John M. Harrison will be signing books on Saturday after his reading at 13:00 at the LIKE-kustannus table in the second floor.

Art from the art GoHs of both Finncon and Animecon will be displayed at Galleria Telakka 21.-29.7. The gallery is open 14-17 on Saturday and Sunday (11-16 on other days). Come see original artworks from Charles Vess, Petri Hiltunen and Ms Mandun!

The exhibition has no entrance fee.

Not only novelists create worlds - videogame developers create complete universes, that live and change 24 hours a day - in the hands of tens of thousands of players.

Creators of EVE Online introduce us to the game, continuing into a discussion on how fiction is used within EVE, how historically fiction was made fit the game systems and how we are moving towards building systems based on the fiction. How the backstory develops, evolves as the game goes on and what purpose fiction has within the game world.

Eve Online is a player-driven persistent-world massively multiplayer online game set in a science fiction space setting. Players pilot a wide array of customizable ships through a universe comprising over five thousand solar systems. Players of Eve Online are able to participate in any number of in-game professions and activities, including mining, manufacturing, trade and combat.

Speakers: Chantal Zuurmond and Gr?ar Hannesson, CCP Games, Iceland

See here for the preliminary programme and schedule of FandomFriday.

Reservations for floor accommodation now open here. There is only a limited number of 150 spaces available in floor accommodation. People signing up after the 150 places have been taken will be added to the back-up list in case of cancellations or if additional acommodation is organised.

NOTE! The floor accommondation is now full!

Finncon congratulates the 2008 GoH Charles Vess for winning the 2008 Locus Award for Best Artist.

The preliminary programme for Finncon-Animecon08 is now online.

The sign-up for the traditional Finncon evening party masquerade (Sat. evening) is now open! Send your name, name of your character, the series/book/whatever the character is from and your contact information (e-mail and possibly phone number) to leena.peippomail.mamk.fi.

You can also sign-up for the masquerade at Finncon and you can naturally dress up in a costume without taking part of the masquerade. Due to the nature of the evening party, the masquerade is for people over 18 only.

Arriving to Finncon early? Fancy meeting some of the local fen and seeing some of the sights of Tampere at the same time? If "yes," then FandonFriday is for you! Aimed especially at our international con-goers (but open to all), FandomFriday is a great way to get to know the city and the locals. More detailed itinerary will become available later on.

If you are interested in participating in the FandomFriday, please e-mail Karoliina Leikomaa (kleikomaagmail.com) and let her know.

Finncon congratulates the 2008 GoH M. John Harrison, whose novel Nova Swing has won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award.

The 9th Seminar of the Finnish Fantastic Researchers will take place in Tampere, Finland, in connection with Finncon 2008. We wish to invite papers on the general theme of utopias, and on young adult literature of the fantastic, which is one of the Finncon08 themes. "Utopias" may include dystopias and ecotopias, and the research may be based on literature, movies, TV-series and any other cultural product in the wide field of science fiction and fantasy. Various kinds of papers are welcome: essays, academic seminar papers, parts of dissertations etc. The papers may be in either Finnish or English.

See here for more information.

Information about con hotels added to Accommodation.

There will be an exhibition of the artist guests' artwork at the Gallery at Kulttuuritalo Telakka 24.-28.7. Further information about the exhibition will be announced later.