(På engelska, för utländska fans's konsumtion också. --AE)
June 15-17th was the dates of this year's national Swedish science fiction
convention, the Swecon, though the con was named Fantastika. The site was
Dieselverkstan (The Diesel Workshop), an old industrial building turned into a
culture and events centre. Its situated in the fairly newly developed Hammarby
Sjöstad and Sickla area a few km outside central Stockholm,next to i huge
shopping mall centre.
I tweeted (postings on Twitter) a lot from the con, and let my conrep consist
of those tweets, with new comments, additions and observations in between. My
original tweets have PICTURES added and can be found at:
https://twitter.com/sfjournalen
The pictures to the tweets are BTW often so-and-so. My mobile is an old,
reasonably cheap model and I usually were too far away for the use of a flash
(so the camera's long exposure time makes for fuzziness) and it sometimes only
an enlarged part of a bugger photo. Lars-Olov Strandberg or Jay Kay Klein I am
not.
SF-Journalen is my old sf and fandom newszine, began in 1978 (under another
name) which I in 2011 to "convert" to Twitter postings instead. I do a few
newstweets every week. Note that I often use the editorial "we" for that and
that that Twitter now allows 240 chr for tweets.
Guests of Honour were Mike Carey, Kij Johnson and Ian Watson. The con's
homepage in English is at:
https://fantastika2018.wordpress.com/in-english/
From seeing the pre-registered list and having a reasonably good estimation
of walk-ins and the number not turning up, I believe the number of attendees
were somewhere around 325, which I think was a quite "lagom" number. (A Swedish
word meaning "not too much, not to little".) The Diesel Workshop is a good
place, having hosted Fantastika twice before. A big auditorium, and side rooms
for extra program (there were three parallel programs), book room, second-hand
book room, green room etc - a cafeteria or bar was in the building. The sun was
shining through the con - no, not night time, but June nights in Stockholm tend
to be bright anyway - and it began raining only as soon as it all was over.
A new beautiful tram (streetcar to some) route goes through the area. And
though I like trams as a poor freelancer I used a bike and my feet to get
there. I have a Citybike card, which means that you for just ca 30 dollars for
half a year can borrow bikes at special bike stations. Unfortunately, this
system doesn't reach far out into the suburbs, and the closest Citybike station
was about 1.5-2 km away, so I had to walk the last bit. And the stations close
10 pm, and one day I stayed later than that and had to walk all the way back to
the city...
As soon as I arrived I made and posted a couple of small posters for my
SKRIVA writing list's sf/f/h short story contest, Fantastiknovelltävlingen,
and picked a table to use as base and place my computer on. And I began
tweeting. My laptop has become sluggish lately, which may be because of
infection of Russian trojans, but though I have run several anti-malware
scanners (and have at least TWO running in memory) I haven't found any. It
could be that the Big Virus is Windows 10 itself... Windows have become worse
and slower with every new version,and they insist on automatic "up"-dating
(which seems to be downgrading, really!) and you can't even turn this
disservice off. Since I also took pics with my El Cheapo mobile, had to
transfer them to the laptop, find the right pic, crop etc, that and the
sluggishness of Mr Gates' giant VOS (Virus Operating System) each tweet took at
least 10 minutes. And since I did 18 of them, I spent at least 180 minutes or 3
hours (probably more) tweeting.
So I better use the wise notes I spread to my 3000 followers. I put my tweets
between two lines, just like we used to do with linos in old mimeograph old
days. The first one:
FRIDAY:
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Arrived to @Swecon2018. Ca 300 reg attendance yet (walk-ins not incl), ca 45
foreign fans (Finnfans #1). Heard item on researching novels, eg steampunk and
dystopias. Sun shines. Pic from the check-in.
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Pre-registered were ca 25 Finns, 7 Norwegians, 4-5 from the UK, ca 2 from the
US (hard to tell from names), 2 from Denmark, 1 from Germany, 1 from
Switzerland and one Swede who registered as an Italian (but that's from a quick
check, and excl walk-ins), ca 45 foreign fans in all.
The first program item I went to was an interactive panel about creating
backgrounds for stories. We were divided into groups and asked to create both
"a perfect murder" and a "dystopia" in a steampunk environment. My group eg
invented murder by a steam-driven bull.
