[Editor's Note: Here you will find the other Dispatches From Smaragdine columns.]

Installment 1: Finnish Fantasies, a (Small) Publishing Magnate, Parlayed Treasures

Fall in the City
International SF/F
An Interview with Tiffany Jonas, Publisher of Aio Books
Hidden and Not So Hidden Treasures
Next Time
Contact Information

© Eric Schaller A tourist's conception of the Smaragdine Lyceum

Fall in the City

In November, the brutal heat of the Smaragdine summer is usually gone for good and the city becomes giddy with the crisp month or two before the brutal winter. From the storied, overly marbled downtown with its mainly Central Asian embassies and state houses to the discos and merchant kiosks of the Palisade, Smaragdine is a friendly, more relaxed place. You can even ignore the bullet holes from the November Revolution still embedded in the side of the Murgodan legislative building (which served as the city's Lyceum until World War II).

Except, this year the summer's lasting longer than expected, and it's making people edgy. My friend here who we'll call Big Bad Bear for now (he's wanted by the police, although it's a case of mistaken identity) calls it "an effect of global warming. I hate it, anyway. The winters also lack the snows of my childhood. We're lucky to have a couple of weeks of clean snow."

This place is like its weather, created from contrasts. Parts seem like a "little Paris" while parts look like the more dilapidated slums of the Third World. Here, a thriving publishing company like Poseidon Books, with wireless access and a state-of-the-art fax machine, can exist in a brand-new modern building right around the corner from a house made from wire, mud, and a rickety tin roof, complete with chickens pecking in the dust. Big Bad Bear even told me that when he visits this city he prints out a list of "risky" buildings and is careful not to stay in them. These are buildings likely to collapse in an earthquake. Ever since the report was published, the people living in those buildings have been threatening the newspaper that printed it.

I came here to find unexpected things -- strange and beautiful, horrifying and revelatory -- and every day I am rewarded.

But it's also a long way from home, and so I thought I'd start this monthly column for SF Site to tell you about the books that find their way to my mailbox here, and to comment on any exotic and strangely beautiful subjects or artifacts that will be as much a link for you to the unfamiliar as this column is my link to the familiar I lack right now.

In each column, I will also tell you a little about this place called Smaragdine, so that over time it will seem less exotic to both of us.

International SF/F

One result of my trip to Europe this summer was a better understanding of how publishing and the book business work in each country we visited. In Finland, my trip coincided with being a guest of honor at Finncon in Helsinki and having City of Saints & Madmen published by Loki Books. I have a relatively long history in Finland, in large part because of Toni Jerrman at Tähtivaeltaja magazine. Long before I had book deals with major publishers, Toni was publishing stories, interviews, and little booklets of my work. I've often felt that a magazine with Tähtivaeltaja's part-punk, multi-media coverage approach would do exceedingly well in the United States.

I also had contact with quite a few Finns and have come to love the work of such Finnish writers as Leena Krohn and Johanna Sinisalo. In fact, a good introduction to Finnish fantasy writing is the Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy edited by Sinisalo. In addition, I keep myself up-to-date on all things related to Finnish fandom and genre fiction through Partial Recall, the blog of Tero Ykspetäjä.

As might have been expected, our experience of Finland and the Finns was a great one. We not only had a lot of fun, we also felt very much at home. The con organizer Jukka Halme is larger-than-life in the sense that he has magnetism and presence in spades, to go along with a cavalcade of bad yet inventive puns. He is one of the most interesting people I've ever met.

Jukka Halme

Toni Jerrman

Niko Aula

Finncon was housed with Animecon and the result was a bit like combining a fan and academic conference with Mardi Gras. In general, I was impressed with how knowledgeable Finnish fantasy fans were and how seriously they took books and the authors they enjoyed. I have rarely if ever been confronted by readers who knew so much about what they loved, or about my books specifically (and I am by no means a wildly popular author in Finland).

While in Finland, we conducted three interviews. These are the first in a continuing series of interviews conducted all across Europe that will air as part of this column. (In addition, check out our videos of the Mad Scientist Laugh competition and Filk Singing involving Ambergris.)

