Amazing Stories paid a visit with John Scalzi during his recent appearance at Gibson’s Book Store in Concord NH, during the northeast leg of the award winning author’s book tour for his latest release – Lock In.
John entertained a local crowd in excess of 50; the man clearly has a second career as stand up comic waiting for him if he ever gets tired of writing (which of course we certainly hope he never does).
In a slightly unusual move for these kinds of gatherings, John – with the crowd’s enthusiastic consent – turned the microphone over to Marko Kloos, an up and coming author who John taught at the Viable Paradise workshop, so – two authors for the price of one, and an awesome price it was. Zip.
Speaking of indie bookshops; Gibson’s is quite the place. The last time Amazing Stories featured a video of a book tour, (Cory Doctorow), it was at their old location. They’ve since moved and have constructed what will no doubt come to be known as a Mecca for book lovers in the north east; a fabulous combination of book store, reading/meeting/lecture space, coffee shop and a carefully crafted selection (a very wide one indeed) of books. The sub text here is: an indie book store GROWING in the face of the enormous upheaval we’ve been experiencing in the publishing world for the past…what…decade now? That kind of perseverance and dedication to books deserves your support: if you are ever in the area, please think about stopping in.
John spent over an hour with the Concord crowd (unless you discount the time given over to Marko, in which case – John, you owe Concord 15 minutes!); he began his talk by relating his one previous trip to the Granite state and then moved on to a moving discourse on the trials one encounters on the road.
That segued into his readings, the first from the to-be-released-in-2015 latest offering in the Old Man’s War series – The End of All Things. (That reading has been redacted from the video at the request of the author and his publisher, TOR; no spoilers here. In the video a slide show of OMW book cover art takes its place.)
John then went on to offer two shorter readings of humorous pieces published while he was working for America Online, taking many of us straight back to the 90s.
The readings were followed by a quite lively Q&A session, after which John signed books for just about everyone attending.
What? The Kermit Flail? Oh, right. John is riding high these days with not one, not two but three properties – including Lock In, – being optioned for television or movie deals. The deal for Lock In (a television mini-series) was signed and leaked by Variety during the tour, which allowed John to share his joy with all and sundry via expressive modern dance in the form of the Kermit Flail.
The videos below chronicle the happenings: the Kermit Flail loop needs no intro.
Part one begins with John’s arrival, introduction and runs until his first reading. Part two commences with the reading of the two shorter humor pieces and begins the Q&A session. Part three is Q&A until the end.
More can be learned about John Scalzi on his blog; Marko Kloos can be found on his website; you can visit Gibson’s Book Store here, and you’re already on Amazing Stories, so no need for a link to that. Enjoy!