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#Swecon2018 20+ Walk-ins 1st 2h. On #terraforming talk by J Stage, who thinks
its economics may work. Great LO Strandberg memorial display of his old con &
club membership cards (not all, the rest is in a box).
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Jesper Stage is a professor in economics at Luleå Technical University and
gave us the background of terraforming and big space projects. His general idea
was that such could be profitable in the long run, though barely profitable,
and need huge organisations (states, several states in cooperation) behind them
to make the investments and have the stamina to wait for the benefits.
I wanted to ask him (but time ran out; each 1h program time slot was stopped
after 45 min) what he thought about the economics of SPINOFFS. Space projects
have nearly always created new technology and scientific breakthroughs which
have been profitable even in the short run. Rocketry gave us weather
satellites, satellite communications, Earth resource survellance, etc etc. The
Apollo project at times bought 60% of the entire production of intergrated
circuits, which gave that industry a boost worth 10 years of development! Very
profitable. (Without Apollo we'd be 10 years back, with Windows XP or 7, which
would be much better...)
I suspect big space projects are profitable even in the short run due to
spinoffs. Terraforming Mars would be a huge project, but I can see a lot of
spinoffs coming from it.
On the upper floor was a display of maybe 100 of Lars-Olov Strandberg's con
badges and club membership cards (100 more or so was in a box below). The
earliest I saw was from the early 1960's but he was on the first Swedish sf
con, Luncon in 1956. A couple of badges I have designed were included. Below
the display was fan Urban Gunnarsson's carved wooden statuette of Lars-Olov,
who is Sverifandom's Biggest Big Name Fan of all times, and was also Fan-GoH of
the 2005 Scottish Worldcon.
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Conchair Carolina G-L releases The Spirit of Swecon, a wooden bottle with air
from previous con (#Swecon2018 air to be caught at con's end, for next Swecon).
Concom stands lined up. Now stage interview with GoHs Ian Watson, Mike Carey &
Kij Johnson. Ian wants a string Swedish belt...for his trousers. (En i andra
benet också?)
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There's a tradition (maybe half a dozen years old) that at the end of each
Swecon a decorated wooden bottle is opened to catch some air and "the Spirit of
Swecon". This bottle is then opened on next Swecon to let the Spirit out.
But they never thought of that wood isn't a very good holder of gas molecules.
Ian Watson told who he 45 years ago bought a belt of Swedish leather, which
only recently had begun breaking. Now he was hunting for another belt here i
Sweden. But he also wanted alcohol. ("En i andra..." just means approx "Down
the hatch!")
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#Swecon2018 GoH panel discussed possible genre Nobel Prize winners, eg Lord
Dunsany, U Le Guin, Adam Roberts. But Harry Martinson already got one! But who
cares about the #SwedishAcademy now? (Trial against Academy associate JCA this
autumn.)
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Just before the convention came the decision to prosecute one Jean-Claude
Arnault, husband of poet Katarina Frostenson who is a member of the by now
infamous Swedish Academy. That is for two cases of rape (other cases had passed
the statute of limitations) and trial will be this autumn. The Academy farce is
probably why the Nobel prize entered the discussion. (They had e many more
suggestions of possible genre winners,but my goldfish brain didn't remember
more when it was time to hit the keyboard.)
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#Swecon2018. Ian Watson "serious scientific talk" on Frankenstein. Coincidence
that K Marx was born when Shelley's book came? Earlier, surveillance society
discussed. CCTV, Facebook, DNA. There are few works positive to a surveillance
state. Pic on Ian W talking.
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I was first on a panel discussion surveillance, personal integrity and such
things in an electronic society. I think the development is really scary.
Authorities can keep track of - or will soon be able to do that - of every
movement of each citizen and each economic transaction, "thanks" to CCTV, car
tolls, travel cards in local traffic (my bike card for instance!), and credit
cards and electronic money means politicians' bureaucrat servants know every
cent you spend and on what. China will build a face-recognition system to keep
track of everyone when they are out walking. Through DNA authorities can even
map every citizen's life in advance - Charlie is likely to become a bad driver,
Mary will turn insane, Bob will become a great scientist, Charlotte will be
totally economically useless as she'll have 7-8 babies. Hm.
