners this is a great time to find out. If you get to London, RyanAir flies directly to Tampere from the London-Stansted airport. You won’t be getting much sleep anyway, so it’s perfectly viable option to use the Finncon floor accommodation - there’s a queue right now, but the organisers are trying to get more space to fit everyone.

And the cost?

Unlike most scifi conventions Finncon is completely FREE. It’s all paid with cultural grants and advertising. The floor accommodation costs 9e per person. The flights from and back to London are couple of hundred euro or so, it changes daily. For getting to and from the airports you should put aside something like 20-30e. You wont need any other transportation in Tampere, the con is situated right in the center within walking distance of everything. Booze here is expensive, food only slightly.

Be there, or be a regular polygon with four equal sides!

Marky Mark in bullet time

The teaser for the upcoming Max Payne movie is out. It seems to be so fresh I can’t even find it on YouTube yet, so go to Shacknews to watch the video. (Or firstshowing.net for better quality)

The Ragna Rock Club or does it actually look like they’ve changed the name?

Definetly looks like the Max Payne I remember. Constant snowfall, leather jackets and even the Ragna Rock club (easily my favourite part of the first game).

As much fun it would be to trash casting Marky Mark as Max I really can’t. Three Kings, The Italian Job and The Shooter are all good and I’m completely addicted to Entourage he’s producing. So whatever crimes against humanity Wahlberg might have committed in his youth he’s done good in the later days.

Lasten Mehuhetki päättyi ikävästi…

The question is, what the hell is happening in the frame above? Looks like a dark angel ripping a guy trough a window. Don’t remember that one… But it does look pretty damn cool anyways.

Edit: Found the YouTube version via Kotaku:

Edit 2: There’s a better quality version at firstshowing.net. And yeah, the winged people. Valkyries maybe? Could have something to do with the drug Valkyr.

(English summary: Star Wreck RPG author Mike Pohjola’s first novel was released last friday. It’s in Finnish.)

Star Wreck -roolipelin tekijän, roolipelitaiteilija Mike Pohjolan esikoisromaani Kadonneet Kyyneleet julkaistiin viime perjantaina.

Tällä hetkellä Mike opiskelee Taideteollisessa Korkeakoulussa elokuvakäsikirjoittamista ja CV:stä löytyy myöskin useampi roolipeli, näytelmäkäsikirjoitus, sekä Sanaleikkikirja.

Koska yhtään kappaletta kirjaa ei ole vielä ehtinyt Energialle, niin arvostelupuolella täytyy tyytyä toteamaan, että kansi on hieno. Julkaisijan sivulta löytyy seuraavanlainen juonikuvaus:

Roosan isä on kuollut, eikä koulunkäynti kiinnosta. Äidillä on uusi miesystävä, jonka luona hän mieluummin viettää aikaansa. Roosa ei halua selittää elämäntarinaansa enää yhdellekään psykiatrille. Tuntuu kuin viettäisi puolet kouluajasta juttelemassa kuraattorien ja koulupsykologien kanssa.

Toisaalla, keskellä suurta merta on pieni saari, jossa kasvaa iso omenapuu. Puu on kahden airiin, Punakanelin ja Omenaruusun, koti. Eräänä aamuna kun Punakaneli hyppää alas puusta, hänen jalkansa eivät laskeudukaan omenapuun juurelle, vaan loiskahtavat veteen. Vesi peittää alleen puun juuret ja jokainen aalto nostaa veden pintaa. Saarelta on lähdettävä, keinolla millä hyvänsä, mutta Omenaruusu ei halua jättää kotiaan. Kun Punakaneli yrittää taivutella ystäväänsä, Omenaruusu järkyttyy ja vaipuu syvään uneen. Ainoa tapa pelastaa Omenaruusu on hankkia hänelle airiin kyyneleitä.

Roosan ja Punakanelin kohtalot kulkevat rinnakkain nuortenromaanin sivuilla. Toden ja mielikuvituksen rajat hämärtyvät heidän etsiessään kadonneita kyyneleitä.