Ok, so it’s 1:40 am right now and I have to be up at 7:00, so this is going to be short.
Yesterday was the release party for Brandon Sanderson’s newest book, Hero of Ages. I had to go to work from three to four, but while walking through the bookstore on my way there, I saw a handful of cosplaying fans sitting merrily in a short line (maybe five or ten people) in front of the table covered in Brandon’s books. I thought to myself, Ok, I don’t have to worry too much about the line being that long when I get off at 4:00.
Well, I arrived, and the line had already snaked its way around a couple of bookshelves. That was ok, though. I expected a wait. Sat down in my spot and read a little from Tales from the Thousand and One Nights.
Fantasy fans can be really interesting, quirky people. There was this girl in line just a few spaces ahead of me who talked the whole time about just about anything fantasy related. It was really funny and entertaining. The conversation in that part of the line was really interesting and engaging, even for those of us who were just listening in. One of the people behind me mentioned later, “you can tell she’ll be a writer because of the way she talks.”
The guy behind me struck up a conversation by asking what I was reading (I had also pulled out the Qur’an to get some reading in for my history class), and I found out that he’d come all the way from his work in Salt Lake to get the book. That was surprising, considering that he hadn’t even read Mistborn 1 yet.
Neither had the guy right in front of me. He was an energetic freshman who pulled out his computer and wrote in his fantasy novel for a while. I gave him the Quark writing group email (quarkwritinggroup@gmail.com, if you happen to be an interested BYU student) and we spent a good long time talking about various sci fi and fantasy books that we had read.
Brandon showed up, and the line started moving. It was pretty slow, but that was ok because we’d all prettymuch broken the ice and were chatting it up the whole way there. I saw a bunch of random people I knew, which was really fun. “Fantasy brings us together!”
So then, I got there at the desk where Brandon was signing the books. He looked a little stressed up there, but he also seemed to be having a good time. I wanted to know if he’d recognize me from his class last year–after all, he’s a busy man, especially now with Mistborn 3, Alcatraz 3, and the final Wheel of Time book.
But he did! He saw my name on the sticky note and said “Joe! How’s it going?” We chatted for a bit, and he asked how my novel was coming along! I said it was coming along well, that it had been rejected once and he was like “yeah, of course that’s going to happen,” so I said I was working on it, as well as a new one, and that I was looking forward to his class in the winter.
He signed my book “For Joe–keep writing!” I was number 79. Took a picture with him, and now it’s my Facebook profile picture. It’ll be up there for a while!