Everywhere you go and everything you do will be registered. This is old East
Germany on steroids. Anyone how knows how to stop this march into a super-1984
world, raise your hand!
Watson's serious scientific talk told about the roots of Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein and its connection to other things, and was a shorter version of a
longer article he has written. It wasn't exactly like the Bob Shaw serious
scientific talks from the Eastercon's, but a bit funny and entertaining (Bob
was funnier). Ian himself is a nice and funny guy.
SATURDAY:
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Interesting talk on time travel on #Swecon2018 by J Määttä. Analyses Bradbury's
butterfly and Heinlein's zombies in strange terminology - pic of diagram of the
Heinlein hero who was his own father and mother. (BTW, free RPG in all
@SFbok-stores today. Great - it may keep the roleplayers away from our con...)
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Jerry Määttä's lecture was based on an essay he had written , "Paradoxes in
Time and Space", and was rather advanced. (He's a PhD in sf literature, with a
thesis about the "long 1950's" in Swedish sf published as Raketsommar - "Rocket
Summer" - one of the best longer non-fic works written about the genre in this
country.) He used a lot of cryptic terminology, like analeptic, syncronous,
proleptic, achronic etc to describe different sorts or aspects of time travel,
showing slides with diagrams. I won't to go into further details, but it was
all quite interesting. Two famous time travel stories were analysed, Bradbury's
"A Sound of Thunder" - where stomping on a butterfly in dinosaur's days creates
a Butterfly Effect - and Heinlein's "All You Zombies", where the hero is is own
father, mother, son, grandfather, etc. Jerry was kind enough to mail me his
piece, in the form of the Swedish original, afterwards and I'll study is timely
time travel remarks...when I have time.
As for role-playing, or any of these activities where people - usually the
younger, media-oriented - dress up with fake armour, Princess Leia cinnamon
buns, Star Trek pyjamas, etc, it's an activity for with my enthusiasm has
certain limits. So I didn't mind that the SF Bookstore arranged something for
textile, fabrics and sewing machine fandom so they wouldn't necessary turn up
in the Diesel Workshop.
I know that this dress-yourself-up thing started in fandom, eg with Forry
Ackerman as a spaceman on Nycon 1939, and I know that the fancy dress show is
popular on the Worldcons. But in later decades it has simply become too damn
MUCH of it! It overshadows science fiction literature and any possible serious,
philosophical, literary, even scientific aspects of the genre. When reporters
come to a convention or when TV has something about sf, they automatically zoom
in on some silly people in neon-bright costumes with feathers, which they spent
hundreds or even thousands of hours on - chainmail will take 1000h to make! -
who have painted themselves blue in their face. I saw BBC's report from The
Scottish Convention in 1995, which of course started with trekkies to the
narration "Beam me up..." (...Scotty, of course). It was the Time Magazine
notorious gosh-wow-boy-oh-boy report all over again.
It gives the sf genre a bad reputation for being superficial and childish.
Those media fans have their own huge fringefandom and mix-ups with the real,
literary fandom are not especially welcome,. (Believe it or not, but the
roleplaying and gaming federation in Sweden has a staggering 80 000 members.
But no one there know anything about John W Campbell, The Enchanted Duplicator
or fanac.)
I notice that no Storm Troopers or Conans with plastic swords were present on
this Swecon. Fine.
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Collaborative writing on #Swecon2018. M&L Carey need Chinese food to write. G
Jonsson & M Petersen long walks & long hand. GJ&MP just pubbed 1st novel from
their Kult game, Death Is Just The Beginning. (They were also active on the
/i/n/famous SFSF scene late 70's,)
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This panel was a bit chatty, and I don't remember much from it except what I
mentioned in my tweet - ingredients of what the writing couples said they
needed for their work. But I should add that Michael (Petersen) and Gunilla
(Jonsson) are old fans, and later quite successful as authors of games like
Mutant and Kult. They have just published their first novel based on Kult, I
was a bit amazed that they did their writing by longhand, since both are
well-acquainted with computers. (That comes in later, as the notebooks and
paper they use are transferred to 10100101's.) I spoke with them afterwards and
learnt that they of course work on a follow-up novel, preliminary title The
Living Dead.
