Sooo...cmpriest  , mdhenry   and I went to the University Bookstore event for Laurell K. Hamilton last night, rather than stand in line like blue_succubus   for six hours to press the flesh with former President Bill Clinton for 30 seconds (or go home from work sick and miss all the insanity, as blackaire   did). Actually, Mr. Clinton had the store while we went to Kane Hall, which I hadn't been in since I went to see William Gibson read Pattern Recognition.

The evening began with cute greyhounds outside the door. No they weren't Ms Hamilton's pets. They were rescue dogs and very sweet--as they are. Then we passed the magic portal to room 210 and saw... 200 wiggling Hamilton fans. We were surprised to see so little Gothik black, though there certainly was no dearth of the funerary color--which occasionally caused a difficulty during the evening as the guest of honor pointed up into the wall of fandom and was forced to say "umm.. yes.. you in the black...no, the other black... yes you" a couple of times.

Mark and Cherie left me at the book table to acquire a book for a friend of Caitlin's and Richelle's and then joined my fearless friends at the back. By this time the fandom had swelled to a full house: about 300. It was awe inspiring. (Mostly with a certain amount of "awww... how are we ever going to get out of here before Midnight?" inspiring and some avarice to someday find ourselves relegated to Kane Hall and the adoring presence of 300 of our own fans.)

We were tucked into the very last row, but, I popped out one more time and practically ran into the author in the hallway outside. A fan of mine had stopped me and we were chatting, when I spotted the entourage, headed by Duane (of bookstore fame), and muttered a quick "Author on deck!" to excuse myself. I really didn't want to be between the 300 and their goal: Ms. Hamilton. I hope my purple-haired fan forgives me for my sudden ducking--it wasn't my party and I wasn't going to risk upsetting the guest of honor. She was looking pretty intense and even Duane's attempt to introduce us didn't distract her from a flurry of last minute discussion with her crew.

This is one focussed woman: A small child screamed sporadically throughout the evening and she didn't flinch once.

Once the grilling started, things went pretty smoothly (except for the occasional outbursts of infant howls), though a few fans did get the growl for asking or giving spoilers--Hamilton was very strict about that. Her credit went up with me for refusing to give a lot of detail about her daughter. I always feel a bit uncomfortable when a child seems to have become a publicity tool for its famous parent. Hamilton put a lid on that line of questioning politely but firmly. Most of the fan questions were what one expects, though one did go on for quite a while, seeming to lecture the writer on Hamilton's magic system from the Merry Gentry books for almost two minutes to get to a rather anticlimactic question which basically boiled down to "yes or no."

The baby yodeled....

Ms Hamilton stated that she hoped someday to be in the OED, honored with enshrinement of the term "Hamiltonesque"--though she did object she was too young to be an "esque."

The baby screamed....

At last we reached the climax of the evening: signing! The first row of patient fans rose to get their books signed and were flooded by an equal number of sneakers-in from the doorway, thus doubling the time it took to get through the press.

And the baby cried.

We wiggled to the front to introduced Mark to Duane and thus lost our places in line--well... my place since Mark and Cherie had no books.

By the time Row 2 was finally queueing up, the howling infant had left its mark on us all and Duane, asked the folks in line if they would be horribly upset if he advanced the child and its mother to the front. "Good God, please do!" was the reply.

And the suddenly-silent child and its mother tromped up to the table as nearby line-standers speculated on how well it had been trained to do that trick and was it worth making one of their own...?  (I preferred the dogs for door openers, myself.)

It became apparent very quickly that the line was too long to be managed with speed and as we had started at the back and both Mark and Cherie needed to head home, I reluctantly left the book behind with our bookstore friend Art in hopes that Ms Hamilton would be able to sign it before she finally broke free of the roomful  of fans (assuming her writing hand held up.)  And I knew I wouldn't survive cutting into line.  Not without a baby, that is.

We made good our escape, Hamiltonless. But  though we had no signed books, no 300 fans willing to forgo the lure of former presidents just for our company,   nor were we "Hamiltonesque," I content myself in this:  There's already an entry in the OED for "Richardsonian."*



*OK, it's architetural, but I'll take what I can get.

Cherie points out that I missed one of the howlingly funny moments of the evening when a fan asked how long the series would continue and Hamiton replied that although she had an end in mind, Anita was "completely open-ended".  The woman next to me almost choked and leaned over to our giggling threesome saying "I see you had the same thought I did."  Oh... my....

This is cross posted to my Wordpress blog "My Own Personal Grey".