Author Event: George R.R. Martin

The other night, July 3rd to be exact, I went to George R.R. Martin's author reading at Town Hall here in Seattle.  I've been to a few other author events in the past, but this was, by far, the most well attended event I've been to yet and serves as a testament to GRRM's soaring fame.  

When I arrived on the scene, about 30 minutes prior to the event, SOLD OUT signs were posted up around the venue and there was a line of about 60-75 hopefuls waiting to see if there would be extra space for their "didn't-think-it-would-be-this-crazy" asses. Thankfully, I had bought my ticket ahead of time and didn't fall into that camp.

I met my fantasy readin' friend and fellow blogger, Justin outside and we headed in to grab seats. The main hall, where the event was held seemed packed when we got in there, but it continued to steadily fill up as the time for GRRM to hit the stage drew near.  On multiple occasions the crowd was asked to squeeze in so more people could have seats.  By the time things began, I'd say the venue was pretty much full to capacity.

George hit the stage and kicked things off by reading not one, but two chapters from The Winds of Winter; a Victarion chapter and a Tyrion chapter.  He lead into the readings with the caveat that though the chapters were "complete" there was a good chance they could change or be heavily edited by the time the book was published, thirteen years from now.  (A really good joke if you ask me!)  Both chapters were quite good, and it was pretty flippin' amazing to hear them read by GRRM, who is a great live reader.

After the reading, he opened things up for a Q&A, and curtailed some obvious questions by stating that the book would be done when it is done, no promises, and that the HBO show is doing really well.  As I've typically experienced from these author events, the fans asked a variety of questions ranging from really dumb ones like "Can you tell us if Jon is still alive?" (Read and find out) to "Will we find out what Howland Reed knows about Ned Stark?" (Read and find out) to some that were actually interesting and yielded interesting answers that are far too long to recap here.

One woman actually had the gall (and poor taste) to ask if GRRM died before the series was finished, does he have in mind anyone who would be able to carry on for him and see the series through.  George related how his departed friend and author Roger Zelazny, who passed away at the relatively young age of 59 had more Amber books  planned, but felt such a strong attachment to the world and the characters that he didn't want anyone else to write the stories.  Martin said he felt the same way about Westeros and his characters, then paused, and said: "You are basically asking me if I think I'm going to die soon, and if that is the case, I have more serious concerns than the fucking series."  The perfect answer in my opinion.  I hope that woman felt ashamed.

Martin stayed on stage long enough to take all the questions from the people that were lined up, and also provided a few hundred signed editions of his various works, which were for sale in the lobby.

Overall, I would say that it was one of the best if not the best author events I've been to in my life.  Martin was lively, engaging and quite funny too.  He made fun of his writing pace, and made jokes about the "porn" in his books, and gave witty and thoughtful answers to the questions people had for him.  The only drawback to the whole thing was that my anticipation and excitement for The Winds of Winter went from level 2 all the way up to about a 7 or an 8...*sigh* it could be a long wait.  Still, my whining aside, it was an awesome author event with an even more awesome writer.  Thumbs up for GRRM.

Author Event: Patrick Rothfuss

Yesterday, the book every fantasy fan has been waiting for finally came out.  No, not that one, I'm talking about Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss.  Even though I only had to wait like, four days, most everyone else has waited about four years.  Even sweeter than not having to wait ages, my city, Seattle, got first crack at Pat as the very first leg of his book tour.

The event was scheduled to take place at 7 pm, but when I showed up at the bookstore around 4:30 to purchase Wise Man's Fear there were already a few superfans milling about.  Their extreme earliness gave me a bit of a chuckle and I probably called them "nerds" or something under my breath.  Knowing there was still tons of time before the event, but not enough time to bus home and do something useful, I instead sipped some tea and did some reading in the store's cafe.  Around 5:15 I poked my head into the author event area and saw that 50 or 60 folks were already staking out seats for the event!  Bear in mind that 50-60 souls is about average for most of the fantasy author events I've been to at this store, however it was still a solid two hours before the event!  At this point I decided that all Pat Rothfuss fans were much more hardcore than I'd anticipated, and also that this Rothfuss guy might actually be a big deal or something. 

