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I finally finished Joe Haldeman’s novel Forever Peace last night. It kept me up until 4 in the morning just because the story kept kicking on higher and higher gears so I couldn’t leave the book with only fifty or so pages left. It was funny in a way. After all, I’d been reading the book for quite a while already, in tiny snippets every night before bed. (Oh, what I’d give for the time to sit down with a good book…)

I bought the omnibus edition Peace & War at Finncon last July, after listening to the author being interviewed Actors Studio style and realising three things at once. One, the man is funny, intelligent and an incredibly gentle person. Two, I’d only read two pieces by him: a translation of his seminal Forever War back when I was in school, and the Vietnam-themed poem (!) DX in the anthology Demons & Dreams edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (ISBN 978-0712630214, good luck finding a copy). And three, those two works - a three-page poem and a translation (for crying out loud!) - had left me with a lasting impression of a terribly skilled novelist. It was time to reacquaint myself.

True, the title of the omnibus - Peace & War - is a reference to a classic (I should really say, another classic). But it’s also very accurate: that’s what Haldeman writes about. Not content with merely describing either, he recounts the lives of people taking part in war in a way that makes the necessity of peace achingly evident. His style is remarkable - friendly, casual, like listening to a friend relate something that happened to him. That style gives his works a light and approachable quality, but also emphasises the understated way he describes moments of savage action. No build-up of tension, no deceptive calm before the storm, it really brings home the horror of combat when you have to re-read the last two sentences before it sinks in that an ambush has just been sprung and someone lies dead from stepping on a land mine.

And the sheer scope of it! Not for Haldeman the simple statement that war is hell. No, he goes right ahead and demonstrates that if war is indeed an intrinsic part of human nature, why then, the evolutionary quantum leap necessary to rid us of war is worth it. True, being one of a dying breed (as his protagonists tend to be in these stories) does leave one feeling rather forlorn. But then, war also leaves one feeling rather forlorn, or rather dead. Think about it.

Hey, there’s even a way to link this rant with Iron Sky. In 2004, Mr Haldeman split the James Tiptree, Jr. Award with Iron Sky writer Johanna Sinisalo. According to her, he was so much of a gentleman that he spent most of his acceptance speech praising her work. Having listened to and read the man, I’m inclined to believe it.

I’m ashamed to admit that I only today learned of the Baen Free Library project. To those not In The Know, it’s an online service by the publishing company Baen Books that offers electronic versions of their books for free. It’s been around since 2000, and currently offers 98 titles. To quote First Librarian Eric Flint: “I will cheerfully put up the stuff for free myself. Because I am quite confident that any ‘losses’ I sustain will be more than made up for by the expansion in the size of my audience.” So they’ve been saying (and proving) the same thing that we demonstrated with Star Wreck - that free distribution cannot but benefit the authors - since the turn of the millennium. So we weren’t quite the first, although apparently, Mr Puskala endorsed the Free Library on our forum already in 2002.

So why is this fact so hard for show business to admit? Why is the industry trying to clamp down on online piracy when it’s so obviously counterproductive - more regulations means higher costs means artificially-elevated prices means piracy appears more attractive? Beats me. Probably because it’s so much easier to cling to what you grew up with instead of trying to change with the times. Possibly because the prevailing ideological climate seems to be moving in a more draconian, paranoid direction. We can only hope that successful endeavours like the Free Library (and Star Wreck) will eventually convince the movers and shakers that free distribution is an opportunity and not a threat.

Actually, I know the true reason. It’s because only good authors benefit from the publicity generated by free distribution. Let’s face it: without the artificial hype generated by massive publishing efforts - if people knew what it is they’re buying - would the likes of Dan Brown or Ilkka Remes ever sell a copy?

And would we really be any worse off for it?

There have never been this many swastikas in Finnish shops. The new Space nazi touting Ilkka Remes book we wrote about before has hit the stores last friday. And being a very potential bestseller bookstores and supermarkets have huge piles of the books - right next to the pepper mills and cookbooks.

A Brave soul from our forum by the name of swreckie has already read the book and tells that nazis on the moon are mentioned in one sentence on page 312. That’s it. I guess we don’t have to fear any competition.

