Author Topic: Signing in Montreal  (Read 3241 times)

sortitus

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #15 on: August 04, 2009, 07:18:08 PM »
Come on Ookla, don't be prejudiced against those poor Canadians because of their low-tech nation status. If any of them had a proper American time traveling machine, I'm sure they would have gotten books signed. I'm not sure that they would even work properly in the cold up there though. >_> <_<
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Curious

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #16 on: August 06, 2009, 04:51:07 AM »
Darn, if no one in Montreal asked Brandon for signatures last year, I feel bad for Montreal. In that case, I'm going to bring all my books I own by him, and maybe lend one to my friend to get signed if she joins me (she's a chronic library-aholic).

Is this a good question? "Is the Stormlight  Archive series going to be more driven by a quest (like the Wheel of Time with its central protagonist) or politics (like A Song of Ice and Fire with its political maneuvering)?"

Probably the first because Brandon likes showing off his awesome magic systems (for good reason) yet I think he'll definitely be able to slip in quite a bit... RJ explored The One Power while having tremendous amounts of politics (though he did take his time with those 5 books Faile spent getting captured and Perrin spending 32 chapters tying a rope in knots about it). I really enjoyed Sarene's line of plot in Elantris, and how she pulled off everything that she did.

About the "ungrateful Canadians"—I'm afraid that the vile French who outnumber us English 10-1 here in Quebec probably left the roads unclear of snow to keep anyone from seeing Mr S just because they're jealous that we actually have good literature. >:(

I'm now so determined to go get a glimpse of him that even if I have to walk 20 miles barefoot by myself I'll still go and not be one bit self-conscious. Thanks to everyone who's encouraged me to go see our favorite author!

Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #17 on: August 06, 2009, 10:35:32 PM »
Read my post again and you might notice something...
All Saiyuki fans should check out Dazzle! Emotionally wrenching action-adventure and quirky humor! (At least read chapter 6 and tell me if you're not hooked.) Volume 10 out now!

sortitus

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #18 on: August 07, 2009, 10:39:01 PM »
The innuendo? The cultural diversity?

P.S. Posts can have cultural diversity.

P.P.S. Posts can also have innuendo.
Hero of Ages: Impressive Regality Over Niceness, Y'all
좋아! This time with more ecstatic! 좋네!!! I'll say it again in french! Trois fois voiture!!! Ça va. C'est vrai. C'est bien.
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Pink Bunkadoo

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #19 on: August 08, 2009, 02:32:43 AM »
The date?
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Curious

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #20 on: August 08, 2009, 02:39:10 AM »
It's tomorrow, and my friend can't go, but I'm going anyway. I'm going to bring all my Mr. S books and depending on how many people are there, I'll either get them all signed, or just Warbreaker. I don't expect it to be action-packed, but I know it will be great to see a bit more of the author I find so amazing and inspirational.

sortitus

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #21 on: August 08, 2009, 02:55:53 AM »
Did you tell your friend that driving to and from signings is half of the fun? You should go regardless, but it's always better with friends. If you give me an address, I can send some "associates" of mine over to give your friend some incentive. ;)

Have fun! I wish I could make it....
Hero of Ages: Impressive Regality Over Niceness, Y'all
좋아! This time with more ecstatic! 좋네!!! I'll say it again in french! Trois fois voiture!!! Ça va. C'est vrai. C'est bien.
High Knight of the Grand Pie of the Holy Order of Pie, The Left Hand of Pie

Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #22 on: August 08, 2009, 03:57:16 AM »
The date?
Ding ding ding!!!

Man, I've been in this elevator line for 30 minutes?
All Saiyuki fans should check out Dazzle! Emotionally wrenching action-adventure and quirky humor! (At least read chapter 6 and tell me if you're not hooked.) Volume 10 out now!

Curious

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #23 on: August 09, 2009, 12:17:59 AM »
WOW! I just went to the signing today. I was telling myself, "This is going to be fun, but I shouldn't expect to be entertained the entire time. It's mainly getting to see the author in person and getting signatures." I knew it was going to be nice but I didn't want to expect too much in case it was low-key. Boy, was I wrong.

There were fewer people there than I expected, maybe 20 or 30. I was very excited just to see him, and I have to say that he looks quite different from his picture in his books. Actually, he mentioned that and said that he had his picture taken by a friend who was practicing photography and making normal people look really awesome. Brandon said that a picture that actually looks like him is going to be used in The Gathering Storm.

At the beginning, he started off by introducing himself and talking about The Wheel of Time, because a few people were there just about that and hadn't read any of his material yet. I didn't realize that Harriet was the main editor of Tor even before she met Robert Jordan. Even in person, Brandon's a great storyteller. He might be a bit long-winded, but I was captivated the entire time. His story about his first unpublished books, his first publishing, and books after that are amazing.