However, I am a stubborn bastard at the best of times, and I refused to claim a seat and just sit there for two hours.  Plus, I was hungry.  So I went and ate pizza.  When I came back around 6pm, any hope of getting a seat had long since disappeared, and I was relegated to standing room only.  By 7pm when the event began, my guess is that anywhere between 500-750 people were in attendance.  Easily the most people I've ever seen at an event there and even more than when GRRM was there touring A Feast for Crows.  As surprised as I was by the numbers, when Pat came out his jaw nearly dropped to the floor, and a huge smile made its way to his face.  It's gotta be an awesome feeling to go to a book signing the day your new book comes out and be greeted by hundreds of cheering fans. 

The event itself was also pretty great.  Pat cracked a lot of jokes, and of all the authors I've met, he wins the award for funniest...though I will say the fantasy book reading crowd is a pretty easy audience to get a chuckle out of.  Guess we're just a carefree bunch.  Pat fielded a lot of questions, and the event definitely had a "hangin' out with Pat" feel to it despite the massive amounts of people.  He also read the prologue, from Wise Man's Fear, took some more questions, read us some of his poetry, told stories, took more questions, and signed books. 

He mentioned that he anticipates the third book will be out in 100 years, and added that it could come out sooner than that, but probably not for a couple years.  Some other subjects his discussion touched on are buying the rights to Firefly, his extreme hatred of spoilers, (he once spit on a friend for spoiling part of season five of Angel), child rearing, and the world of The Four Corners of Civilization, which may or may not be flat. 

He also discussed how the Kingkiller Chronicles went from having all three books finished, to needing years of rewrites.  Rothfuss said that when he wrote the books ten years ago, he thought they were totally awesome.  However, back than he referred to himself as a "feral writer";  not part of a writing group and had little formal training.  Now, with improved skills, and hindsight, he said that some parts are still awesome, and other parts need rewriting, in some cases lot of it.  What impressed me was his dedication to writing the best possible book, no matter how long it took him.

Sacrilegious as this may sound, I did not stick around to get my books signed.  I know, what an idiot I am right?  Well, truth be told, I did stick around for about an hour of the signing session, but I was wedged pretty good into a corner and even after an hour of signing, the crowd hadn't thinned out that much.  Faced with pending school work, an ever increasingly less frequent bus schedule that was my only way home, and a line that seemed endless, I decided to call it a night.  So, slight disappointment there at the end, but that's just the way it is.  Still, it was cool to hear Rothfuss speak, and it's nice to know that he's a pretty cool guy, and definitely deserving of his hordes of fans.

Author Event: Brandon Sanderson

Last night the Brandon Sanderson book tour made a stop here in Seattle, and Battle Hymns was there in attendance. The event started out with a few laughs as Sanderson mentioned that the reading for the night would come from the prelude of his latest novel, The Way of Kings. Sanderson mentioned that he "cheated" on the book because he has a prelude, a prologue, and the first chapter which he referred to as his "second prologue", since things don't really get fully rolling until the second chapter. This got a few laughs from the large crowd.

After reading the prologue he did a Q&A session, and there was no shortage of good questions from the fans. A quick recap: No new news on Sanderson related films. There's some promising things in the pipeline, but he wont know for sure until the end of the year. Also, even less is happening on the video game front, so don't hold your breath. While on tour and taking a "break" between books, he's been writing a Mistborn short story.

It struck me as strange that the first two questions that fans asked were about his previous work being put out in other mediums. Shouldn't you ask him about, I don't know? Writing? Well, plenty of other people did just that and Sanderson discussed how he juggled working on The Way of Kings and his Wheel of Time stuff at the same time. Basically he can only write one thing at a time, but can be editing and fixing lots of other stuff at the same time, however he only has the creative juices for one item of new material. I am always intrigued by how various authors work and create, so this bit was quite interesting to me.

