Let’s have some fun, shall we? I ran this contest once way back when I was a newbie author and I think I got less than twenty entries. But it was less than twenty entries of AWESOME, so I think it deserves another go!
A nerdscape is a still life in which you let your geek flag fly. While there may be any number of goodies featured in it, there are three base requirements to every nerdscape:
1) A book. Or books!!! They may be comic books, textbooks, whatever. If you have only an e-reader, then it must be turned on and the cover image of a book must be plainly visible. But come on. BOOKS.
2) Junk food.
3) An action figure or figures. These may be fully articulated figures, statuettes, Heroclix, miniatures from your WarMachine games…you know. We basically need sculpted, painted plastic or metal shaped like a fictional character from comics, movies, or games. Stuffed animals, while cute, do not count as action figures. They’re allowed to be in your nerdscape in addition to your action figure, though!
Again, you’re welcome to put other stuff in your nerdscape. Cell phones. Video games. Your motherboard. Your mother. It doesn’t matter, so long as there is also a book, an action figure, and some junk food in there.
I did a couple super-fast to give you an idea. I’m sure you’ll be *much* more creative. First one:
See there? Good times. My first nerdscape contains hardcover editions of Alan Dean Foster’s Taken trilogy, Cherry Darling from Planet Terror, and a box of Samoas. Since I like baseball I put in my D-backs hat too. It is a shrine to my geekery. Let’s do another!
I have a bag of Cheetos and a can of Coke for junk food; an action figure of the Ted Kord Blue Beetle; and a copy of Ganymede by Cherie Priest. I also threw in Atticus the otter and a mini-statue of Ganesha, because they are my constant companions while I write.
Neither of these are going to win me any points in photography school; I just threw these together on my kitchen table and didn’t do much in the way of extra staging and bonus goodies. Yet they both show off stuff I love to geek out about. We should all document this, right? This is the still life form of our time! I will endeavor to create a much better one and post it later.
So that’s how you enter the contest. Send me YOUR nerdscape. Have fun trying to cram everything you love into one picture—or artfully arranging the minimalist essence of your geekery. Email a jpeg of your nerdscape to kevin (at thingie) kevinhearne dot com.
What You Can Win
1) One awesome winner will see their name in book seven of the Iron Druid Chronicles! That’s right, I will name a character after you in SHATTERED if you kick all kinds of ass with your nerdscape. You must understand that the character will bear absolutely no resemblance to you apart from your name and gender and will most likely die a horrible death. But I can guarantee that Atticus will have a sad when he hears that the character with your name has snuffed it, so there’s that. This prize can be won by anyone, anywhere. All other prizes, which involve shipping heavy things through the mail, will be US only.
2) I’ll send one winner of my choice a signed set of the series so far, books 1-5.
3) There may be additional prizes from my spiffy peeps at Del Rey because they love their nerdscapes in New York. These prizes will be of a bookish nature. I do not know how many there will be or what they will be, but I am fairly certain they will be good books because that’s what Del Rey publishes. You might even get an ARC of something coming soon. When I know more about what these prizes might be, I’ll let you know exactly what they are and how winners will be chosen. Check back for updates.
4) I’m going to send somebody sausage. Why? Mostly because it amuses me to think of someone checking their email, finding a note from me, and then shouting “I WON SAUSAGE!” in their home or workplace. This will be someone chosen at random.
The primary goal here is to geek out on stuff and share the nerdery we love, so you have until Valentine’s Day to enter. I’ll post all entries in albums on both my Facebook author page and Google Plus, and after Valentine’s Day we’ll find out who won. HAVE FUN! Can’t wait to see your nerdscapes!
Biiig day. Had my panel with a distinguished group of authors. Met Faith Hunter, F. Paul Wilson, and Allison Pang for the first time, and they are all lovely people. I’m reading Faith’s first Jane Yellowrock book right now, actually, and enjoying the different voices.
First thing I saw today at the Del Rey booth was Catwoman handing out promo copies of HOUNDED while holding a lipstick-kissed cup of Starbucks. I had to sit down because it was moderately disorienting. “My life,” I said to myself, “is just a bit different now. A bit.”
