Super Duper SoCal BWB

[PAH Muad'Dib]

Sounds like it was a fun day for you guys. I have been soooooo busy last week i barely had time to breath. Wish i were there to see you all and to hang out. :cry:

[Sword of the Morning]

Heh. :)

I'm not a member of Brotherhood without Banners but I was at the signing. I was watching at the side next to the seats and I saw the guy who asked the question. STRANGE STRANGE guy. He was a loner all by himself with just one book to sign. He was up front and must have come when the store opened to get a number that low. I showed up at 12:15 or so and got #95.

Anyway, he WAS antagonistic and I could sense it and I bet George felt it too. He asked for the "overarching" conflict because he felt that more than halfway through the series, he didn't really know who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. He tried to interrupt George when he was answering and GRRM just spoke over him.

The bottom line is that this series is complex and part of the point is that we DON'T know who is the bad guy and who is the good guy. We have ZERO knowledge of the Others' motivations and background. We know next to nothing about the true nature of Rhllor short of what Melisandre tells us. And yes many of the characters have much gray in them.

To me that all makes Song of Ice and Fire great and unique.

As for his so-called "preening" well why the fuck shouldn't he preen? The man just made #1 on the fucking New York Times Bestseller list as a fantasy author. How many people short of Robert Jordan has done that? Considering his humble past, that is a HUGE achievement. I for one was overjoyed for him and happily joined in the applause.

The guy gives me the impression that he's some sort of obsessed fan whose just bitter because the newest book doesn't fit his expectations of what he wants to happen and he's not happy with it. As with most obsessed people he then suffers a backlash against GRRM and everything Martin does is seen negatively. Kinda reminds me of the crazed fan from Misery actually.

As for the LENDING BOOKS comment, well of course GRRM said that, it was a JOKE for crying out loud and anyone with the sense of humor of a wood table would have caught that. By the way, about 180 people did as evidenced by the loud laughter that followed that little comment.

Basically, this guy was just an envious spoilsport and Grinch and I have NO idea why the hell he even bothered to show up at an event like this. Maybe just to sell his signed copy on Ebay?

I personally had a great time and my only regret is I didn't read this thread earlier so I could meet more of you in person and join in the dinner afterwards.

Oh well . . . I'll see you all at the Dance with Dragons signing NEXT YEAR RIGHT???!! :)

Dennis

[IseultoftheWhiteHands]

Yeah. What Dennis said. I remember that guy. Poser. He asked an "intellectual" question about writing technique- and why was that? To prove he could use the word "overarching" in a sentence?

Ran- What happened with your questions was this: YW had his hand raised (or, more accurately) his book cover raised and George called on him. First of all, George recognized YW from the convention. So then YW (jokingly) said that he had a "list of about 12 questions from Elio" and George laughed. "Ah, Elio!" he said. And then he briefly explained who you are and said that you knew more about Westeros than he did himself and that he occasionally referred to The Citadel himself to check his facts. Everyone laughed and then YW asked the question about Robert.

The thing about lending books? That was obviously a joke. George was talking about how some authors have bestsellers because of advertising or because they were already famous for something else. He praised his fans for making him successful through word of mouth, talked about how people were purchasing several copies so they could give them to friends and family. And somewhere in all that he jokingly said "Or, God forbid, *loan* them out!" And everyone laughed, because after all, we were standing around in a book store, not a library!

I don't understand where he got the thing about eye contact, but I will say that George looked really, really tired. And justifiably so. In fact, he didn't join us for dinner, but went to his hotel to rest. (We had fun anyway... Even at The Table Beyond the Wall.)

[aeu]

Especially at the Table beyond the Wall.

[Prince Lodey]

Pics? Expect the whole baby! I'm sure we'll have her drinking three beers at a time with Lodengarl and getting knighted in no time.

Yes, ours is the old way, Telisiane.

[Padraig]

At the San Diego signing, I asked GRRM at the Q&A, "Besides Dany's dragons, have all the Targaryen dragons been descendants of Aegon the Conqueror’s three?" GRRM answered "yes".

Ohhh...thanks.

[Teri]

I don't understand where he got the thing about eye contact, but I will say that George looked really, really tired. And justifiably so.

The Bay Area BwB can probably shoulder some of the blame for that. He must not have got much sleep Friday night.

[Moonblood]

Third on the 'crazy fan' post. When he asked his question he prefaced it with all sorts of statements so it ended up being a lecture rather than a question - clearly an obnoxious thing to do at a big Q&A event. And yeah, he kept trying to interrupt George as he answered. He clearly thought he was brilliant and wanted to share that with all of us.

Which board did he post that on? Might be time for some flaming - I have a pile of work on my desk this morning and can't just have my coworker killed like Tyrion did... gotta get the anger out somehow

:mad:

[Ran]

Wow, to add insult to injury...

I hope I don't get lambasted for saying this, but seeing Martin in the flesh my first reaction was not to like him. He's overwieght, and with his beard and hat you might be tempted to call him jolly, especially with Christmas approaching. But he's got these beedy black eyes that don't evoke affection. From his mannerisms and speech he seems aloof, obsessive and arrogant.

WTF?

If anyone who was there wants to give their take on the signing and their own impressions, the thread is 'GRRM Signing Today' on rec.arts.sf.written in Usenet. You can read his second post (from which the above is from) here. For some reason the first was not in there.

You can, BTW, reply via Google Groups if you have an account with them (I think a gmail account will do).