The crowd was mostly adults, but there was one young boy there who was sporting a copy of one of Sanderson's Alcatraz books. About mid-way through the Q&A the kid and his father got up to leave, as it was getting late on a school night. Sanderson noticed this, stopped what he was discussing, and signed the boy's book before he left. This extremely charming, and classy moment seems to capture Sanderson quite well. I could tell that he really loves his job, and his fans, and it seemed to be a pleasure for him to get a chance to interact and talk about his work.

All in all it was another cool author-related experience for me. I haven't read any of Sanderson's novels yet, so this author event was a nice introduction for me. I sort of feel like I am a fan before I even read a page of his writing. I will say that I look forward to the time when I do read his stuff, and it will likely be more enjoyable, knowing that Brandon Sanderson is a great guy.

Author Event: Nnedi Okorafor

Last night, here in Seattle, I attended an author reading/book signing featuring Nnedi Okorafor. Okorafor and her new book, Who Fears Death popped up on my radar a short while ago when Ken from Neth Space wrote a sweet review of the book. Since then I've had my eye out for this one, and I recently came across a used copy, so I scooped it up. Then, late last week, I discovered the author event and thought it would be worth checking out.

As far as author events go, this one was quite different. Usually, these things go one of two ways: 1) The author reads a bit of his or her novel,maybe discusses the creation process of the book, fields questions from the audience, then signs books. 2) The author is interviewed by someone, often a literature critic, people from the audience ask questions, then the author signs books. However, Okorafor played things differently.

She began by reading the first chapter of Who Fears Death, then proceeded to read other sections from deeper within the novel. I'm sure this was a pleasure for those in the audience who had read the book, as Okorafor's reading covered some pivotal moments in the novel, yet for me it was somewhat torturous as I had not read the novel yet, and her reading was speckled with plot spoilers. Okorafor read for an hour, at which time it was announced the store was closing, so only a few people lined up for autographs, and it was over. No question/answer session and a handful of spoilers for those in the audience who had not had the opportunity to read the novel yet.

I'll admit, after Okorafor's reading I was somewhat frustrated, because I felt that some of the mystery of the novel had been taken away, but then it hit me that I had also been given something pretty special: Okorafor had shared parts of her novel that she felt strongly about, and read them in her voice, the way they were intended to be read, and that is a rare thing for a reader to experience. I began the book today, and I know that having heard Okorafor read the first chapter, that I had a stronger sense of the narrator's voice thanks to her reading. I'm sure this effect will carry through for the other sections I heard, and will hopefully continue to enrich the reading experience.

I was one of the few who stuck around for autographs, and I was rewarded with a cool personalization by Okorafor, so that was a nice cap to an interesting evening.

Author Event: Guy Gavriel Kay

Last night I had the pleasure of attending an interview of Guy Gavriel Kay.

After a brutal rush hour commute, bum directions from google, and a library that had switched locations, yet retained the same address, (with the minor adjustment of a N.E. to a S.E.) I arrived ten minutes late for the event.

Being a bit late wasn't too bad. I still got a great seat, as the room was not that full, and got to hear the majority of the interview.

When I arrived Kay was discussing his Tolkien related work on the The Silmarillion. He stated that one of the major roles he played in that work was, aside from editing, to shift the presentation of the material away from being presented in a textbook format towards the more novelized format that it became.

Kay also spoke about his new novel Under Heaven and the process of writing it. Kay is not an author who scripts things out or works from an outline. He said that he begins by finding a setting that he wants to write in, and then moves on to discovering a theme that is worth writing about in that given setting. Only after he has found those first two things does he start to populate that setting with characters. Kay mentioned that during the opening scene of Under Heaven he knew very little about his main character, and only learned more about him as he wrote more of the story.

Another valued tid-bit that I took away from the interview was his advice to aspiring, or practicing writers. Kay said that a good way to write is have: "interesting things happening to interesting people, written in an interesting way". Sounds really simple, but the more I thought about it, really, how many times have a read a book that had all those qualities? A good number of books came to mind, some of them written by Kay, but there were a lot more that failed to meet that standard.