Catwoman promotes my books!!! *faints*
So I’m trying to recover from the shock when oh my god here comes Dazzler! Remember Dazzler? You, uh, probably don’t. Dazzler was a Marvel character who peaked in the 80s, a mutant who could turn sound into light, and her books didn’t sell very well. Stunned to see anybody who knew that character.
Play anything turned up to 11 and she can kick your ass.
You know who’s a total BAMF? The mutant who goes BAMF! of course, Nightcrawler. Rare to find someone willing to go full blue for the costume, but this dude didn’t hold back:
Now you see him, but he can BAMF! right behind you. Careful.
As always, the bestest, most awesome bit of the day was meeting readers. And for a day full of awesome cosplay, spiffy reader Lisa visited and instantly became my favorite: she did Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica! Cigar and hexagonal dog tags and everything!
Awesome. So say we all.
So yeah. Completely awesome experience and I’m so grateful to everyone who came by to say hello. Thank you, New York! Going to fly home and start on the Star Wars book now. More news on that when I have it. :)
Where to begin? With great freakin’ Legos, man! Check out Darth Maul:
This Lego version talks just as much as the real one did in the movie.
Turns out that a couple of the members of the Fellowship were journeying through NYCC and I had to direct Gandalf’s attention to imminent danger. Anton Strout was coming!
HE! SHALL NOT! PASS!
OH, and you’ll never guess who I ran into! It was freakin’ THOR! Comic book Thor, of course, not the real one, because I keeeeeeled him. :)
Holy crap I’m short.
I got to meet some very spiffy readers yesterday with whom I’ve Tweeted and stuff for a long time. Shecky and Rob and Kiera AND her amazing pumpkin cookies—they were all delightful. Also met awesome people at the signing—shout-out to Samantha from the UK who actually squeed. :) It was very cool to meet Sally from The Qwillery, one of my favorite book blogs. Then I got some time to wander the floor with Garrett, where we coveted all the shiny things. Our covetousness drove us a bit loony, in fact. Want proof?
Too much shiny.
I didn’t take as many cosplay pics as I would have liked, but I’m so glad I got this one because DAMN it’s a spectacular job, and you’re only seeing half of it here:
Queen Amidala said her costume took her months. I am not worthy. So awesome.
The turbo geek moment for me was when I discovered Geek Chic. They make custom geek furniture like wooden gaming tables and comic book storage units that “deliver a dragon punch to the balls of the white cardboard box.” If you’ve watched Wil Wheaton’s Table Top series on Geek & Sundry, these are the people who made the table he uses in that show. In fact, here it is, so you can go all spoggly:
THAT IS SO RAD, SON!
I bought a display case for my HORDES miniatures and I’m so excited! It was cool to meet Robert and Brenda and chat with them for a bit. I think I’m going to have to add in one of the 8-Hour Chairs to my order. They’re so comfy.
My turbo fanboy moment came when I finally got to meet Nicole Peeler, whose Jane True series is one of my favorites. Great voice and an unusual heroine and she always cracks me up on Twitter. So I waited in line for her signing and then I got to take a pic with her:
Nicole is the bestest!
Also had the privilege of meeting Peter V. Brett for the first time. We’d emailed and stuff in the past but it was great to finally meet him. Looking forward to the third book in his Demon Cycle!
So after beers and whiskey late at night, my editor and I got silly and decided we should get serious with SAXON CODPIECE.
For those of you who don’t know, SAXON CODPIECE was an idea spawned at San Diego Comic Con. Me n’ all the spiffy peeps at Del Rey have had such fun goofing around with the idea of this British private eye whose name is all caps all the time that we’d really like to try putting something out there for everyone to enjoy. So, I don’t have any firm details yet and nothing is definite, but because many of you have been liking and commenting on the SAXON CODPIECE posts on Facebook, we might be able to whip something up for cheap and give everything to charity. OMG LOOKIT SOCIAL MEDIA WORKS. :) Seriously, thank you all for saying hi and stuff like that.
Off to the con now: I have a panel and a couple of signings, looking forward to it!