[Padraig]

Boring troll. I always love variants of "I hope I don't get lambasted for saying this".

[kli]

Boring troll. I always love variants of "I hope I don't get lambasted for saying this".

Ditto. This is the reason I mostly abandoned USENET for messageboards a decade ago. The number of idiots attempting to pass off contempt as sophistication was just getting ludicrous.

Not much to add to the San Diego signing information, except that yes, GRRM is very tired. I got him to laugh by asking if I could scold the BwB on this board for keeping him up late (as he cited the partying until 2am as one of the contributing factors to his fatigue), but as I kept him up 'til midnight talking about the new Battlestar Galactica vs. the old, and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger when he had a 6am wakeup time for an 8am flight to Seattle, that would probably be hypocritical. Mostly, dinner conversation was centered about the antics of the BwB during various Worldcons past, as he attempted to convince me I really really really needed to go to LACon.

I think one of the other reasons contributing to the fatigue is that he's used to smaller crowds showing up for his signings. My impression is that it's only now starting to dawn upon him that he's a superstar, and he's rather surprised and amused by total strangers in Italy giving him gifts (and bottles of wine) and asking to get a picture taken with him. It doesn't seem to have changed him any, though.

BTW, how I got invited to dinner essentially goes back to Wild Card days, when I gave him a folded Montroll turtle at Comic-Con, and then showing up at every SoIaF signing at the same store, and handing him an origami three-headed dragon and the like, culminating in one year giving him a boxful of origami house-sigil-animals and an origami chess set. This year, I bought my way in with this. Instructions here.

He did confirm that, yes, those shields were indeed superhero comics references. And that one of the things he regrets losing from the POV split is that he was doing point and counterpoint with the Dany and Cersei scenes--showing how each was ruling in their turn. He also seemed happy that someone out there recognized Bakkalon.

And yes, Ran, you can post any useful bits in SSM.

[Ran]

Ah, I stumbled across your Flickr page via Feedster (or maybe Technorati) a bit ago. Didn't realize it was yours, though I should have remembered the turtle.

Excellent stuff.

*goes and updates the References and Homages section*

[Padraig]

I bet he wouldn't do such a big tour again.

[IseultoftheWhiteHands]

So over at the Table Beyond the Wall we were discussing going to see Goblet of Fire this week. I had an idea about that... If anyone would like to join me for Thanksgiving we could go that day (after Turkey). It occurs to me that we have several people here who are far from home and I am dodging the InLaws that day and cooking at home.

[snorb]

One thing he mentioned at the signing that I haven't seen anywhere else was that he might advance some of the storylines from AFFC in ADWD. It depends on how long the manuscript is when he's done with the main POV characters in ADWD. So we might not have to wait until the book after ADWD to get some of the cliffhangers resolved.

[Overlord]

One thing he mentioned at the signing that I haven't seen anywhere else was that he might advance some of the storylines from AFFC in ADWD. It depends on how long the manuscript is when he's done with the main POV characters in ADWD. So we might not have to wait until the book after ADWD to get some of the cliffhangers resolved.

I was at the event, and for me that was the big stunner. I was fully expecting to not hear anything about any of the characters from FfC until book six, so now I'm wondering which characters might wander east or north and appear in DwD.

GRRM was a really nice guy, and one of the more entertaining speakers I can recall. I don't know what that other poster was talking about. I can recall Mr. "overarching" from the signing, and he was an obvious schmuck (you could tell from the first words out of his mouth).

I thought it was really neat how GRRM managed to pull such a large, disparate crowd. I'd definitely get there earlier and stay later for the next one.

[aghrivaine]

Hey, I'm having a party Saturday night.

I emailed everyone I have an address for you - those of you that I don't... email me!

davy dot krieger at gmail dot com

Meera, drop me a line, I want to see some of those Tolkien sites you were talking about...

[Bronn Stone]

This seems like the perfect thread for one last bit of SSM-ish stuff.

Bronn: One last question before I leave. What are the rod, mask and chain for Archmaester Agrivane

GRRM: Oh God, did I make Agrivane an Archmaester???

Not real informative, but I had to ask.

[Padraig]

I was fully expecting to not hear anything about any of the characters from FfC until book six, so now I'm wondering which characters might wander east or north and appear in DwD.

I think GRRM means that he might cover KL or the south in aDwD. He was rather careful with what he laid out originally. That the South would feature in aFfC and the North and East in aDwD. But he made clear that aDwD was still a work in progress and the scope might grow. It looks like he has resolved some issues in his mind in the months since he made that announcement.

I was thinking we'd hear news from KL about Cersei and Jaime, which would resolve some of the cliffhangers. But we might go a major step beyond that.

Edited to at Bronn

[Overlord]

I think GRRM means that he might cover KL or the south in aDwD. He was rather careful with what he laid out originally. That the South would feature in aFfC and the North and East in aDwD. But he made clear that aDwD was still a work in progress and the scope might grow. It looks like he has resolved some issues in his mind in the months since he made that announcement.

I was thinking we'd hear news from KL about Cersei and Jaime, which would resolve some of the cliffhangers. But we might go a major step beyond that.

I could have sworn he said something to the effect of overlapping story-lines, or something like that. My memory is failing me.

I had no idea GRRM was so involved with the fan community (dinners, communications with on-line folk, etc.). Glad to see that he's achieved so much success after toiling in hollywood.