Åcon V – The Empire Stikes Båck?

So, Åcon V will take place in 2012 due to the rebuilding of Death Star. There will be a room party at EurÅcon 2011 in Stockholm.

For more information about the construction of the Death Star or about Åcon V, check out their website at http://aconfive.wordpress.com/.

Thank you for a great Åcon 4, it was great! See you in Stockholm next year and in Åcon in 2012!

– Karo and the committee

Fantastic Friday – recommended books

Diana Wynne Jones: Tough guide to fantasyland
Dark Lord of Derkholm / Year of the griffin
Bob Croshaw: Mogworld
Maria Turtchaninoff: Arra
Catherynne M Valentine: Palimpsest
China Mieville: The City and the City
Terry Pratchett: Nation / Money
Arne Dahl: Mysterioso
Steven Brust: Vlad Taltos books / Phoenix Guard
Seth Grahame-Smith: Pride and prejudice and zombies / Sense and sensibility and seamonsters
Markku Soikkeli: Kuninkaantekijät
Ursula Le Guine: Pimeä lipas / The Winds Four Quarters
Lois McMaster Bujold: The Sharing Knife series
Martha Wells: The Wheel of the Infinite / The Element of fire
James H. Schmitz: Witches of Karres
Gwyneth Jones: Bold as love trilogy / Rainbow Bridge
Mervy Peake: Gormenghast
James Branch Cabell
Sture Lönnestrand short stories
Daina Chaviano: Fairy Tales for Adults

Science fiction Saturday – recommended books

These books were recommeded on Science fiction Saturday:

Robert Charles Wilson: Spin
David Louis Edelman: Infoquake
Joel Shepard: Crossover (Cassandra Kress novels)
Adam Roberts: Yellow Blue Tibia / New Model Army
Daina Chaviano: Tales from an Extraterrestial Grandmother
Angélica Gorodischer: Kalpa Imperial
Ian M. Banks: Player of Games
Geoff Ryman: Air
David Webber: Crown of Slaves
William Gibson: Neuromancer
Robert Silverberg: Dying inside
Philip K. Dick: Radio Free Albemuth
Jack Vance: Planet of Adventures –series / City of the Chash
Haruko Murakami: Kafka on the shore
Ken Macleod: Star Fraction
Alastair Reynolds: House of Suns / Terminal World
Ken Schroeder: Sun of suns
Peter Watts: Blindside
Vernor Vinge: Fire upon the deep
Paolo Bacigalupi: The Windup Girl
Ursula K. LeGuin: All the short stories / The Word for the world is forest
John Ringo & Tom Krautman: Watch am Rhein
Erik Flint: 1632
Charles Stross: Halting state
Cory Doctorow: Makers
Niven, Pournelle & Flynn: Falling Angels
Poul Anderzon: Tau Zero
Heinlein: Citizen of the Galaxy
Connie Wilis: The Doomsday Book
Suzanne Collins: The Hunger game
Hannu Rajaniemi: Quantum Thief

Fantastic Friday – recommended books

These books were recommended on Fantastic Friday:

Diana Wynne Jones: Tough guide to fantasyland

Dark Lord of Derkholm / Year of the griffin

Bob Croshaw: Mogworld

Maria Turtchaninoff: Arra

Catherynne M Valentine: Palimpsest

China Mieville: The City and the City

Terry Pratchett: Nation / Money

Arne Dahl: Mysterioso

Steven Brust: Vlad Taltos books / Phoenix Guard

Seth Grahame-Smith: Pride and prejudice and zombies / Sense and sensibility and seamonsters

Markku Soikkeli: Kuninkaantekijät

Ursula Le Guine: Pimeä lipas / The Winds Four Quarters

Lois McMaster Bujold: The Sharing Knife series

Martha Wells: The Wheel of the Infinite / The Element of fire

James H. Schmitz: Witches of Karres

Gwyneth Jones: Bold as love trilogy  / Rainbow Bridge

Mervy Peake: Gormenghast

James Branch Cabell

Sture Lönnestrand short stories

Daina Chaviano: Fairy Tales for Adult

Dinner on Saturday

Sorry for the late information but there is a dinner planned for Saturday at Åcon 4. The dinner will be at Restaurant Cikada (like last year) on Saturday evening (for more information about the restaurant, check their website).