As for the SFSF (=Scand SF Assoc) scene in the late 1970's, they were there,
and there was a lot happening then, when the club for a few years had their own
clubhouse, on Pontonjärgatan in a central Stockholm district. There were plots,
feuding, spectacular business meetings, floods of fanzines and a whirlwind of
strangeness, a sort of mini version of 1940's LASFS. Ah Sweet Stupidity!
I won'ät mention all fen I bumped into. But we have for instance Jölrgen
Jörälv who has done as great bibliography about Sam J Lundwall's Jules Verne
Magasinet, and now is working on something similar dealing with his publishing
house Delta. I gave him the few tips I had on the subject. (I knew more about
JVM where I had the fandom column than the publishing house Delta.) Delta wnet
down because of Sam J becoming angry with the part owner, literary agent Gunnar
Dahl, most likely because Dahl didn't pay Sam's forign writer buddies the money
they should get for Swedish translations. I also told Jörgen how Börje Crona
dedicated a book to KG Johansson and Gunilla Dhalblom, since they as reviewers
tended to give him bad reviews. By the dedication they would however be banned
from writing reviews of Crona's books...
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Heard Worldcon75 panel on #Swecon2018. J Halme; "Fun, but wouldn't do it
again." Worldcon goodie bags too 8 hours for 50 ppl to fix. / Replicon Västerås
14-16/6 sole Swecon19 bid, or? / On Kij Johnson's GoH interview. She's read a
lot of Lovecraft despite not liking his writing. "He's scary."
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Jukka Halme said a lot of things about last year's Finnish Worldcon, but no
major scandals. The basic message was that it took a lot of work, much more
than expected since many more than expected turned up (around 7000 - they
originally thought 3-4000). But the site was flexible and they could arrange
and book extra space. Despite this there was of course the problem (which I
encountered a couple of times) that the hall for a popular program item was
full and doors closed. The huge attendance meant that Worldcon 75 made a
surplus.This has now been transferred to a special foundation which will make
contributions to skiffy and fandom projects in the Nordic area. (Yes, not only
Finland but also the neighbours, as I understood Jukka. I hinted to him that
the SKRIVA short story competition turns 20 next year...)
I only heard parts of Kij Johnson's GoH interview. But she - just as me -
seems to have a contradictive relation to HPL. Metoo don't like his writing,
it's too heavy, full of adjectives and the feeling of horror he tries to induce
doesn't touch me. But he is a very interesting person, a lone gentleman with
old ideals, a reclusive person who still made long trips in the eastern USA to
study architecture, an early sort of fanzine fan involved in pre-fandom APAs, a
mystic who still deeply believed in science and rationality, a fanatic letter
writer, an almost total failure in his craft of writing while he lived -
becoming a superstar in death.
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#Swecon2018 bookroom has unannounced extra prog (see pic) & @Sverok runs debate
corner outside. Strong Swe Small Press sf/f trend. Bookroom has 50+ titles we
never/hardly heard of... New group: Östergötlands fantastikförfattare
https://www.facebook.com/ostergotlandsfantastikforfattare/
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The bookroom was actually two rooms. There was a separate room for used books
sold by the Alvar Appeltofft foundation. The regular bookroom for new books was
dominated by Small Press Publishers and had a new system. The publishers didn't
man the tables themselves. Everyone delivered their books to the con, which
then arranged for a central cashier's desk. The benefit is that it let the
publishers enjoy the convention. I saw eg my friend Tora Greve from the SKRIVA
list doing work hours at that desk.
As said, many small press publishers were there. I didn't count but around 50
news Swedish books of sf, fantasy or horror sounds about right. And many of
these publications and publishers are things I hadn't heard of (or hardly heard
of). Many of the novels are "self-published", but some of the SPP's will also
publish work by others. The talented new writer Oskar Källner - who was there
and I talked with him - will for instance take in other writers to his Fafner
Publishing, as well as doing audio books and E-books. Fafner has also started a
space opera novel writing competition (deadline October 31st). This new small
press publishing activity has this far not lured Big Publishers to do much
science fiction, while fantasy and horror seems to be Ok for them.
The book room also had it's own but small program, interviews with authors
and readings. Right outside that room a study organisation (Studiefrämjandet)
invited to round-table debates around different subjects, at the same time as
they tried to make PR for - ughrg! - role playing games.
