Sunday, April 3

Raleigh NC April 2 (& 3rd . . . see below)

Raleigh NC April 2 (& 3rd . . . see below)

The Great Friggin' Gonzo Revenge of the Sith Tour is officially under way!

Kicked it off this afternoon at Wal-Mart SuperCenter Store #5118 in Raleigh NC, and it was a party . . . the whole staff was so pumped to sell Star Wars that I had to do a 45-minute meet & greet in the employee lunch-room before the actual event -- and I think I signed more books for the employees than I did for the customers.

Which is cool by me.

A sale's a sale, baby . . .

And the NC Garrison of the 501st Storm Trooper Battalion turned out, too, so that I had a pair of clone troopers, a Red Guard, an Imperial pilot, Boba friggin' Fett and Darth by-God VADER doing CROWD control . . .

It was pretty cool.

And I got to meet in person for the very first time one of my long-time friends, HAWKi102, who I've been corresponding with for a couple years now, and discover that he's a perfectly normal-looking guy, with a very understanding moms-type in tow. Great to meet you, Steve.

Why do I always expect my fans to look like demented homeless cattle-mutilators?

And there was Shane, too (aka tyshalle83, brave lad) -- also entirely human. And towing the lovely Allison (did I get your name right? I met a lot of people today) [EDIT: AMBER, dammit, sorry about that], thus proving that my fans are not only handsome folk, but attractive to the opposite sex.

How did this happen?

In fact, over all, I'd have to say that my fans are all singularly goodlooking people (in addition to their obvious intelligence and stellar taste).



Later --

Did my first reading -- at Quail Ridge, a vastly cool independent store here. Of course, I'm kind of a small-timer round these parts, seeing as how they've also recently hosted none other than the legendary Zahn . . . not to mention Greg Keyes . . .

The 501st was here as well, and this time they hung out after the event and took off the armor -- without getting conspicuously naked, so forget about pictures -- and took me out to dinner, and proved my earlier contention applies not only to my fans, but to Star Wars fans in general.

I mean, I've been to a LOT of cons. SFF fans are a pack of scruffy-lookin' nerfherders, and not only will few of them deny it, most would be offended if I were to suggest otherwise.

Star Wars fans, tho' . . . these are good-looking people. I mean, you can't squeeze a fat ass into that storm trooper armor, you know what I mean? Hell, one of the troopers at Wal-Mart was a REAL trooper -- he could honest-to-Christ quickdraw his friggin' blaster, because he's an honest-to-Christ deputy sheriff. Two others are officers in the Air Force, for Christ's sake -- there was Navy represented, too. These aren't your Living-in-Mom's-Basement-Wearing-Spock-Ears types, y'know?

Later still --

Hey, Raleigh loves me so much it doesn't want to let me go. The US Airways shuttle to Pittsburgh turned around in midair and went back to the airport. In Pittsburgh. It never even got here. And then it was cancelled without explanation. And then US Airways politely explained that all other flights to Pittsburgh were already overbooked. Until 10:50 PM, which would make me a bit late for my 2:00 Talk & Signing at the Barnes & Noble #2898 on Freeport, which will consequently be deprived of my company.

Sorry, folks. Shit happens. Apparently it happens to US Airways quite a bit -- the next thing they did was start taking volunteers to skip the oversold flight to New York that was the next one out of the same gate . . .

The good news is that I get to spend an extra night in the Raleigh Sheraton, where people are very nice to me indeed, and the food's really good, and the Young Christian conference that was having a picnic in the hallway outside my room yesterday (no, I'm not kidding) seems to have evaporated, so I'm gonna quit blathering on about things now and get to work on CAINE BLACK KNIFE.

I'll see folks in Boston tomorrow . . .

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi!

I was one of the people awaiting your presence at the Barnes and Noble in Pittsburgh today... I was very disappointed when they told us that you couldn't be there. I bought the Ep3 book and left it there for them to send to you to sign, but I was so sad that I couldn't meet you in person to tell you just how you have saved Star Wars for me with Traitor and Shatterpoint.

However I just read on theforce.net's forums that it has been rescheduled for the 30th, so I really hope you can be there this time! I'm looking forward so much to meeting you.

Thank you, and I hope to see you soon!

Kim

Anonymous said...

Wow, here's my story. Was on the other side of Pennsylvania today driving home to Pittsburgh. Was extremely upset that I would be missing your signing the one time when I wasn't in Pittsburgh. Come home, discover it was canceled, get excited that I still have a chance. Read your post and see that you won't be coming. Get depressed all over again. Read the first comment and see a April 30th rescheduling...I'm estatic! Can't wait to see you here!

. said...

Were you thinking I might look something like this?

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y7/hawki102/guy.bmp

Well at least now you have the correct idea. Also, I concur with you, Matt, that the picture on your blog is different than in real life. I mean, I can see the resemblance but it's different. Was great meeting you of course. Hopefully you can go on a tour for Caine Black Knife.

NSB said...

One of these years I'll catch up with you. One of these years. . .

Anonymous said...

Was great meeting you, Stover. And yeah, despite having seen your book photo before, you looked significantly different than I expected (primarily the color of your hair, I guess I was expecting a much darker figure signing my book). You did get Amber's name wrong, but I think the compliment you gave her makes up for it.

I've barely had time to read E3 since my mother's in town from Michigan, but somehow I still managed to get through a good 60 pages of that thing. Yes, it's that good.

I can't wait for the next Caine novel.

--Shane

. said...

Busted link fix:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y7/hawki102/guy2.jpg

MWS said...

Amber. Amber Amber, dammit. Apologize for me, Shane. I'll edit the entry.