Jonathan Stroud Book Signing

Last night I had the fantastic opportunity to meet Jonathan Stroud, a British children's fantasy author. I first picked up his most famous work, The Bartimaeus Trilogy, in high school and I have been a fan ever since. Since he lives in England, this was quite a rare treat.

Jonathan started off by talking about his early writing career and showing us pictures of covers from different areas of the world. This was very interesting. I wish I could have gotten pictures but I didn't. Before launching into the Q & A session he read to us from his newest book The Ring of Solomon. It promises to be just as entertaining as the original three.



Most of the fans there were able to ask at least one question. There were only about 20 or so of us. After that we got in line to get our books signed. I not only had a copy of the new book but the other three as well in hardback and paperback. Now they are all signed and I am happy :)

Way of Kings Release Party

Okay, so most of you probably don't know this, but I was camping out at BYU for the last three days in order to get a low numbered copy of Brandon Sanderson's new book The Way of Kings. I had been hoping to get there first, but the two people in front of me went over there Friday night and I didn't show up until Saturday morning.

Saturday: On Saturday we found out that BYU was putting on a Freshman dance and we were actually required to moved until the dance was over. I just went home then came back around 11:00 as they were picking up. Nobody else joined us that night. It wasn't terribly cold, but the cement could have been comfier.

Sunday: Throughout the day Sunday we had three more people show up and then a lot of people from about 10:00 pm to 12:00 am. I mostly did homework (read over 200 pages of school stuff and leisure reading). I tried to nap too but that wasn't very successful.

Monday: Monday morning we got our numbered tickets and we were free to leave until 9:00 that night so I got to go to my classes after all. After school I had lunch with Natasha then headed back to BYU and helped Josh and Michelle (They run the official Brandon fan website and they were the two people in front of me) and their friends set up the activities for the signing. It kept the boredom away.

Once they let us in at 10:00 pm I tried to busy myself with participating in the activities so that the waiting didn't get to me like it did last year with The Gathering Storm.

The book is 1001 pages long, plus the index. It is a beast. Tor also published the maps in color (picture below) which they rarely do because it is so expensive and the cover art is done by a well-known fantasy cover artist named Michael Whelan. If you want to know more about The Way of Kings or any of Brandon's books go to his website brandonsanderson.com or the fansite 17thshard.com or the publisher's site Tor.com. I will be posting my review of the book once I finish but that probably won't be for a while because of school.

I am so excited to camp out again this November 2nd when the next Wheel of Time book comes out!