Among the new titles I notice that Tora G's Tiger Publishing has dine book 4
in the series of Sture Lönnerstrand short story collections (edited by Bertil
Falk), a writer who was a pioneer sf short story writer in the 1940's and
started the club Futura in 1950, one of the first in fandom. Tora has also
herself written Hammerslag ("Hammer Blows"), an steampunk alternate history
novel about a mad inventor and the 19th century Swedish-Norwegian union. The
Finns had a couple of collections of Finnish sf translated into English - but
also to my surprise a collection of Finnish language skiffy translated into
Swedish.
(Generally, you Small Time Publishers! Make sure you send your publishing
news to the undersigned! I'm after all one of the main genre news sources with
thousands of followers to my newstweets and the writing list SKRIVA with 200
members as well as covering news in other ways. I've been in the sf news
treadmill for 40 years, dammit!)
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#Swecon2018 panel on book covers. J Määttä "Bad books should have bad covers!".
No one knew uncredited artist of Swe 70s LOTR editions, Hans Söderlund, but SFJ
met him last year. See pic & story (via G-transl):
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=//news.freelists.org/archive/skriva/02-2017%3Frev%3D1&prev=search
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The book cover panel had a lot of beautiful, old pulp cover running on the
big screen behind them. Someone claimed that yellow was a non-selling cover for
books (on Teknikmagasinet we heard the rule that green was a bad-selling
colour). Unfortunately, book covers today tend to be photos or more precisely
photoshopped photos. Personally I like painted covers better. There's something
sterile with a photoshop photo. Some bad book covers were shown and it was then
that Dr Määttä said that they were fitting for bad books. Several generations
of Swedish Tolkien covers were discussed, and nobody knew who had done the
stylish 1970's Swedish paperback covers. In fact, no Tolkien fans knew the
artist, which wasn't credited in the books.
It was then I had my day inte sun! I raised my hand and told them. In
February last year I went to an art opening at Sweden's smallest art gallery,
Örhänget (13 sqm) on 3 Höga Stigen. As we admired whatever they had to show, a
door opened opposite to the small gallery and it showed to be one Hans
Söderlund. I came to speak with him and was invited in to his small studio.
Tolkien prints hanged there on the wall and it was then he told me that it was
he who had done them. (Google Tolkien and AWE/Gebers to see his covers.)
It's called serendipity.
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Depressing #Swecon2018 panel Will We Drown (NOT!). Listen, Earth won't go down
due to environment, economy etc. Listen to Hans Rosling's (RIP Alas!) lectures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w Economy in poor countries grow, ;
health improves, no overpopulation, etc. And the major climate factor is the
Sun's magnetic field. http://www.solarsystemcentral.com/solar_effects_page.html
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I don't feel like saying much about this panel, but I can't resist. It was
the old routine: Earth is doomed! Climate! Overpopulation! Economic ruin!
Starvation! Extermination! All that is literally old news. As the famous
lecturer Professor Hans Rosling (who unfortunately recently passed away) the
world is rapidly getting better. The economy is growing fast in the so called
Third World. It's not just India and China. In sub-Sahara Africa we see yearly
growth of 5-7 percent. Despite the war in Syria, fewer people are killed in
wars. Health is improving, with shrinking child mortality and increasing
lifespan - in the poor countries most of all. Families are getting smaller in
the Third World (now averaging 2.5 children/woman) so we can write off
"overpopulation". The world's population will peak at around 10 Billion in 2050
- and then begin to shrink.
As for the environment and climate, the environment is getting better. One
thing is that the fast urbanisation releases a lot of old, unprofitable
farmland back to Mother Nature. A lot of possibly harmful substances have been
banned or it's use severly restricted (mercury, DDT, CFCs, PCB, etc) and oil
spills are down 95% due to GPS and double-hulled tankers. As for climate, it's
well known that I'm a critic of the strange idea that we on Earth can influence
the sun. CO2 may have a small effect on the margin, but it is the Sun that
decides. We've seen a slow but natural bounce-back from the Little Ice Age of
250-300 years ago, ruled by the sun. What we have seen is a steady decline in
the sunspots, which indicates a shrinking magnetic field for the sun. And the
mechanism is simple: weaker magnetic field means more cosmic particle reach
Earth's atmosphere. They work as nuclei for cloud forming and creates more
clouds, thus reflecting more sunshine back into space - it gets colder.