Finishing a novel isn’t something that happens every day; it’s even more rare that you finish it and hand it to your editor in New York less than 24 hours later. But I got to do precisely that today, and it was cool. I finished HUNTED, put it on a Darth Vader USB flash drive, flew to New York, and gave it to Tricia! That felt good. It was especially awesome though when she ripped off Darth Vader’s head to reveal the USB thingie. Somewhere, James Earl Jones cried, “Noooooo!”
I got to see both my editors today, actually. They are the brilliant people I keep thanking profusely at the end of my books. They’re so much fun to work with. Look! Here they are!
Tricia & Mike, NY’s Finest Editors
A few people have asked, so here’s the scoop: HUNTED is book six of IDC and comes out June 25 next year. That is not to be confused with TRAPPED, book five, which comes out soon—November 27. Turning in a book happens waaaay before it gets put on the shelf. I turned in TRAPPED back in March. :)
I also ran into the legendary Anton Strout, author of Alchemystic, arch nemesis of Patrick Rothfuss, and guardian of the giant new Jim Butcher cover!
I like how there’s a man in red tights kneeling on Anton’s shoulder. I also note that there is not a man in white tights on his other shoulder. He may be doomed.
Logan and Sarah are a couple o’ young up-and-coming editors at Del Rey and they TOTALLY trust me. Nobody warned them about shenanigans or anything! You can tell:
“WHAT ARE YOU UP TO, HEARNE?”
I also got to meet Tom the Intern, who was kind enough to do my Wikipedia page this summer and who flatly refused to wear the Promotional Underwear they were handing out at the Con. Those things are not related.
Promotional Underwear would be a great band name. Think of the merchandise.
So what else happened at the Con today? Well, Batdog was there, the vigilante hound! And he was giving interviews to MTV! You can’t really see it here but that dude is holding a microphone to his jaws and they were recording.
“Catwoman must be brought to JUSTICE.”
More goodies later—I’ll take some more cosplay pics over the course of the weekend and post them for you guys. If you happen to be attending the Con, here’s my schedule, hope to see you:
FRIDAY: Signing from 5-6 PM at Del Rey booth #1120
SATURDAY: Myth Mixology Panel! 12:15-1:15, room 1A08.
SATURDAY: Panel signing with all the UF authors, 1:45-2:45, autograph tables 2, 3, 4
SATURDAY: Signing from 6-7 pm at Del Rey booth #1120
I only mention this in case you were looking for reasons to go and in case giving me a fist bump there might make you smile. :) I can assure you now that I would be delighted to meet you!
Know what’s cool? NYCC isn’t sold out yet! It will be soonish…they have apparently sold out the past two years, but right now you can still get tickets.
I don’t have my schedule yet and I don’t know if I’ll be doing anything offsite. What I can be certain of is that I’ll be at the Del Rey booth for a signing or five and I’ll probably have at least one panel. I should be relatively easy to track down if you’re into tracking. I don’t run very fast, either, and I tend to like people, so your chances of chatting for a bit are really quite good. If you’re at all able to come, I hope you will; next summer I’m touring up the west coast, so this will be my only visit to NY for a while.
Aside from meeting spiffy readers, I’m looking forward to meeting some authors who are kinda based on the east coast and don’t roam me-wards very often. There were a couple of authors in San Diego I wanted to meet but never did…the scheduling gods, you know. I think I must have chapped their hide when I failed to take in my car for the 30,000 mile checkup or whatever it was, and so they punished me. I never got to see Rachel Caine or Rob Reid and now I am sad. Hopefully I can appease the scheduling gods before October and I’ll get to meet everyone.
Saturday! This was the busy day for me. So busy I didn’t get many pictures taken…eeek!
We had an Urban Fantasy panel at 10:30 and that was cool; The League of Reluctant Adults was well represented…five of the eight panelists were Leaguers! We did a little autographing after that, and then I had an interview with a blog called Comic Book Therapy. Not sure when that will be up, but when it appears I’ll let you know. I also found time to sit with Priscilla the Ultra Talented, she who makes glorious maps, and signed two dozen prints she had made of the map that will appear in TRAPPED. If you are so inclined to snag a print from her once you see it in November, I will be providing a link to do so.
