I stället för papper Number 9, September 2018 I stället för papper Number 9, September 2018 Special NoFF report issue I stället för papper started out as an experiment in electronic fanzine publishing, and this is the ninth ish. All previous ishes were published in Swedish, but since this one will be dominated by the my con report from Finncon, where I was the NoFF delegate, I thought it politic to write in a language that all the Finnish fen (fenn?) could readily understand. Next ish, if it comes, will probably go back to Swedish. While the first ishes had good response, it has slowly been falling off, to the point that the previous issue didn’t receive any comments or letters at all. Now, the fanzine culture within sf fandom has always been first and foremost about communication with other fen. I believe that’s part of why the fanzines in other subcultures—like comics—are having an easier time to survive today, because they are more focused on self-expression. Now, both communication and self-expression have always been part of every fanzine, and even within sf fandom there have been fanzines more focused on self-expression. But as a culture, we put more emphasis on the role of communication for the fanzines, while comics, art, or maybe also music focused more on self-expression. That of course made the role for fanzines more at risk with the rise of social media on the Internet, because fanzines for the most part suck as a form of social interaction. And while I have read a lot of lamentation about the lack of fanzines and the long-form reading and writing that were part of their culture, most fen today seems to have fallen out of the practice of actually reading and writing long-form fannish writing. I’m not saying there aren’t fen, or even relatively new fen, who still practice it—Johan Jönsson’s con reports are wonderful—but there are fewer of them and less long-form responses. I stället för papper also suffered from that lack of practice at reading and writing, but other factors might have contributed. It is distributed as ePub. Maybe it would have been more successful as a PDF fanzine, but at the same time I received several early comments that appreciated the ePub format, being more suited to reading on small screens and with better navigation tools. Or I just didn’t write about stuff that my subscribers were interested in with my most recent ishes. Quite probably everything above was a factor. To continue on with fannish writing in general, there is of course one type of fannish long-form writing that is alive and arguably healthier than ever, and that is the often maligned fanfic. But fanfic today has built its own ecosystem dedicated to their own needs and requirements, much like filk did earlier, and while that development has meant more and better fanfic, just like it meant more and better filk, it has also brought with it a more fragmented and walled-off fandom. The development has in the short term been excellent for fanfic, but I’m not sure it’s been to the good for fandom taken in the widest possible sense. Of course, influential parts of classic sf fandom have been and still are actively hostile to fanfic, so I can certainly understand fanficcers wanting to build their own thing, just like filkers did. Happy reading! Buses, Boats, Trains, Trams, Cars, Cables, and Aircraft ~ or ~ The Results of the 2018 NoFFicial Itineröra to Finncon and Environs Every year, the mighty fan Johan Anglemark sends out a missive to the Sverifannish masses to seek out proper candidates for NoFF: The Nordic Fan Fund. Its goal is to send out a lone Swedish fan to boldly go to another con in one of the Nordic Countries1, to seek new inspiration there, awe them with the quality of our fen, and promote the friendship and solidarity between our Nordic fandoms. Or just encourage a fan to get away from Swedish fandom for a while. In its beginning, NoFF was present in Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden, but currently it is only Finland and Sweden that sends NoFF delegates to the other countries. The NoFF delegate receives a stipend enough to cover travel to the con, con membership (if it is not comped by the receiving con), and hotel and pocket money during the con. This year, the fandidates were veteran fan Anders Pemer and myself, and after a vote within Swedish fandom (not limited to fen living in Sweden) and after a hiccup as our preliminary travel goal Norcon in Oslo was cancelled, I was chosen to be Sverifandom’s delegate to Finncon in Turku, Finland. After discussing it with my family, and in line with my earlier thoughts about NoFF, we decided to do a tour around Finndom before the con and visit her parents in Boden after Finncon, thus creating a NoFF tour, much as the TAFF and GUFF delegates do. For what it’s worth, you can read about Johan Anglemark’s TAFF tour to Worldcon 76 on <taff2018.com> Monday 9 July Our bus transfer to the ferry from Stockholm was scheduled to leave at 9:50, so we were not in a blistering hurry. We managed to pack the last things and clean the kitchen and toilets before leaving the apartment. Never underestimate the joy of coming home to a place that not smells of bad food. The bus trips (first from Bankeryd to Jönköping, and then from Jönköping to Stockholm) went smoothly, and we arrived at Värtahamnen a little ahead of schedule, and could quickly board the ferry Silja Serenade. Buses done. Sadly, the onboard Internet wasn’t reachable in our small cabin on second deck, but that gave us greater incentive to explore the ship. On the other hand, we travelled on the same ship when last we went to Finland, to Worldcon 75. We had dinner at the only budget restaurant on the ship, and then we finally managed to locate the teens suite for Hulda, where Hulda and I played a few games of shufflepuck, and Hulda played a little Playstation. 1 For NoFF purposes, Ireland is nowadays considered an emergency Nordic country. Hulda and I had planned to watch the dance show Independance, but sadly we missed the first half of it; shufflepuck can do that. I sought out the karaoke bar on top of the ferry, where I sang Wolf von Witting’s “Valar Morgulis” (ttto “O Holy Night”) to the astonishment of some of the audience; I guess partly since I can actually do the tune decently, secondly by singing an entirely different text. Sadly, the karaoke version only ran for two verses, and Wolf’s filk is three verses long, so they missed out on his awesome conclusion to the song. Fittingly enough I sang it just as we were entering the harbour in Mariehamn, where George RR Martin was the guest of honour at Archipelacon in 2015. I made sure to mention that; we sf fen should take every chance to namedrop we can among the mundanes since we so seldom can do it. This time the karaoke seemed to focus more on disco and pop tunes, so I decided on my own “Alien” (ttto “Främling”) as my next song but screw up and give the code for “En kungens man” in Björn Afzelius’s version, which (a) is not a poppy tune, (b) I have not yet managed to get a grip on the tempo of his version of the song despite him being the one who wrote it originally; I much prefer Monica Törnells version. I still manage to muddle through. And I did some fanac, even if I was a lone fan in a sea of mundanes. The ferries between Finland and Sweden are a strange experience, and were even the focus of a panel at Worldcon 75. In a way, the entire experience is liminal: we are travelling between countries and time zones (so no-one knows if the clock is eight or nine yet), communication is heard in at least three languages constantly, there are two currencies in effect, everyone is either going somewhere else or just trying to escape Mundania before getting back, the booze flows, and there is a barrage of cheap luxury and usually warmed- over entertainment. And that is on the Silja ferries, which are considered the more upscale alternative to the more party-oriented Viking ferries. Unlike Johan Anglemark, who took the ferry mainly for climate reasons, we used it because it because it was cheaper for three people (compared to a flight and a hotel night) and we had a direct bus connection to the ferry terminal. In truth, we were a little unsure if the ferry really is better from a climate standpoint than a modern aircraft, but didn’t find any good treatises on the subject on a cursory web search. Tuesday 10 July After a hearty breakfast, including a karjalanpiirakka with munavoi for me, and some splendid views of the Helsinki archipelago we got off the ferry. Buses and boats done. Not content with one ferry we took the next ferry out to Suomenlinna. The cobblestones were not kind to Therese’s bad knee, but at least we didn’t go there after Worldcon 75 when she was dependant on crutches. We walked around the first half of the main route, and while Therese visited the Customs museum, Hulda and I visited the Second World War era submarine Vesikko.