(Yeah, May was warmer than normal in Sweden. But have we already forgotten
that April was bitterly cold?)
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Replicon 14-16Jun in Västerås (1 h west of Sthlm) is next Swecon. Fee for 18+
SEK200-600. GoHs TBA. Alvar Appeltofft Memorial Award was won by Nahal
Ghanbari (pic). She receives a statuette with a non-EU compliant lightbulb, a
diploma and SEK3000. BTW, she says she'll try a Eurocon bid for Uppsala in
2023.
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OK, this was the business end of Fantastika/Swecon. That's why it's called a
convention (kongress in Swedish) - to decide things. We decide next years
Swecon organiser and the Alvar Award.
For Swecon there was only one candidate: the city of Västerås, west of
Stockholm (an hour or so by train). So it won. The Swecon will be called
Replicon (inspired by "replicants" from Blade Runner) and take place June
14-16, 2019. GoHs To Be Announced, but at least one foreign one (whom they are
in contact with now, but nothing is settled). They hope for 250-300 attendees
and plan a "family friendly" con, with also some sort of activities for smaller
kids. Their membership fee policy is rather interesting: everyone up to 18
free, students/out of job/etc 200 Sw Crowns (ca USD20), normal fee 400 Sw
Crowns (ca USD40), and supporting fee 600 Sw Crowns (ca 60 USD). But that's a
fee for attending, but also to give something little extra money to the con -
not a regular "supporting fee".
The Alvar Award winner Nahal Ghanbari is from Uppsala fandom. She gets 3000
Crowns (ca USB 300), a nice statuette of a lightbulb with a beanie and a
diploma,. And she says she'll be forking towards getting a Eurocon to Uppsala
in 2023. Stockholm had one in 2011.
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Panel Dillchips, peanuts & bheer panel om #Swecon2018 is rather fun. Panelists
are "outed" eating the wrong type of crisps. Beside this peanuts is also
Swedish fan tradition, comes from BNF LO Strandberg (RIP) who treated fans with
it.
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This was one of few "funny" panels on the con. There was one panelist from
each Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland and they began taking about fannish
traditions. Soon they landed in the tradition of Malmö fandom to eat dill
crisps (or "dillchips"). And now it began to be a bit fun.
They had obviously prepared what to do in advance. Suddenly the Danish
panelists was found to have a small bag of another sort of crisps inside her
dill crisps bag and was mocked for being unfaithful to the dill crisps
tradition. Another panelist mocked the dill crisps tradition and ate only
salted crisps - but was found out having a small bag om dill crisps within his
big bag of crisps...
Another hour of glory for me. Nobody in the panel knew from where the Swedish
fannish tradition comes of eating peanuts. I raised my hand and gave the
obvious answer: Lars-Olov Strandberg. Comes from him. He began treating
attendees to the SFSF meetings in his flat at 22 Folkskole street - a classic
address - already in the 1960s. When the meetings moved, the peanut traditions
moved with it. And in the 1980's the Nasacon, in a Stockholm suburb, took up
the peanuts in the form of the Great Peanut Race, inspired bý the Great Pork
Pie Race from the British Eastercons (in its turn coming from the Pork Pie Man
Brian
SUNDAY:
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Writers In Shining Armour? Swe Writers' panel on #Swecon2018 obsessed with
equality, integration etc. Methinks literature striving for the popular views
of today becomes unimaginative and mainstream. But they liked short stories. Go
for http://ahrvid.bravejournal.com ;!
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As I a came to this panel in the middle they were talking not about writing,
but about things like the importance of integration, equality and being
"inclusive". Sigh! What we have seen in reality is how those claiming to be
more including - are instead EXCLUDING. We have the case of Dave Truesdale who
was kicked out of a con for criticising SJW (which I have learnt stands for
Social Justice Warriors, ie left-wing activists), not to mention how Lionel
Shriver has been treated.
The audience were allowed to ask things the last few minutes, and I raised my
hand and a) asked what they thought about short story writing (they had talked
mostly about novels) and they said they liked it, and b) gave a small plug for
SKRIVA's short story competition. Generally I'd would have liked to hear more
about writing, and less about personal political ideals.