Jukka Halme not only organized Finncon 2006, but also is very active in Finnish fandom (he has most recently edited a New Weird anthology with an appropriate question mark at the end of the title). In this interview, he discusses Finnish writers, Finncon, and his New Weird anthology. Some footage from Finncon has been included at the end.

Toni Jerrman is not only the editor of Tähtivaeltaja but also a journalist and very active in Finnish fan organizations. In this interview, he gives an overview of his magazine in the context of Finnish fandom and publishing. He also provides interesting insight into unique attributes of Finnish genre fiction.

Niko Aula publishes books on the literary side of fantasy through his Loki Press. City of Saints & Madmen was released in time for Finncon this year. In this interview, he talks about publishing in Finland and shares his thoughts on fantasy. Loki's other authors include Ballard, Perec, and Calvino.

Halme, Jerrman, and Aula represent an interesting cross-section of Finns involved in fantasy and science fiction in some way. Obviously, there are many, many more people involved in the scene there, but I think these interviews provide good insight. I believe this is the first time they've been interviewed on video.

An Interview with Tiffany Jonas, Publisher of Aio Books

One of the books I received this summer in my ramshackle mailbox at the hostel here in Smaragdine was Dana Copithorne's The Steam Magnate (a novel of the Broken Glass City). It's a beautifully designed little book with an intriguing premise, and it looked right at home on the shelf next to work from local authors, such as The Myths of the Green Tablet and The Book of Smaragdine.

Set in an odd desert city, The Steam Magnate has, as Zoran Zivkovic says, "narrative inventiveness, subtle style, and rich, profound characterization." Aio Books has also published work by Zoran and by Ian R. MacLeod, in equally gorgeous editions.

Luckily enough, Tiffany Jonas, the publisher of Aio Books was in Smaragdine two months ago as part of a fact-finding cultural mission by the United Nations. I was able to steal her away long enough to have coffee at the Hermes Bakery and ask her a few questions. Here are her answers, which I've had to edit for space considerations. Some of Jonas's responses about Smaragdine will have to wait for some future column.

I think the real moment of truth occurred after walking out of a bookstore utterly empty-handed... and not for lack of trying! I think I'd looked at just about every book on the shelf in the speculative fiction section. On that particular day and in that particular bookstore, there simply wasn't anything available in my preferred genre that I wanted to read. The selection was geared toward the mass market: the sexy vampire books, the books where the prose had been relegated to the back seat (or the dumpster) in the interest of moving the plot forward at a breathless, rather brainless pace. This wasn't the first time this had happened, by far, and I was fed up.

Two things: the design of our books and the content of our books. I mention design first, not because it's more important -- it's not -- but because it's where we've received the most buzz. Honestly, it's also a part that we really, sincerely enjoy here, since we're all dedicated bibliophiles... And that brings me to the content. I reject the majority of manuscripts due to the lack of prose style on the part of the writer; I'm definitely not of the school of thought that says prose should be transparent (read: a slave to plot). I read literary fiction as well as speculative fiction, and those authors have a grasp of what can only be called a beautiful use of language. If you're going to write something, why not have it be beautiful? Of course... I'm always looking for the balance between distinctive prose and drama that makes the heart pound... or something that provokes a great deal of thought, perhaps even life-changingly. Character development is key, too; the reader must feel that the characters and story are absolutely real, that these characters live over on that planet or lived in that era.

Well, I have to say I'm not among those who stoutly believe physical books will always be around, except as antiques, Jean-Luc Picard's reading of physical tomes notwithstanding... On the other hand, I don't see this happening in my generation (for the record, I'm in my mid-thirties) and perhaps for some time after that. Certainly I wouldn't want to be around to see it happen! Books-as-artifacts are very important to me. A significant part of the pleasure of reading is holding a book in your hand, feeling its heft and texture, smelling the paper, admiring its design.

My dream room is a huge home library in an English manor somewhere, Complete with fireplace, comfortable easy chair, fine wooden desk, and row upon row of handsome, leather-bound books. (This last wars with my conviction to use only environment- and animal-friendly materials to make Aio's books; we don't use leather for that reason, but leather-bound books still somehow manage to make it into my dream scene.)