Hi, it’s Timo here reporting about Some Cool Things I Bumped Into in Eurocon 2007! The first one of them was a techno-thriller Exitz, starring some extremely beautiful, not-known actresses and the wonderful Malcom McDowell. The story is about an Indian illegal immigrant in UK, who gets hired to a massive game company, producing a reality game about real people’s lives – a game, where you can be whoever you want in the world and do whatever you want to. The story starts to unfold as a witty, complex technological thriller when the borders of game and reality begin blurring, and eventually nobody knows what is game, what is reality and who is the bad guy – or is there one.

I met the director of the film, Laurens Postma, in Eurocon, and we had a lehgty chat about UK film industry, film festivals and how he did his film. He’s a pretty well-established director, although his name didn’t ring bells in the beginning, but that’s propably because he’s been working a lot in India. I also promised to send him our film and talked a bit about Iron Sky, and he was pretty impressed about the Iron Sky poster on one wall. That’s nice.

His story with Exitz is that it’s now sitting on a shelf, and he’s unable to release it because the production company who owns the rights screwed the government with VATs, and it (not surprisingly) backfired on them, and now everybody is fighting on who own the rights… So, for him it’s technically illegal to show the film, but he likes to go around and do it anyway, to festivals and that sort of stuff. He also said that this is pretty normal in GB – they make about 40-45 films a year there, and 20-25 never get shown anywhere because of various reasons. So, every year around 50 million euros get just thrown to the well of the Kankkula farm (no, didn’t translate…). Exitz is a 2-million euro production, although the production value would suggest it’s at least 10m€ in Hollywood.

The second super-cool thing was a band called Press Play On Tape. The Eurocon had them playing there, and what they do is they play rock-covers of game music and that kind of stuff. I came in there just by accident, when I head that somebody was playing ‘(The Ultimate Showdown of) The Ultimate Destiny’ by Lemon Demon. Next they rolled in a great cover of Monkey Island’s theme, and as an encore, played Monty On The Run’s theme. What’s even cooler is that for every song they have a video of the game the music is from, in gameplay. That was a big nostalgy trip that rocked the shit out of the audience at the same time. We need to book them for the next Star Wreck Con!

And of course, it was great to visit the Russian Vodka Party and enjoy some sophisticated alcoholocaust with the Finnish scifi-people, who always are a good company. We ended up to my room with bunch of people and continued where the Vodka Party had left us…

Oh, and as a bonus, at the official dinner, Anne McCaffrey complimented my hair. I was walking in clouds for few minutes – an 81-years old scifi/fantasy legend likes my hair! Woo-hoo! Super-Win!

Here’s a video by Press Play On Tape I found on YouTube:

I have to say, Pahan Perimä, the next book from Finland’s most popular action writer Ilkka Remes seems interesting. Remes has written several very popular action/thrillers and few of them have also been made into movies (and for someone who hasn’t actually read any of his their books he is easily mistaken with Reijo Mäki whose books have been made into movies). His books are known for plots that are more Hollywood than Finland. For example his previous book 6/12 had a Serbian terrorist group attacking the Presidental independence day celebrations.

Pahan Perimä will be published next Friday, so we don’t really know what’s it about yet. Just that the cover has a Nazi astronaut standing on the moon with the Finnish flag on his shoulder. The most revealing plot description I found says the following:

Kansallissosialistisen Saksan johto valjasti tieteen palvelukseensa voittaakseen toisen maailmansodan. Yksi kunnianhimoisista nuorista tutkijoista oli Suomesta vuonna 1937 Berliiniin opiskelemaan lähtenyt Rolf Narva, joka avioitui Saksassa kollegansa kanssa.

Nyt, yli 60 vuotta sodan päättymisen jälkeen, osa natsien salaisesta perinnöstä päätyy nuoren sukupolven käsiin Helsinkiin. Teekkareiden risteilyohjus tuntuu pilalta, kunnes Hitler iskee haudan takaa – ja iskun eteen joutuu Rolfin poika Erik.

So there is a Finnish scientist who worked for the Nazis, something about genetics (well, it’s called “The Genotype of Evil”), a dark secret that ends up in helsinki and a cruise missile in the hands of technical students.

That’s all for now, but we’ll keep you updated on this book when we hear more. Until then, keep watching the skies. There might be more Nazis on the moon than you realise…

Finnish update: Ilkka Remeksen kotisivuilta löytyy lisää tietoa kirjasta. Varsinkin lähdeluettelo on mielenkiintoinen - ja natsiastronauttikannesta huolimatta ei sisällä yhtään kirjaa jota oltaisiin Rautataivasta varten luettu.