Josef Engel was an known old-time fan I came across now, I htink he was in
this panel's audience. He has been active since the 1960's and was one of the
many fans that Lars-Olov Strandberg dragged into our universe. He even went to
the SFSF meetings and told me a little about how it was in those days.
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#Swecon2018 Fine LO Strandberg Memorial Panel. LOS' (pic w ed from Swecon'16)
wrote letter in 1979 as sec of mighty Scandinavian SF Asso'n gettíng SFJed
leave from military service to go to Seacon/Worldcon, our "presence was
essential...". Now on Ian Watson Kaffeklatsch. IW eg tells of Tamcon, Finland,
in hard mid-Winter!
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This was a panel to remember Sverifandom's No 1 Fan Face through the ages.
Lars-Olov Strandberg of course! The panelists mentioned how kind and helpful he
always was, how he kept order in all the clubs he was associated with, the
permanent secretary who wrote the minutes and kept the archives in order, the
treasurer who'd pay the bills for a con out of his own pocket if it happened to
make a loss, and so on.
I met Lars-Olov the first time in the autumn of 1976, when I attended my
first SFSF meeting (though I probably saw him already in June that year, on
Scancon 76).
I had an anecdote the audience were cheated on, because for some reason this
panel didn't have time for comments from the crowd (except short comments
shouted as interruptions). I didn my military service in 1979, which was to end
a Friday that month. Thursday the same week the Worldcon, Seacon 79 in
Brighton, started and I had of course bought a ticket. Lars-Olov wrote me a
letter that I could show to the military, where he explained how vitally
important it was that I got a leave... I don't remember his phrasing, they kept
the letter, but i think his point was that since Scandinavia had a Worldon bid
that year (Copenhagen in 1983 - it lost but got if i remember 183 votes) it was
vital to have as many supporters there, incl me, as possible. So I was release
from the olive drab two days in advance.
Otherwise I would have climbed the fence!
We also heard how Lars-Olov kicked a guy with neo-Nazi sympathies from an
SFSF meeting. He could be angry if there was a real reason for it. (Otherwise
the most angry I ever heard him say was "But wasn't that a bit unnecessary?",
said when someone broke a chair or made a mess in other not so subtle ways).
But what I heard about the Nazi scandal wasn't that the guy was in the board of
a neo-Nazi party, but he is supposed to have invited a Nazi to hold a lecture
on a club meeting
Then I squeezed in to the kaffeklatsch with Ian Watson, a funny man who
talked almost all the time. (Well, a few short questions were allowed). He
talked about his life in Spain, how he was engaged in a local skiffy festival,
how he liked Spanish wine, and made a lot of jokes. He also talked about how he
first came to Finland, to a local con in Tampere, called Tamcon - held in the
bitter cold month of January. I was there too, and remember him in three layers
of sweaters and coats. He mentioned snow and ice and sliding cars and being
invited to some Finns and their sauna - but not taking up their suggestion of
throwing himself into a lake through a hole in the ice.
------------------------------------------------------------
#Swecon 2018 is closing RSN. Got tempted 6 raided used-books room for $10 =10
books. Talked with new Swe writer Enrique Lescure, who writes in English.
Closing ceremony on now w a Tolkien choir. Con in our guesstimate ca 325
attendees. Pic from closing with the Tolkien singers.
------------------------------------------------------------
The room for used books had a 50% off sale the last day.
So that was the day for my book raid.
I got some old paperbacks for 5 Sw crowns or 10. The most expensive book was,
I think, 20 crowns (ca USD2), ten all in all. There was one non-fic about sf,
an anthology about Mike Moorcock's old New Worlds, a couple of Ace Doubles, and
old Swedish novel from ca 1910 about some airship adventures, a novel by Jackj
Vance I mysteriously haven't read yet and so on. (Vance who I met on Scancon in
1976 where he hekld a 2.5 hour long speech to the banquet.)
While I was packing and fixing with my computer I chatted with the young new
writer Enrique Lescure, who had just published his first novel (from a small
press publishing house) and we discussed how to "create" worlds a bit. I have
an interesting novelette not published yet on which I spent quite some time
working out the physics, chemistry, biology, history etc of a colonised world.
I have previously done quite a bit of research on creating the moon colony for
my short story collection Murder on the Moon.
