The Raven and the Stormcrow

Since we had played dota the previous night, it was sort of inevitable that Stormcrow and I both woke up late. As a consequence, we arrived at Rockwell 10:20am, 20 minutes past the projected arrival time. We went straight to Fully Booked, the bookstore which organized the event to start with. There was a huge table heaped with Gaiman books and graphic novels right in front, along with an equally huge crowd of people browsing them.


After much consideration, Stormcrow bought two: Smoke and Mirrors, and a new copy of The Kindly Ones (since his old copy is in bad condition). We got a couple of tickets, which would allow us to have a +1/ticket to the number of books you can have signed. We then went outside to the tent, where the event will be held. On hindsight we should have gone there before we bought books. We got numbered stubs, "421" and "423", which we learned was out of the 700 quota for that day (June 9).


Since the programme and signing will start at 3pm, we decided to head back to the mall (which was definitely colder than the tent) and decided to have some lunch. We went back to the front of Fully Booked where we saw Sam Marcelo hanging out by the fountain. After accompanying her to lunch, Jo, a friend of Sam, joined our party a few minutes later by the same fountain. Alekos joined us somewhat later, but unfortunately the numbered stubs and the priority stubs for the following day were already out.


At around 4pm we all trooped back to the tent, and Neil Gaiman arrived around then. The programme started, which included raffle, awarding of the art contenst, Neil's reading of parts in his new book Anansi Boys, and a short Q&A portion. Neil was a surprisingly good speaker, which is not really something that comes with being a good writer. The signing started shortly after that, and we were promised one personal dedication out of a max of 4 signatures per person (depending on the number of stubs).


Since we all had high numbers (Jo had "299" and Sam had "669"), we decided to have a snack to kill time. After snack, we hung around the fountain area reading the books that we had. Stormcrow was very happy with the Kindly Ones that he went ahead and bought Dream Country as well. Joyce joined us at around 8pm, and at that point we heard that the number being served was still at "200"! We had dinner, and went back to the tent to await our turn. At that point the inside of the tent was finally cooling.


You have to hand it to Neil and his resilience. He stuck it out till the end, and it didn't seem as if he even ate anything in the nearly 8 hours of continuous signing! We finally had our turn at around 12mn, Sam had hers at around 1:20am. The even more astounding thing was that it didn't seem as if Neil was beginning to lose his temper.



Raven with Neil Gaiman



Stormcrow with Neil Gaiman



Stormcrow's fanboy moment, after his encounter with Neil



Endurance! Sam, Stormcrow, Joyce, and Alekos


I would also take this opportunity to extend our profuse thanks to both Alekos and Joyce for waiting with us until past 1am. They have just as much resilience as Neil, and deserve just as much credit.


Raven

Labels: books, gimmik, photos