The Weta booth area was ultra shiny. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the trolls that will be in The Hobbit. But have you seen Thorin Oakenshield’s map, complete with silver letters?
MOONLIGHT ON DA RUNES!
Another signing at the Random House booth at 3. Much happiness and joy there. My cousin Drew, who owns Ash Avenue Comics in Tempe, stopped by to say hello. And so did Diana Rowland! Squee! She signed my copy of EVEN WHITE TRASH ZOMBIES GET THE BLUES—and if you haven’t read her White Trash Zombie books you’re kinda missing out.
I exited and wrote a bit of HUNTED (coming in 2013!) and then headed on down for drinks by the bay with some Random House folk.
When you have drinks by the bay with Random House folk and people give you shots called Liquid Cocaine that are half Jägermeister and half Goldschläger (THANKS, GERMANY!) and yeah they give you three of them and maybe some beer chasers, the brainstorming for future writing projects can get a little loopy. Somehow we got fixated on writing mysteries featuring a private dick called Saxon Codpiece.
SAXON CODPIECE in THE BAGGAGE HANDLER
FOUL BALLS: A SPORTS MYSTERY featuring SAXON CODPIECE
And so on. I cannot explain this other than to say we thought those were bloody hilarious at the time.
Anyway, I’m back home now and after the doggies mauled me coming in the door they sat on the couch for a post-mauling nap. Have you seen my doggies? Manley is the pug and Sophie is the Boston terrier.
“When are you going to stop blogging and make us some sausage?”
I’ll be working on galleys for TRAPPED and then diving right back into HUNTED; I might sorta disappear from the blog for a while. I’m finished with traveling and it’s time to get motoring on these projects. I’ll still be easily reached via Twitter and Facebook but will probably limit myself a bit to concentrate on the book.
Thanks very much to everyone who came to SDCC and said hi! It’s so awesome to meet readers; your smiles will keep me going during crunch time! Cheers!
Can you guess how I started my day? That’s right, I went to Upstart Crow and got myself a Mexican Mocha! Nom nom nom! But this time when I went there were spiffy people to meet me there. These were people who wanted to say howdy but couldn’t make it to the con itself, so they brought some books with them, I signed ’em, and then we had a lovely time chatting together out on the patio while birds sang to us. Look! I has proof!
My readers are so cool!
I didn’t spend too much time on the floor; I have this book called HUNTED due at the end of August and I really need to write all I can, so for much of the day that’s what I did. But I was a good boy and took a few random cosplay pictures as I walked around. Behold!
He was easily startled, but he returned later in greater numbers.Joker and Harley Quinn
You know, you see a lot of the new Jokers based on Heath Ledger these days, and it may be easier to pull off in many ways than the old school ones. But Holy Wax Replica Batman, this one guy really nailed the old-school comic book Joker better than I’ve ever seen. I mean, his FACE! It’s perfect! The eyebrows! The jaw! The damned smile! Honestly this guy was kinda scary because he made the Joker real:
GAAHHH scary evil clown!
One of the coolest bits about Comic Con is that you can randomly run into legends. I happened to run into sic-fi legend Peter Hamilton at the Random House booth:
Peter Hamilton!!!!
My wonderful editors took me out to dinner at Roy’s or Ray’s or something. Honestly I didn’t pay that much attention because on the way in my eyes were traumatized by the sign for another restaurant called Tequila in that execrable Papyrus font. DAMN YOU PAPYRUS FOR RUINING TEQUILA FOR ME!
