Several awards were given out last weekend at Finncon, the Finnish national sf convention.
The Atorox Award is the award for best Finnish sf short story published in the previous year. This year the award went to a short story Mare Nostrum, written by Jussi Katajala and published in the Osuuskumma eco-scifi anthology Huomenna tuulet voimistuvat (“The Winds Get Stronger Tomorrow”).
The Tähtifantasia Award is given by the Helsinki Science Fiction Society to the best translated fantasy book published in Finnish the previous year. This year’s winner is Kanelipuodit ja muita kertomuksia (Basam Books) which collects all the short stories of Bruno Schulz.
The counterpart of Tähtifantasia is The Tähtivaeltaja Award for the best sf book published in Finnish the previous year. The winner was announced already a couple of months ago; the award went to the novel Sokeanäkö (Blindsight) by Peter Watts (Gummerus).
More from Finncon: The Nova short story competition for writers who haven’t published a book was this year won by Tuukka Tenhunen for his short story Ugrilainen tapaus (“The Ugric Incident”). The first price of the competition was 200 €.
And to conclude the awards at Finncon, the Kosmoskynä recognition award for achievement in advancing Finnish science fiction was given to Pasi Karppanen for his work for the Finnish Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Finland.
