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Interview #917: AMOL Signing Report - Freelancer, Entry #25
Freelancer
Alright, folks, thank you for your patience. Here goes nothing.
The official San Diego event report can be found on Dragomount.com right here .
There are a number of photos embedded in the report. I will try to avoid unnecessary repetition here. Please read that report for the details of the structure and Q&A of the event. Beyond that, insectoid’s post is quite thorough, and with the inclusion of those by s’rEDIT and Asha’Gerard , the best thing for me to do is focus on my personal perceptions, the background stuff, and the more private Q&A (That last being all you guys really want anyway, amirite?).
For starters, we in San Diego are spoiled to have a store like Mysterious Galaxy . It is staffed with nothing but HCFFs, from Store Manager Patrick on down. Ensuring a clockwork-like evening were Christine, Rob, Ben, Tim, and a gentleman and a young lady whose names I do not know. They were pros like you read about, and didn’t flinch at whatever came their way, including me setting up a video camera on the corner of the sales counter. This store hosts authors every single week, even though they are somewhat narrowly focused on SF/F, mystery/suspense, and horror. Max props to them for a job well done.
About Brandon, there’s little to write that I haven’t before, and nothing has changed. He’s a fan who just happens to also be a terrific author. He enjoys the company of readers as much as they enjoy him.
Then there’s Harriet. I don’t know where to begin. She is 100% pure awesome. If I didn’t know better (I don’t), I’d say that she was the model for Moiraine, in terms of the self-assured, demure, and proper carriage. With the exception that I don’t think Moiraine smiled unless she couldn’t help it, and Harriet obviously loves to smile. In fact, I think the only times I noticed her not smiling was when she was delivering a setup straight line, such as this answer to the question of who killed Asmodean: (duplicate video
Simply put, she was an incredible joy, and I am grateful beyond words that she decided to join Brandon for the second half of the tour. In fact, Brandon told us that she was surprised to learn how much the fandom respects and admires her and wished that she would have been joining the tour. And so she did. The icing on the cake was when she read the iconic opening paragraph of Chapter 1, and invited the crowd to recite the final words along with her:
For myself, the opportunity to express to her face-to-face, my thanks for her efforts and her endurance in seeing the series completed, and what the Wheel of Time story has meant to me, was pure gold.
During the Q&A session, Brandon had made mention of the fact that he was a ground-floor Wheel of Time hipster, picking up The Eye of the World upon release in 1990. Harriet asked some folks during the signing line how long they had been with the series, including myself. When I told her that I first read The Eye of the World during a Navy aircraft carrier deployment in 1990, when a shipmate left it for me on a table next to my bunk, I didn’t think another thing about it. It wasn’t until later that night that I discovered she had done more than simply sign my copy of A Memory of Light .
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