We entertained ourselves and probably annoyed our waiter by complimenting all the food using largish words in the completely wrong way. He’d come by and ask how the appetizer was and we smiled and told him it was “perspicacious and stoic.” The beer we tried was “extremely bouffant” and the main course was “flippant yet sonorous.” For dessert I had a WTF moment. I ordered this one thing because once I read the menu it was sort of like a dare. It was called an “Almond Joy?” with the question mark being entirely intentional. Apparently you’re supposed to order it and sound like a Valley Girl: “I’ll have the Almond Joy?” But check out the description:
Coconut—Various Forms, Chocolate Soil
Okay, WTF! I thought there was only one form of coconut and it’s called A COCONUT. And what in nine hells is chocolate soil? Why would a chef ever offer to soil a plate? I had to order it just to see. So it turns out I was partially right: there was only one form of coconut on the plate and it was coconut; it did not vary from coconut at all. But they were not kidding about the chocolate soil. It had the appearance and texture of soil and it fucking tasted like soil too. I paid them to serve me dirt. WELL PLAYED, SIRS.
After dinner I went to the Penguin party because they were very kind to invite me. I got to meet authors Amber Benson and Myke Cole and Kat Richardson, all fabulous people. Kat is in The League of Reluctant Adults and I’ve wanted to meet her for a good while; she has a giant smile and we talked about how awesome her covers are. (Have you read Kat’s books, by the way?) And then I was entertained by Erica, who works for Penguin and I think may have been hired because she is the world’s leading expert in giving Anton Strout shit. Now, many people give Anton shit because, like a mushroom, he thrives on it, but Erica is a virtuoso at slinging it Anton’s way. At some point Myke Cole got up and took a picture of us with his phone and his flash lit up our eyes with the fires of hell:
Diana Rowland, me, Patrick Rothfuss, Anton Strout.
If I ever run for office this picture will resurface because it looks like we are planning some seriously evil shenanigans. In truth our plans were rather tame: We planned to have another drink. Except for Anton. He planned to sit there while Erica gave him shit. Heh! Anton has a new series launching this fall, the Spellmason Chronicles, starting with ALCHEMYSTIC, so I’m looking forward to it.
Today (Saturday) I have my urban fantasy panel and I’ll do my best to take pics! More later!
There was joy. There was pain. There was Comic Con.
First—update from Preview Night: I got to meet Patrick Rothfuss again. For those of you who have followed me for a while, it is no secret that I consider him to be the finest storyteller walking the planet right now. (If you have never heard of him, I suggest you find The Name of the Wind immediately. You’re welcome.) He also happens to be an excellent human being. I met him last year and fanboyed all over the poor man. This year I managed to keep my shit together…but just barely. He has actually read the first three of my books and I gave him a copy of TRICKED. He wanted to give me something back. So I said I would trade it for a Crazy Eyes picture. Suffice to say you would not pick either of us up if we were hitchhiking:
We’re actually both really nice guys.
I started my morning at Upstart Crow, which is a spiffy little coffee shop & bookstore in Seaport Village, just on the other side of the Hyatt. I discovered this place last year. Here is what they have: THE BEST COFFEE EVAR. They have this thing called a Mexican Mocha. It’s a mocha, you know…with spices. And it’s amazing. They hand-grind their chocolate, which I never realized was something that people did. OH LOOK THEY HAVE A SPECIAL JAR FOR IT.
If you are in SD you gotta try these. Sooo good.
By the way: You can’t get Mexican Mochas at Starbucks. You can’t get them, um…anywhere else I’ve ever been. They’re amazing. BUT DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT.
Ask my editor. I bought her one and brought it to the convention center. She is something of a coffee connoisseur and so I needed validation. I said, Tricia, you need to try this Mexican Mocha. It will change your life. And she tried it. And then she promptly turned into Galadriel for a few minutes. Not the scary blue one that was terrible as the sea. I mean the shiny happy one who gives strange dwarves three hairs from her head. That’s what this drink does for people. It turned me into Brad Pitt for like four seconds. And I’m talking about the sexy young one from A River Runs Through It.
After that I hit the floor. I got a signed copy of Alchemy from David Mack. I got signed copies of a special con-only foil cover of CHEW from John Layman and Rob Guillory. (If you like comics and you’re not reading CHEW…why?) Look, I has proof:
Man I love this comic. My favorite right now bar none.
