Archipelacon 2

As some of you may remember, the first Archipelacon was a Eurocon hosted by Finland with George RR Martin as the top billed Guest of Honour. It was by far the biggest thing that happened in Åland outside of a Tall Ships race. The repeat event wasn’t going to match up to that, despite having Jeff & Ann VanderMeer on board, but it was equally brilliantly run.

This being a Finnish con, I was kept very busy. I started out doing the On Writing panel that is traditional at Finncon. That provided an additional challenge because a family emergency meant that Mats Strandberg was unable to join us in person. While the con did re-arrange his solo panels to allow him to attend in person, they didn’t have enough time to organize hybrid panels so I had to work around the issue. Thankfully Mats was keen to make something work, so I was able to chair the panel armed with a bunch of responses from Mats to set questions. Jeff and Emmi Itäranta were their usual fabulous selves, so it all went very well. My thanks to the people who posted kind comments about my chairing on social media.

Before I get back to the con, a few words on the state of translation in SF&F. Emmi has a new book out that is a feminist take on the Kalevala (though sadly not starting the Golden Maiden, the android made by the smith, Ilmarinen, as he’s been unable to persuade a human woman to marry him. Emmi normally translates her own work into English, but she has no plans to do that for this book as yet as she doesn’t think she will be able to sell it. I also made time to chat to Maria Turtschaninoff because I very much want to read her Underfors, an urban fantasy set in Helsinki. The book was published in Swedish (Maria’s native language) in 2010, but there’s still no sign of an English edition.

The point here is that mainstream publishers are cutting costs wherever they can. Translation costs run into many thousands of pounds, so not doing translations is an obvious money saver. Also the big companies are holding out for using LLMs for translation so they don’t have to pay anything at all. Currently these software systems are nowhere near good enough to produce a decent translation of a novel, but the management at the publishers don’t want to hear that.

Personally I would love to publish both of those books, but there is no way anything that I publish could recoup the thousands of pounds I would need to pay a professional translator. So we are stuck. Big publishers don’t want to pay for translations. Smaller ones cannot afford them. So fewer books get translated. It is hard to see what we can do about this.

There was a small panel later in the con discussing what European fandom can do to encourage translations. I was invited to join it. The only viable option appeared to be EU grants. Of course, as a non-EU company, Wizard’s Tower cannot apply for them.

Back at the con, I did two presentations. One was an academic paper about lake ladies. Not just the famous one who gives Arthur a sword in Malory, but the many others that you find in Welsh folklore, and adaptions thereof. The other was an updated version of my queer animals talk that started life as a keynote for an academic conference in Graz. Both of them were packed out and had to turn people away. I’m told that there were queues outside the rooms. It would have been nice to have more space, but the auditoriums were largely reserved for GoH events and the only other option would have been to put me over the road in the hotel, which would have greatly reduced the audience because people are easily put off by minor hurdles. (The translation panel was in the hotel and had an audience of four.)

Anyway, if anyone wants me to do those talks at another con, I would be happy to do so.

The one traditional panel that I had was about the use of Scandinavian mythology in popular culture. Naturally there was a lot (and a Loki) to talk about. I brought along Fenris Puppy, the cute plushie world-eating wolf that I had bought in Copenhagen. He was a very good dog, and did not eat any of the panel, or the audience.

Ada Palmer was also on the panel. She entered into the spirit of things by bringing a plushie salmon. (Loki transformed himself into a salmon to escape after the death of Baldr). She also had some really interesting things to say about current academic research on Norse myths. I am very much looking forward to her new novel, Hearthfire.

My final panel was supposed to be an interview with Ann VanderMeer about publishing, but Ann was unwell on the final day of the con so that one did not happen. Ann and Jeff both looked very tired. Obviously there was jet lag, but I suspect that the stress of living under a nascent Fascist regime is starting to get to many of my American friends.

With all that program to do, I didn’t manage to get to any other aspects of the con. I was even excused the masquerade because Kevin Roche was on hand to take control of that. I was very happy to step aside for an experienced professional.

In summary, Åland is still lovely, and I was very happy to be able to share it with more fans from around Europe. There will be an Åcon next year. Emily Tesh will be the Guest of Honour. I very much hope to be there.