Here I am in Helsinki, where I am happy to report that it is Summer. Also the Finns are their usual, fabulously hospitable selves.

The convention began with a trip to the fairly newly opened Helsinki branch of Harald, the viking-themed restaurant. All of the guests were there, making for a very large party, so we got a special room. This is not Buca di Beppo, so there is no Pope Room. Instead they have a splendid chieftan’s feasting hall with axes and reindeer skulls on the walls. Less splendidly they have some sort of role-playing scenario which our poor waitress stumbled through and most of us ignored because it did requite improvisation and the prompts were pretty dreadful. They should hire me to write better ones. It did, however, produce one effective moment, of which more later.

This year’s Guests of Honor are Peter Watts, Aliette de Bodard, J. Pekka Mäkelä (a very fine Finnish SF author) and Stefan Ekman (a Swedish academic whom many of you will know from ICFA). Goodness only knows what Stefan made of Harald’s gross cultural appropriation and theme park vikingness, but I suspect that similar crimes against his ancestors are performed back home in Sweden. Peter and his wife, author Caitlin Sweet, seemed well taken by the whole thing. I was delighted that they enjoyed the cinnamon beer and tar ice cream. One should not, of course, expect to impress French guests with one’s culinary skills, and Aliette, being very pregnant, was understandably tired. However, she and her husband appeared to have enjoyed the evening.

Also at the meal were Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg who write YA fantasy in Swedish. Their series has been very successful, and I hope to be able to tell you more about them later in the weekend.

One of the things that went wrong with the role-playing scenario is that roles were handed out at random. Had I known what was available, I could have made a much better job of things. Three of the roles were for slaves, and as chance would have it these went to Peter, Stefan and Jukka (a co-chair of the convention). They all mucked in graciously, but it was a bit silly.

The one thing that did work is that they have a ritual of inducting someone into viking manhood. This, inevitably, requires the consumption of a small amount of that famous viking delicacy, rotting shark. Obviously we could not ask Aliette to do this, so Peter got the short straw and played the part splendidly. I am seriously jealous. I have been wanting to try rotting shark for some time, and the only place I know they serve it is in Iceland. Oh well, some other time.

The rest of the food was fairly typical Harald fare, though being such a big party we had to settle for a set meal. This did include bear salami, and thankfully tar ice cream for dessert. There was also some very nice tar-smoked herring in the starter platter. The pork in the main course was a bit dry, but it was an enjoyable meal and a great way to start the convention.

I only had my phone camera with me, and that takes pretty awful pictures, but lots of other people were snapping away so I hope to be able to point you to pictures later.

I’m now safely ensconced at Jukka & Sari’s place, where I once again have the honor of using the VanderMeer Suite. Tomorrow there is the press conference, after which the guests are being taken on a lunch cruise around Helsinki. I, however, will be in Finfar, the academic conference, being mean to poor, innocent graduate students. As I’m going straight from that to the evening sauna party, don’t expect much bloggage tomorrow.