I also got to visit Cody Vrosh, an artist who did some fan art featuring Atticus and Oberon a while back. Beautiful watercolor and ink stuff. I’m going to have him do one of Atticus and Granuaile soonish. But he was turbo kind enough to give me a signed print of his first one so I could geek out:
Atticus n’ Oberon by Cody Vrosh
I failed miserably at getting anything from Mattel. The line was insane. I tried three times and couldn’t get in. The aggressive bald man with a mustache at the end of the line did not want anyone else to fork over their disposable income and told everyone to move along, nothing happening here. So I moved along, and one guy tried to SELL me his spot in line, and to that guy I say, Dude. I will not leave this earth with that on my balance sheet. I will never pay to wait in a fucking line. There is some shit I will simply have to do without.
I am so glad I didn’t have to do without meeting Shawntelle Madison, the thoroughly awesome author of COVETED and the forthcoming KEPT. If you dig PNR and specifically werewolves, you’d probably dig her books quite a bit. Here’s the two of us, appropriately standing in front of a sign regarding PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS (it’s above Shawntelle’s head):
Shawntelle is the bestest.
I also got to meet Scott Sigler and Troy Denning and famous agents and stuff like that. But at the end of the evening we were all standing around this fire outside of Fox Sports Grill wondering why the hell we weren’t roasting s’mores. It was not at all the sort of thing I would have expected when I woke up this morning.
Hmm. You’re probably disappointed in the profound lack of cosplay pictures at this point. I honestly didn’t take many today. But I’ll leave you with one: There was a pretty cool trio of DC comic characters walking around—Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn.
WOOHOO I’m at SDCC! Shortly I will go in and buy ALL THE THINGS but first I thought I’d give you a few teaser pics of what I saw on the floor before it opened up to everyone at six. I got in early thanks to my spiffy publisher and got to walk around.
I got picked up from the airport in this hot little number:
Holy Frosty Yeti Titties, Batman! This is cool!
Nah. Just kidding. But this and several other Batmobiles were outside the Hilton Bayfront hotel where I’m staying, so naturally I had to go clickety-click. Want to see another one?
Purrrr. I wanna drive it.
So you walk in to the convention floor and WHAM HULK SMASH YOU PUNY NERD FRIEND OF BANNER!
Note: Gamma radiation will get you disqualified from the Summer Games in London.
They have ridiculously cool stuff here. Like Wampa hats. I think the Wampa hats are intended for children and I doubt they will fit my giant head but it’s my duty to try one on. They also have sweet replica Jedi stuff if you wanna practice your favorite galactic religion in style:
Light sabers not included.
And yeah they have some coasters that I think are necessary in my life. I just can’t see my wife letting me put them out anywhere. She is wonderful about tolerating my nerdery but sometimes I try to take it TOO FAR and putting Westeros coasters out in our living room would probably earn me a judo chop. BUT. Aren’t these cool?!?
Honestly I just want the Greyjoy one. I want to put my iced tea on top of a big kraken that says “We do not sow.”
Anyway, you get down to the Random House booth and you see this big poster of Rob Reid’s book that just came out Tuesday called YEAR ZERO. I blurbed it, y’all. It’s funny. Uncle Kevin says, “Read it.” And then there’s a big poster for this other guy who writes a series about an ancient Druid.
YEAR ZERO made me laugh out loud. You will like it or I will wear a hat advertising the Montgomery Biscuits.
Every time I see big posters of my books (which has been, uh, three times now) I feel astounded. Thank you all so much for reading and making my publisher feel that putting up a big poster of my books might be a Good Idea. It’s mind-blowing. Posters like this also make me miss my dad; he knew I was going to be published but never got to see it actually happen.
Biggest dilemma I now face is on Friday. There’s a CHEW panel at 2:30-3:30 and an Epic Fantasy panel at 3:30-4:30. I probably cannot attend them both. I will have to choose, and it’s TEARING ME APART with ultra trembly pathos like in that song by Jewel.
I’ll be going to Upstart Crow every morning for coffee because it’s insanely good. Looking forward to meeting lots of authors and geeking out on them. I’ll update with more pic-filled posts as I go, so check back!
Since I have a wee bit of time, thought I’d update you on the tour so far!
Here’s what I have confirmed (I would say “learned” but I already knew this): My readers are awesome! Plus: Southern BBQ is tasty.
