Book Collecting: Update #11

So like my Readercon post, this one too is beyond late. Sorry about that, folks!

Two weeks ago, the weekend after Readercon, I went to Tor’s Big Summer’s Road Trip on July 17!

You know you’re a fan of the authors when, for a 7:00 p.m. signing on a Friday night, you drive over 100 miles and, with traffic, about 2 hours 20 minutes to go to the signing… each way!!!

But it was totally worth it! 😀

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• The Providence of Fire (Chronicles of the Unhewn Thrown #2) by Brian Staveley

When the authors were first walking in, they were all doing a brief little wave and hello to all the fans as they got to the front table. When Brain saw me though, he said, “Hey, weren’t you at the signing last year after Readercon?” Which is actually 100% true! Totally shocked he remember me from over a year ago.

I case you missed it before, absolutely loved The Emperor’s Blades (my review), and as soon as I finished it, I wanted to get my hands on the sequel! Since the final book is still so far away (March!) 😦 I now have to do my best to try to put off reading this one until later in the fall… even though I may have already read the prologue when I got home later than night.

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• Last First Snow (Craft Sequence #2) by Max Gladstone

Picked up a copy of Last First Snow!

Max was at the signing last year with Brain, and I grabbed a copy of Full Fathom Five then. I still haven’t read it or any books in the craft sequence, but I did read his short story, Late Nights and the Cape and Cave, in Uncanny Magazine #1, have slowly been working through his game, Choice of the Deathless, and read his blog posts every once in a while

He was at Readercon the weekend before this, but I missed sitting on any of his panels, so it great to get a chance hear him here. (Him and Brain are always excellent if ever get a chance to listen to them talk).

You should have also noticed that my autograph is in Chinese! I’ve said this before, but I was a Chinese minor, and since Max studied Chinese as Yale and works as a translator sometimes, I thought it would be the coolest thing if he could sign it in Chinese, and he was nice enough to accept my request 🙂

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• Corsair by James L. Cambias
• A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias
• The 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook

To the signing, I also brought along my copy of A Darkling Sea and Corsair for James L. Cambias to sign!

I had original brought along my SFWA Cookbook, because Elizabeth Bear had a recipe in there, and when she signing it James told me he had a recipe in there too! (I checked for to see if any other authors has recipes in there ahead of time, but there is a lot of names). Naturally, I asked if he could sign that for me too.

I cut off the recipe too, because I didn’t think it would right – or legal? – to show all of it.

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• The Time Traveler’s Almanac edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer
• The 50th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook

Even though I had just gotten Elizabeth’s autographs at Readercon, I picked up the SFW Cookbook after her scheduled signing, and I had completely forgotten that she had a story in The Time Traveler’s Almanac. 

See that “#1” she put on the page with her signature? That’s because this was the first cookbook she had signed! 😀

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Aside from the 2 employees running the store, I believe there 5 readers there? I’d guess authors most of the time want a packed room, and more fans should go next time(!) but, personally, I was kinda happy about that – gave a more personal and conversational feel to the event 🙂

Thanks Tor, Brian Staveley, James L. Cambias, Elizabeth Bear, and Max Gladstone for doing the book tour! (People should also know that Elizabeth Bear and Max Gladstone were guests at Readercon. They were running around all day doing signing, panels, and reading, and then they did a month-long tour that started only 2 days after Readercon ended!)

I would also like give a lot thanks to The Odyssey Bookshop for staying open late! It was only supposed to go until 8 (when they closed), but they were nice enough to let us go past 8:30.

Have you even been to author signing before? Read any of the books I bought or got signed?

 

Let me know what’s good!

-DJ