And yes, he read from The Way of Kings. It was just as awesome as I thought it would be, but although I wanted to hear the entire prologue (and the rest of the book too), it was a bit short (about half the prologue). One of the magic-systems is gravity manipulation! That's awesome! I wonder if all the magic systems will run on Stormlight (which I don't know much about yet).

I really like how he makes personal signings that are very special. I had him sign my copies of paper-back Elantris and Mistborn: The Hero of Ages, and my beautiful hard-cover Warbreaker. I asked him to make a personal signing (put "to Brendan" in it—that's my name) for Warbreaker, and he also wrote "My breath to yours" in it which was a nice touch. He also drew the AonDor marking for Spirit below his signature in my copy of Elantris. Thanks Brandon!

The Q&A was interesting. He did a lot of talking about the Wheel of Time, and even after reading tons on his website and some in forums as well, I still learned new things about his adventures of writing this new series. I have to say, he's quite brilliant. He talked about how he decided to go about splitting AMoL into 3, and how for the first two parts he took neither the Robert Jordan approach or the George R. R. Martin approach. Robert Jordan split the 10th book of WoT into two, and people didn't like that the character arcs and the plot arcs  don't wrap up in book 10. GRRM split the cast in half for each book, choosing only half the characters for each book and covering their entire plots. Mr. S decided to go halfway between these, putting the bulk of two main story-lines in the first AMoL book yet giving a small mention to the other characters so we got to see what they were doing in the meantime, and then reversing the focus in the next book so that we'd get to see more of the characters we'd only seen a few chapters' worth of heads-up to in the previous book. I love how he's taking the WoT very seriously and how he's probably going to be the best choice to finish it for that reason.

Finally I asked my question. This is hilarious, and true, please believe me. I asked, "Is The Way of Kings going to be driven more by adventure, or more by politics? Is it going to be more like WoT or more like GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire?" He responded, "It's funny that you should ask that, because when I presented this idea to my writing group [ x ] years ago"—I don't remember how many he said—"I said, 'This is going to be half like WoT, and half like A Song of Ice and Fire.'" Wow! It's so cool that my favorite author's favorite authors are my other favorite authors too. That made my day for the third time.

He then showed a bit of art to the people who hung around for The Way of Kings (not stuff that's going to appear in the novel, just stuff his friend did I think) and talked about a whole bunch of stuff that I just typed up but then deleted be cause I realized that he might not want people circulating all this stuff online. He says he doesn't hold back enough on talking.

He also talked about a novel he's going to write one day, Scribbler. He showed us pictures on that too, and I have to say, this author is brilliant. He's inspirational and terrifying, encouraging and discouraging at the same time. He writes so well that it makes me think, "I'll never be able to do anything close to that," and it scares me but then he goes and explains how he does a lot of what he does and it's very educational and inspiring.

My friend missed out on so much.

PS: Are there rules against writing posts this long? :D
« Last Edit: August 09, 2009, 12:59:24 AM by Curious »

sortitus

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #24 on: August 09, 2009, 12:35:42 AM »
Excellent post, good sir!

*speechless*
Hero of Ages: Impressive Regality Over Niceness, Y'all
좋아! This time with more ecstatic! 좋네!!! I'll say it again in french! Trois fois voiture!!! Ça va. C'est vrai. C'est bien.
High Knight of the Grand Pie of the Holy Order of Pie, The Left Hand of Pie

firstRainbowRose

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #25 on: August 09, 2009, 12:59:51 AM »
Ink on the forums did both the pic from Scribbler, and the pics for WoK.  I have to agree with you that they are amazing to see.  Expeically the scribbler one when you know what's going on!  (Side note: was it one pic for scribbler, or more then one?)
"The custom of royalty in referring to oneself is to naturally employ the royal 'we'.  We are very happy, we are very sad, we are bored and suffer from ennui.  For a royal prince there's no such word as 'me', It's always 'we'.  So rightfully I should be two or three, don't you agree?"

Curious

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #26 on: August 09, 2009, 06:35:36 AM »
I'm not sure, but I think it was a few for Scribbler.  :-\ I mainly remember The Way of Kings pictures, and those were awesome! I really hope that with the experience he takes away from finishing the WoT he's able to do a killer 10-novel series. I always found that something felt a bit weird about the Mistborn trilogy, although today when he said that if you compared the Mistborn setting to our world, it would be in early 1800s London and it made a bit more sense to me. The first half of the prologue name-dropped a lot of cultures... I'm sure we'll all get to know them very well within eight months. :)

AllWrong

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Re: Signing in Montreal
« Reply #27 on: August 11, 2009, 07:43:07 AM »
I would love to have him do a signing here in Portland (Oregon, not Maine).  Since I've started reading his stuff, I've not seen any news of him coming anywhere around here (that's been about a year and a half or 2 years, now).