Icon - Day 2

Remember when I said the people LOVE OSC? Well, they really, really, really love him. I'll elaborate in a minute...

Arrived a little after noon, and jumped straight to the only event in Icon I actually got to attend this year that wasn't Card related - Dotan Dimet's lecture about The Invisibles, a brilliant comic series. It was an interesting lecture, but I had to leave it, because the day's biggest even was due to begin a little before two PM - the Card booksigning. And when I say big, I mean BIG. about 700 people got their books signed and their pictures taken in two separate signings over the coarse of 4 hours and 20 minutes. Dig it.

Before the signing, however, we watched a reenactment of the famous insult duel scene from Monkey Island, which was written by OSC. Card was thrilled, as he'd never seen it performed live before.

And now back to the topic of the signing, and I must pause to praise the peeps. The folks in line were polite, friendly, no pushing, no shoving, no unpleasantness. You people rock. The Brute Squad, volunteers who were OFF SHIFT and gave of their time to help the event run smoothly were terrifically efficient. Hagit, Nir, Vered (and all those whose name I didn't catch, or forgot), You guys ALSO rock. Thank you for making a really long and arduous event fun. And Rani, for holding the fort while Assaf and myself went to grab lunch and prepare for our panel with Card along with co-conspirator Noa Menhaim, thanks to you as well.

The panel took place between the two signing sessions, and I'm told it went well. OSC is really good at answering questions. Sadly, he does answer at length, so the audience didn't really get to ask too many questions. Sorry, folks. But you heard what the man said - if you want to ask him something, EMAIL him.

Then it was off to the "press conference", which was really a group interview with the various media outlets of the sf/roleplaying/trek/gaming community of Israel. Again, OSC was patient and friendly, and even signed a bunch of stuff for the assembled media/fans. But we had dinner reservations, and the man was tired and hungry, so we had to drag him away.

Dinner, with Aspamia publisher Ron Yaniv and editor Vered Tuchterman, was excellent. OSC and Ron argued for a while on the subject of who will pay, but finally found a compromise. Card paid for dinner, Yaniv paid for the wine. You know, they say there's no such thing as a free lunch, but as I learned this week, there sure is such a thing as a free dinner.

Tomorrow is my own big day - I've got my lecture at 12:00, and the Geffen award at 17:30. I hope one of "my" books will win. I will be ecstatic if I two do.