Flew into Dallas on Thursday to meet fellow Leaguer Jaye Wells and her delightful family. Over dinner we talked about writer stuff and beer. Then we went to a Real Bookstore where we ALSO talked about writer stuff and beer. We had a Flagon Contest where Jaye revealed her awesome Texas Drinking Horn and I revealed my wooden flagon carved from genuine Walnut Entwife driftwood. We decided that everybody wins when you drink beer out of epic containers. You know what’s cool about a Real Bookstore (apart from the awesome staff and, you know, books)? They serve beer there! So yeah, it’s perfect. If there is a house for sale within staggering distance I might have to consider moving there. Here’s a shot of us hard at work:
Something cool about Dallas: it’s home to two of the best book bloggers in the business, Chelsea with Vampire Book Club and Kristen with My Bookish Ways. They’re both professionals and I can tell you that authors can’t wait to work with them because A) they really know what they’re doing and B) they provide great content for their readers. I regularly read their blogs to keep up with what’s going on and find new authors myself. So it was a privilege for me to finally meet Kristen (I had met Chelsea in AZ earlier because she was visiting family a few months ago):
The brilliant person in this picture is Kristen of MyBookishWays. She's the one without facial hair.
Another cool thing about Dallas: There’s a book club there of some wild n’ crazy ladies who wanted to make sure I remembered them. Their Fearless Leader, Brandee, said something like “Brandee don’t play! I bring belleh!” She meant the belly of a very pregnant book club member. She had me sign that belly, and I though I was embarrassed at first, I was quickly amazed to discover that baby bellies are fabulous writing surfaces. Here’s proof, which includes some directions for the baby, who will be named Oliver if a boy and Clarissa if a girl:
I also signed the arms of a whole brood of kids from Kansas City. Their mother is raising them to be proper geeks and I hope they know how lucky they are. One day they will rule the world. I also got to meet author Michelle Bardsley! Squee! And to top it off, a fan gave me some hand-made dice crafted of oak, ash, and thorn! HOLY CRAP I CAN’T WAIT TO PLAY HORDES AGAIN! These are Fae dice! They will totally roll fives and sixes all the time! My buddy Alan is going down. These dice, combined with the power of my fez, will make me unbeatable!
So after snagging four hours of sleep (which meant I was operating on a total of eight hours in two days, since I’d only gotten four the night before), I flew to Cincinnati on the 8th to hang out with some folks at the Joseph-Beth Bookstore there. Hailey gave me a picture of Granuaile and that was turbo sweet of her. Then this dude had me sign his arm, which wasn’t that unusual after signing a baby belly, but OH NO, I WAS WRONG. Later that night, I got the surprise picture below—the dude had gone straight to the tattoo parlor and gotten it tattooed! It’s the kind of thing you hear about but never expect to happen to you. Really flattered.
So I guess he wins #1 Fan, right? :)
I was just a warm-up in Cincinnati for John Scalzi, who was going to be in that same store to sign REDSHIRTS that night. Though I wished I could have stayed to worship him and be a fanboy, I had to evacuate before the truckload of Coke Zero arrived, and besides, I had to do another signing at the Joseph-Beth in Lexington. It’s a really beautiful store, two stories, and this is what I saw hanging from the balcony when I got there:
Stuff like that is truly a trip for me. I was expecting maybe a flyer with Comic Sans on it, not a banner thingie with tasteful typography. Mike and Brian at JB were so kind and they’re really passionate about books there. Great group of people in Lexington! There were these two teachers from eastern Kentucky who had a different accent from everyone else and it was SO beautiful. I asked them to keep talking while I signed their books because the language sounded so lovely. I wish I could get a recording of a bedtime story read that way; wouldn’t it be more soothing and send you to sleep with hope in your heart when words can be spoken with such round softness and care? I also met a fabulous and talented reader named Ash who gave me a portrait of Atticus and Oberon, as well as many more spiffy people! Love you, Lexington!
We motored down to Nashville the next morning, looking at horses, horses, horses, and then—CASTLE! WTF!!!
