Headed Home
Posted on May 31, 2013 Posted by John Scalzi 20 Comments
After three weeks, more than a dozen events/appearances, and having signed my name in books at least a couple of thousand times, I am on my way home.
Thank you everyone who came out to see me on the tour. I hope you had a good time.
Thank you every book store that hosted me when I was on tour. I hope I sold a ton of books for you.
Thank you to the staffs of both Nebula Awards Weekend and Phoenix Comic Con for the work you did on the conventions I attended. It was nice to be in one place for a few days in a row.
Thank you Tor Books, for touring me, and also Tor’s crack publicity staff for keeping up with me and tending to the minor bumps which inevitably happen on the road.
Thank you Purell brand hand sanitizer for killing a sufficient number of germs that I did not get sick on the road.
I think that covers the thanks for the moment.
You shouldn’t expect too much from me here in the next couple of days. I’ll be mostly busy reconnecting with wife, family and pets, and sleeping. Mostly sleeping. I’ll be back in the full swing of things Monday, I would expect.
And then, next week: events in Cincinnati and Lexington! Don’t worry, I’ll remind you beforehand.
Thanks again, everyone. Three weeks straight on the road is a lot. But you guys also made it a lot of fun.
I’m glad you made it home safe and sound. I travel a lot and I know how nice it is to finally get home and be with family. Take it easy.
Wait a minute, your beloved family comes before ravening hordes of quasi-strangers on the internet? Priorities!
Incidentally, if you switch to a series of uncomfortable and unsatisfying 15 minute power naps throughout the day, you’d have more performing monkey time. Just something to think about…
Incidentally squared, you neglected your own annual hallowed tradition. And to think, after all the First of May has done for you.
Happy homecoming! The Raleigh stop at Quail Ridge Books was the actual first ever author reading I had ever attended, and it was really a lot of fun. I got to meet you and Mur Lafferty (twofer!) and I also really enjoyed chatting with the other folks in the audience beforehand (conversations about zombie movies and science fiction – I truly felt that I was among my people there).
I know it’s sort of part of your job, but thank you for taking the time away from your family to travel around and meet your fans and play “performing monkey”, and also thank you for being as engaging and gracious in person as you come across on this blog.
I’m very glad you made home safely. I’m also glad I got to catch you lat night at Eagle Eye — you really are a marvelous live reader and the chat and Q&A afterward was fun. (I apologise for my fellow Atlantans since we brought you no bacon, nor coke zero, nor Churros, nor even a box of pecan brittle. Our rep for southern hospitality will never recover. We are ashamed and beg your forgiveness.)
I also regret not sticking around to get you to sign the book I bought (yes, there!) but have high hopes to actually introduce myself and fawn a little the next time our paths cross. I really did have a wonderful time and thank you very much for including my neck of the woods in your tour.
I live in Lexington, and hope to be able to make it out to your signing…however its my anniversary, and my wife doens’t read sci-fi. We’ll see how that date goes :P
It was great to see you in person at Mysterious Galaxy (Torrance). Read “Old Man’s War” this week; loved it. Of course.
I spent the last 3 weeks in the hospital and a nursing facility. Sounds like you had LOTS more fun.
[Simon & Garfinkle play in background] How did your signature fair? Did it change for. Beginning to end? Strangers prying and all that.
The burning question is: What was the final tally on poop questions after reading Halfte Sorvahl?
“Thank you Purell brand hand sanitizer for killing a sufficient number of germs that I did not get sick on the road.”
You’ve got some time yet to produce symptoms. MWUAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA.
Welcome back to Ohio…we needed the rain…
@A Different Daniel: I wish there were churro stands on the Mall.
[Deleted because not on topic – JS]
ldgilmoure: I asked him about how his hand was holding up, about halfway through the tour in Mountain View, and he said he was doing pretty well — and pointed out that he’s worked on having a book-signature that’s easy to write without lots of little scribbly bits, for precisely that reason.
A thought I had then and didn’t have a chance to mention is that a book-signature is in that sense rather like a graffiti tag. When tagging, you want something you can put up in a few seconds with a single quick motion (so you don’t get caught), and you do it over and over. Book-signatures are a lot like that.
Whether it is significant that tags are often made with stolen spray-paint, and book-signatures often made with a pen that came from the relevant bookstore, I’ll leave as an exercise to the reader.
Thanks for doing the tour. I really appreciated the visit to Raleigh!
John, I wasn’t sure where to leave this where you’d see it. I thought of you as soon as I saw it. Bloom County online has been rerunning Sunday strips and this one is entirely prescient for the whole straight white males thingy. http://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/?ref=ql_cmcs
Welcome home, John. I’m halfway through “The Last Colony”, talk about a penchant for surprise, you certainly manage to surprise me at least once every 10 pages or so. Thanks.
Couldn’t put it down……thanks for the surprises.
Thank you, John. The evening in Raleigh was great; even with me being up since 4:30 AM and working 12 hours before going to Quail Ridge Books. Enjoy being back home and your well deserved rest!
A couple of thousand signature?
Are you suffering from Hand-to-clawitis?