My humbling moment of the night came during the signing session. I was literally the only person in the room without a copy of Under Heaven in hand for him to sign. (I rarely can afford the price of hardbacks.) Despite that lack, I wanted to say a thank you to the man for providing me with lots of entertainment through the years, so I stood in line, and when I got to the front, I froze, and all the words I had prepared in my mind ahead of time vanished. I stammered an awkward thanks, but Kay, being the classy guy that he is, thanked me for being a reader and gave me a thumbs up! Pretty cool.

Author Event: Joe Sacco

Last night at the town hall here in Seattle, I attended an author discussion/book signing with Joe Sacco. (Author of Palestine, my favorite graphic novel of '09). Sacco started the night off with a presentation of his new work, a graphic novel called Footnotes From Gaza.

During his presentation, Sacco described how some of the pages were put together, while discussing the nature of the research he needed to do to get the information which the reader sees on the page. Sacco essentially gets his information from three sources: from UN archives both here in the U.S. and in Israel, newspaper articles, and from interviews with actual witnesses who remember the event. Sacco then uses these three streams of information to parcel out what he feels best represents the truth of the actual situation he is reporting on the page. This was interesting to me, as I have always wondered how he goes about constructing his works. As for much of the artwork, Sacco uses photographs from UN archives and other sources to create the panels.

Sacco's nuts and bolts descriptions of how he goes about his work proved to be the most interesting aspect of the evening for me. His presentation was brief, but I think the experience, for those in attendance, will enhance the reading of his new book.

After the presentation, there was a question/answer portion, where audience members could ask Sacco questions. Two highlights I'll mention here were when one person asked him about the challenge of documenting history, and the present in a comic book, versus doing it on screen in a documentary. Sacco responded that in the comic medium, the adjustment from present to the past is easier because the drawing can look the same from a panel set in the present to one set in the past, and the eyes and brain of the reader can easily make that visual and mental transition, where as in a documentary film, it is often hard to make that jump, and it often requires changes in the lighting, set, clothing and so on. I liked this description, as I feel Sacco uses the art aspect of the comic medium well to tell his story, and have it flow seamlessly, something not as easily achieved if a person were to attempt the same in a documentary style film.

The second highlight from this portion of the evening came when an Egyptian Arab man came up to the microphone and expressed his frustration with U.S. policy in the Israel/Palestine region. His statements were in context to some of the other questions Sacco had been asked about U.S. activity in that region and what direction Sacco thought things were heading there as well, and the man expressed his concerns on a more intimate level as one who perhaps has felt the effects of U.S. involvement in that region. The man spoke with conviction about his point of view, and his opinion of where things were going in that region were met with a very negative reaction from the crowd. Despite my seat near the front of the auditorium, I witnessed several groups of people, (mostly white) leave the room as he spoke. I could be wrong here, but I thought it was quite silly and also sad that because an Arab man speaks his opinion, white people left the room because of fears and prejudices that surround Arab males these days. In credit to Joe Sacco, he handled the situation well, politely listening to the man, and responding with an "Let's hope not, let's hope not." As the man predicted more troubles and strife in that region.

Often when I go to author events, I am left with the feeling that the author has somehow let me down or that the person has somehow failed to live up in real life to the person I imagine them to be when I am reading his/her work. There is a good chance this is more a personal failing on my part than on the author's, but regardless, it happens. Sacco is an interesting person, and through his work I have learned, and my life has been enriched, but I must have expected more from the man. I don't want anyone to take that in the wrong way however, as Sacco still deserves much credit for his work, and I am grateful for how his work has enriched my life. As a person he deserves credit for the effort he puts into his art and for the way he documents the lives of people in the areas he visits. In this instance though, Sacco failed to inspire me as a person in the same way that he inspires me with his work. There wasn't a specific instance I can point to that made me feel this way, I think I expected to see more acknowledgment on his part of how his art can effect and inspire people to create change. In some ways I just got the feeling he was there simply to sell books. Maybe this just wasn't the proper setting for Sacco to be inspiring. All in all it was an interesting and entertaining evening.

I expect to be reading more of Sacco's work in the future, so look for a Safe Area Gorazde review sometime in the future.