There are two options for both starters and desserts and three options for the main courses. There is the possibility for a two-course meal (starter or dessert with the main course) or a three-course meal. The two-course meal costs 23,20 euros and the three-course meal costs 29,10 euros.

Starters
– Smoked lamb tartare
– Mushroom soup

Main courses
– Smoked lamb with black currant sauce
– Wine braised salmon with herb sauce
– Cikada green pepper steak

Desserts
– Chocolate cake with raspberries
– Buckthorn parfait with custard and cloudberries

Wed May 12th: The orders have now been forwarded to the restaurant.

Travel from Stockholm

The prices for traveling from Stockholm have now been confirmed and I’ve added them on the “Travel info” page today. The prices are as follows (please notice the prices are for return tickets, apart form breakfast and
lunch):

* Deck place 140 SEK/person
* C/E class cabin (max four people), 700 SEK/cabin
* Car 352 SEK
* Breakfast 95 SEK/person (available only on Thursday)
* Lunch 220 SEK/person

The trips have to be paid before the end of March to the Anglemark account or straight to Taimi Tietäväinen.

For those interested in traveling from Stockholm with the group, please contact Jonas Wissting for signing up at wissting@gmail.com. If you are taking a car with you, the licence plate number is required!

Please sign up even if you are sharing a cabin and someone else is paying for it! Åcon is getting one cabin for luggage so even if you have a deck place, you can leave your luggage in the cabin.

For more information, check out the Travel Info page.

Program? Is that something to eat?

Unfortunately it’s not something to eat. It’s something which in Åcon’s case is usually published a couple of weeks before the con, at least that’s what happened last year.

This time we thought we’d surprise you guys. The program is now public! Yes, it’s true! Check out the Program-page for more info! The published program is still a draft but most of the items have been confirmed already. Please expect there to be changes anyway. Lots of people who would be great for certain program items haven’t signed up for the con yet and if they don’t we might have to change our plans.

You might notice there is a movie planned for Thursday. This is something new and it’s not yet confirmed if we can do it. We hope we can! We have our great GoH to thank for the suggestion about watching a film and then discussing about it and we thought we’d give it a try. We’ll see how that goes.

If you want to participate in the program or have great ideas for program, please contact us by sending us email to acon@sci.fi or leave a comment on the Program-page.

Traveling from Turku

Long time no see! Did you think we had forgotten all about Åcon? Well, we hadn’t. We’ve been busy getting things together, sorting the program and things like that. And now you can see some of the results!

The prices for traveling from Turku to Mariehamn have been confirmed and there is a sign up form on the “Travel info” page. I know, it’s yet another form, but that’s the easiest way to get things sorted out. So please, take a couple of minutes of your time and fill in the info. Notice, the deadline for the form and the payments (both!!) are in the end of March! There’s almost two months time but the sooner you fill the form, the sooner it’s done!

I’m sad to say the prices for traveling from Stockholm have not yet been confirmed. We’re working on it and trying to get things done as soon as possible. If you are interested in traveling from Stockholm, I suggest you get in thouch with us b sending us an email to acon@sci.fi so we can let you know the minute we get a confirmation on the prices!

So, what else are we doing? The program has been outlined and now we’re trying to get everything confirmed. If you’ve got any ideas for program, please contact us and let us know!

And if you haven’t signed up for the con, remember to do that as soon as possible!

The members list is online

I just updated the list of members who have signed up through the sign up form. It can be found from the membership page, the link is in the bottom. If you are not sure if you have signed up or not or if you have signed up but are not sure if you have paid or not, you can check it from the site. Only the names of the people who have signed up and agreed to have their names published will be mentioned on this site.

The members count isn’t very high yet, but I still wouldn’t wait much longer to sign up! The date is set, you know it already, what else can there be than Åcon? Right, nothing!

The Hotel info updated

As you can see, we’ve been active once again. Now the hotel prices can be found from the “Hotel info” page and you can go and reserve your hotel room already, if you want to! There is also a cheaper alternative for those traveling on a budget! Even the budget alternative includes the breakfast at Hotel Adlon but the rooms are more hostel-like.