Reminder to Emerald City Comicon Attendees: Reading/Q&A Today, 5pm
Posted on March 29, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 20 Comments
It’ll be in room 3AB, which I’m told seats about 350, so there should be pleeeenty of room. Please come by and do your best to fill it up. To entice you, I will be reading from Lock In, my upcoming novel. Yes! Get a sneak preview before nearly every other human on the planet! And then will be answering whatever questions folks can think up. It’ll be fun. And the rest of the day I will (mostly) be at my table, TCC Level 3, Table JJ-23. Bring your books from home or get new books from the University Bookstore, which has set up shop in room 309. I will sign them all.
An update for everyone else: Emerald City Comicon has been lovely and crowded so far (I expect today will be even more crowded), and I’m having a pretty good time. I’ve managed to get away from the Convention Center a couple of times and see the city with friends, so that’s been a good thing, too — Seattle is a great city, even when it rains. And some of my favorite people are at ECCC this year, so that’s been making it even better. So, generally, a good time. The only drawback is my body is still on east coast time, which means that by 10pm I turn into a pumpkin. I’m sure that will fix itself just in time for me to go home on Monday.
Reblogged this on Worlds of Fantasy and commented:
Comic cons are always fun. Put together your costume and go.
Aargh! Too much North America between me and the Lock In reading. August can’t come soon enough….
Just putting in a plug here for buying books from the University bookstore. They’ve held lots and lots of signings I’ve been to over the years. :)
Seattle is a great city, even when it rains.
So all the time, then. 8-)
ahhhh, changing timezones, way too much fun!
I missed a great opportunity yesterday! I was walking down Pike with my friend Cleo when I saw a familiar face coming up the Hill. John motherfuckin’ Scalzi! I said an overly enthusiastic HELLO and carried on … in retrospect, I was on my way to a Twin Peaks chess night at Arabica Lounge nearby and I wish I’d invited you. Because, y’know, Seattle.
Kim:
I remember this encounter!
Maaannnn….. I decided ECCC wasn’t worth going to… WITHOUT CHECKING THE GUEST LIST THOROUGHLY!!! AAAARRRGGGHHH!!! I LIVE in Seattle, damn it… AAARRRGGHHHHH!!!
So I ws planning on going to the panel at 5, after missing the one yesterday morning, and what happens, I miss it. Oh well, I’m glad I got my new hardcovers signed this morning. Thanks UW bookstore and Duane for making the last minute invite work so well. One more day of comicon to go. 8^D
Really enjoyed the reading/Q&A, John. Sounds like an very interesting story. I’ll have to get it. Thanks a bunch! One more day to go and then you’ll be back home!
So, them as went; are you under an NDA, or can you spill a wee bit on what the reading entailed?
John did a reading of his upcoming novel: Lock On. Very interesting idea and story. The two most important things I got out of it were, 1) fewer ‘he said,’ ‘she said,’ and 2) no semi-colons. Okay, maybe not that ;) Actually, the story has to do with the near future where a disease disables about 1 in 3 people. The disease basically shuts down all voluntary function in a person’s body, leaving the afflicted person effectively stuff in their own mind. Civilization goes to great lengths to find a way to ‘rehabilitate’ these people by building (I think) some sort of exoskeleton complete with visual/auditory/vocal/etc components to it. The result is that these people who are physically locked inside their own minds can now become part of society as these android-looking beings with abilities your average human doesn’t possess.
The part of the story John read revolves around one of these afflicted people being newly hired by the FBI and assigned to a ‘regular’ human partner. They are on a murder case.
Oops. ‘stuff’ = ‘shut.’
Thanks, Greg;it sounds like it will be an interesting premiss. And I know what you mean about the ‘saids’ and the semicolons; (I like them, but I know they clutter up your prose) — listening to a writer read their own work is a really interesting way to see their concerns and a little bit of their process.
In related-ish news, there’s going to be a Bionic Olympics in 2016, in Switzerland. People will he encouraged to to optimise their prostheses, exoskeletons and adaptive equipment, and modifying the adaptive tech will be as much a part of the competition as the sporting events. Thank heavens John writes fast; the tech is catching up to him in all sorts of pleasing ways.
The only part that sucks about Lock In is that I now have to wait until August to finish reading it.I was thoroughly hooked by the end of the first chapter. It’s a great read…err…listen…err…you know what I mean.
And, yeah, Lock In. Makes much more sense when locked in ones mind rather than ‘Lock On.’ I keep thinking of missiles and jets when I read that. Sorry.
My mom uses the phrase “turn into a pumpkin,” which is problematic for me because in theory that implies that you and my mom are both stagecoaches.
Heh. I wasn’t 100% sure it was you at the time – especially since I wasn’t expecting to encounter one of my favourite authors randomly walking up the street – and really hoped I didn’t startle the bejeezus out of some dude who just looked like you. Safe journey!
It was fun to get a preview, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the book!
Glad you had such a good time in our fair city and especially at ECCC. Thank you for taking the time to chat with me about dialogue when i came down on my break.