Sorry about the electric wires there. This was taken very hurriedly through the window as we drove because I didn’t think anybody outside the local area would believe that someone had built a castle in the middle of horse country. My daughter has decided we now need to have our own castle in Kentucky. I’m working on it. Mine will have waffle cannons.
In Nashville I got the pleasure of hanging out with readers Helene, Ellen, and Tripp. We all met at 5th and Church at Puckett’s for BBQ. They had a tasty local brew on tap there called Lynchburg Lager and they served it in wee jars. The pulled pork and sweet potato fries were pretty awesome. Proof:
Helene had originally planned to attend the release party for TRICKED but due to a series of unfortunate events could not make it. Glad I could hang out with her to balance the scales; she and her friend Ellen are five kinds of spiffy. Tripp is a member of Fully Integrated Geeks, a bunch of (you guessed it) geeks who do a weekly podcast about comics, movies, video games, sci-fi TV shows, and the like. I’ll be a guest of theirs after the tour because who doesn’t love a good geekout?
We discovered a cool retro candy & soda shop on 2nd and Church called Rocket Fizz. They have some very unusual potions in there—among them, Bacon Soda (for Oberon!) and cans of Whoopass. Proof:
After a walk down to Broadway with Helene and Ellen, where we stopped in a few bars to listen to music—lots of places had live music in the afternoon because of the CMT Festival—we sallied forth to Nashville’s indie bookstore, Parnassus Books. They were wonderful hosts and the readers were so swell! Some folks had driven from Memphis, Knoxville, and even Alabama to see me and that made me feel all melty inside. Cool husband and wife story: this one couple reads a lot but generally they don’t read the same things and they don’t recommend books to each other because of their differing tastes. But one night, the dude is reading HOUNDED in bed and his wife walks in wearing a THIRD EYE BOOKS & HERBS T-shirt and then they realize—HEY! That store! It’s in this book! And yeah! Holy crap, we like the same series!
Well, I thought it was funny. :)
Today (Sunday) we really had to make like a bread truck and haul buns. We woke up late and then lost an hour driving from Nashville to Atlanta, so I rolled into A Cappella Books almost precisely at 2pm when I’d originally planned to have a much bigger cushion than that. The truly sad bit: because of the time crunch, I didn’t get a chance to stop and say hi to one of my favorite people, author Cherie Priest. She’s in Chattanooga now and we drove through it but couldn’t stop. So I had to just sort of hug the whole city and hope she felt the love.
I felt the love in Atlanta! A Cappella is a wee but very cool store on DeKalb and Haralson and it was crammed. A nice fella gave me a DVD of Viking sword fighting techniques and I can’t wait to check it out when I get back to AZ. Also: I signed a onesie for a future Druid named Lilah. She hasn’t quite joined the world yet, but she will soon!
After that we went down the street to Fox Bros. BBQ, which I was told was pretty dang amazing. I began to buy into the hype once I saw how popular it was. No parking spaces and a 45-minute wait at 4 pm. Whoa. It WAS good, y’all. And my education in BBQ continued with a new side I’d never seen before: A frito pie. They open a bag of Fritos, pour some brisket chili in there and top it with cheese. Daaaaaang.
Many thanks to all of you who have come to see me; you’re so kind and I enjoyed meeting you! If you’re on the road ahead, I’ll see you soon! Charlotte on Monday at Park Road Books at 7pm, Durham-Raleigh-Chapel Hill on Tuesday at Flyleaf Books at 7pm, and on Wednesday I’ll be at the Library of Congress at noon in Washington DC! Bring your own books to the LoC because they won’t be selling any copies there. ALSO: A ninja signing at the downtown Barnes and Noble at 3:30—that’s 555 12th Street NW. I’ll just be there, you know, signing whatever they have in stock, which might be two books or ten, I don’t know. If you can’t make the LoC, which is entirely understandable, you can pick up a signed copy of my stuff at the B&N until they run out. :)
May harmony find you but NOT THOR,
Kevin
Author of The Iron Druid Chronicles, Ink & Sigil, the Seven Kennings trilogy, and co‑author of the Tales of Pell
