Tom Ölander, often called Finland's Mr. Science Fiction, passed suddenly away on Monday August 26th. Tom had undergone a major heart surgery in April. He seemed to have recovered fully from the operation, so his sudden death came as a shock to everybody.

Tom was one of the "founding fathers" of Finnish fandom. He had extensive science fiction contacts around the world even before Finnish fandom really got started (the first Finnish SF club was founded in 1976). In the early days of Finnish fandom he contributed to local fanzines with SF-news and reviews of foreign fanzines. Tom had probably the largest fanzine collection in Finland, around 10,000 'zines. He donated his collection to the Turku Science Fiction Society a few years ago.

Building bridges between Finnish and foreign fandoms was close to his heart. He visited SF conventions around Europe and encouraged other Finns to do the same by arranging travels to cons (for example to the Eurocon in Hungary in 1988).

Tom was also influential in getting the Finnish SF-con tradition running. Although the first Finnish SF-con was held in 1969, it wasn't really until Tom's activities with KingCon in 1982 and especially the first Finncon in that conventions became a regular part of Finnish fandom. KingCon was a joint Finnish-Swedish effort with Swedish fans coming over to Finland by ferry. The con started on the ferry and continued in Helsinki, Tom was the main person behind the arrangements in Finland. In 1986 Tom was the chairperson of the first Finncon, an event that over the years has grown to become one of the largest science fiction happenings in Europe with several thousand visitors.

In 1985 Tom was Guest of Honor at TamCon in Tampere, Finland and a couple of years later at Finncon 1989. At Conspiracy, the 1987 Worldcon in Brighton, UK, Tom Ölander was awarded the World SF Special President’s award. World SF awarded him a second time in 1988 when he received the World SF President's Award for Independence of Thought in the Field of Science Fiction.

In the 1990's Tom withdrew from active fandom, but he stayed behind the scenes and was always ready to help.

In recent years Tom's activities within the fandom soared again. He was a speaker at Finncon 2001 and was already planning a panel discussion about international fandom for next years Finncon.

Tom Ölander's influence on Finnish fandom is probably larger than most fans realize as he worked silently, behind the scenes. Once for example he helped a struggling Finnish SF club by anonymously duplicating an issue of the club's fanzine at his own cost.

Tom Ölander will be sorely missed, but his legacy in the form of an active Finnish fandom will live on.

---Ben Roimola

Posted September 4, 2002