Somewhere here was also a discussion circle about sf cons in general, which I
missed to tweet about. The panel thought that it was a good that the con
banquets have disappeared. The food wsasn't worth the money, usually, and you
get to sit with boring people for two hours if your unlucky. Films aren't shown
any more, and the reason is probably that we now have 100 TV channels, DVD,
streaming films, Youtube, films and TV shows everywhere. You don't need to have
films on sf conventions. I wouldn't mind a film program consisting of odd,
short films, perhaps amateur films of which there are quite a lot to find -
films NOT shown by Netflix and Nutdicks or whatever it's called.
------------------------------------------------------------
#Swecon2018 chair Carolina passing the bottle w air holding The Spirit of
Swecon to concom member Birgitta from 2019 Replicon in Västerås. As always:
It's better to have as bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy. Dead dog
in nearby café. As Swecon closes weather turns bad...
------------------------------------------------------------
The closing ceremony of course had the catching of air into the Spirit of
Swecon bottle. It was then ceremoniously handed over to a representative of the
Replicon committee. (That was Birgitta Stridh, an old time fan who I think I
remember from way back. She was actually on the first Finnish con, King-Con in
1982, and published the fanzine Vertigo back then. She's even made a PDF of it
now, which I received after Swecon.) The concom and GoHs were on stage saying a
few words, and it all ended with a choir from the Stockholm Tolkien Society
singing a few songs.
They were they only ones on the con dressed up in fancy dresses, but as it
was their work outfit for the choir job, I forgive them.
The weather had been fine through the convention, but as coming from some
sort of secret signal it began to rain as it all ended.... Since I had to walk
a bit to get to the bike station I decided to way, and use my computer for a
last tween, read mail etc. Britfan Barbara Jane (who I met at Loncon 3 and she
also had an after-party I went to) came by and chatted. In the beginning there
were perhaps 50 fans for the official Dead Dog Party in the bar, but one by one
they drifted of, so when the rain stopped after a couple of hours and I was on
my way, there were perhaps only 25-30 left. (I think Dead Dog Parties should be
held in a special locality with lots of booze. Sitting in a bar is just like
during the convention itself, which I didn't. Bheer wasn't too expensive by
Stockholm standards, SEK45 - ca USD5 - as a poor freelancer I tend to get more
into this golden liquid when it's cheaper abroad.)
------------------------------------------------------------
As it began to rain after #swecon2018 I'm waiting here. Should clear RSN & I'll
leave. Ca 50 conventioneers deadogging in cafeteria (pic), but I'll save my
bheer money. About the con: good prog (but, sometimes PCish) on time,
Dieselverkstan site OK, "lagom" size. Negative: No fanroom/prog, no press/media
coverage.
------------------------------------------------------------
I left after a couple of hours waiting for the sky to clear, as saids.
Fantastika/Swecon was OK. Some panels could have been better, more focused on
their subject, and I think the audience should get more time for comments. As
usual, panelists tend to be so afraid to lose the microphone, once its their
turn, that the talk too much and too long. The moderator could be more active
or maybe there should be a clock - max 60 seconds!
But I think a fan room (it could be just a fan corner) for relaxing and
fannish things should be there, and a fan program. There should be quizzes,
silly games and other light program items so that people don't fall asleep due
to too much seriousness - especially at night time. There was a filk song
session, which I listened too for a few minutes, but it only attracted a crowd
of four (it could have been better prepared and organised differently) and we
had the Lars-Olov panel - else, there weren't much lighter, fannish program.
And no media, no press, nothing at all - as far as I could see. The Stockholm
papers had nothing about the convention. Even the Dagens Nyheter events guide
(which is easy to get into) missed it. Swecon seemed to have had no press
campaign at all. Social media is fine, but getting into printed media, radio -
even TV - has a bigger impact. I have done press campaign. Nasacon 10 got into
the MAIN TV evening news in 1990 and for Nasacon 2000 we had (if we count small
notes in events guides, small local papers and local radio shows too) about 60
mentions in media.
But that's things in the margins about a convention otherwise well planned
and performed.
Next year, I hope we'll meet in Westeros...eh, Västerås.
--Ahrvid Engholm
Ps. This is a first draft.Parts were written pretty fast, and all typos are
probably not stomped out... (A better version may come in my EAPA zine.)
--
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