The visit to Boskone was fun. I got there around 11:00 am and paid my fee and then went over to the book signing. There was about 35 people in line and it moved pretty quickly. I was one of the last people to get an autograph. I thought he was real nice and you can tell he has a pretty ggod sense of humor. I intro'd and asked him where i could track Parris down. He pointed me over to the art exhibit so i left GRRM to finish signing and met Parris.
She was looking at some exhibits (she and George were bidding on some art) along with 2 gentlemen. She remembered me from the board so that was pretty cool. She introduced me to her 2 friends who turned out to be Les and Ernst from Roaring Studios so we talked about the progress of the Hedge Knight for a while and they made me promise to go on their site and check out The Battle of the Trident picture they did (Robert vs. Rhaeghar). They are really hoping the Hedge Knight does well so they can hopefully do some comics of ASOIAF. We talked about how difficult the skope of something like that would be but they were confident it could be done. They were great guys. Parris said a lot of nice things about Ran (as did Les and Ernst). She dropped Lodengarl's name too. She told me not to asked Trebla's question about Bill Parcells. George is pretty pissed that Parcells is coaching the Cowboys. She said George spends time on the Usenet groups talking Jets and Giants. She reiterated to me that he does not go on this board.
After speaking with them for awhile i went back over to George and hit him with a few question even though i felt like a total geek:
1. Who owns the Sept at Dragonstone?
Stannis does, the owner of the castle owns the sept within his grounds if it comes down to a question of actual ownership.
2. Why did Stannis sit silently on Dragonstone for months when he had reason to believe that Robert may have been in danger after Jon Arryn was murdered?
Stannis did not have a strong enough base of power but more importantly Robert and Stannis were just not close enough. They did not get along so Stannis may not have been considering the threat to Robert as much as he would have if they had been close.
3. Is Ned Dead?
Ned is dead.
4. My follow up question was "is he definately not coming back?"
He said Nothing is definate so the whole faceless man getting his head chopped off in Ned's place is still a very remote possibiliy (i can Dream right? )... He went on to say he does not give away specific plot details...
After that it was wrapping up and i really could not get anymore questions in at that time. Plus he was kind of stuggling to answer the questions i asked so i just felt weird. I did get one piece of info at the signing that i am not sure people know about. He is doing a story for Legends 2 that is about Dunk and Egg a couple of years after the Hedge Knight. That should be cool.
After the signing i went to the panel discussion about "What should good Fantasy do?" It had GRRM, Ellen Asher, Ellen Kushner and Beth Meacham.
It was alright but not really my cup of tea. The only parts that interested my was George's take on writing and Fantasy. Here are the details:
Sci Fi versus Fantasy - George does not see a big difference in the genre's. The main difference is in the "furniture" ie. Is there a sword in place or a space ship? Everything is story and character driven. He compared a couple of books which would be considered Sci Fi but were actually Fantasy and vice versa - "Metropolitan" by Walter John Williams and "Born to Exile" by Phyllis Eisenstein (sp?)
He was asked his favorite book and he said Lord of the Rings with no hesitiation. He went on to discuss Tolkein's use of magic as he has done in interviews in the past. The main theme was Tolkien's use of magic, or lack of "onstage magic". He thinks it is an effect way to write fantasy. Magic in writing does not have to be explained. Once it is explained it ceases to be magic.
George's take on bad fantasy was that bad fantasy often feels like someone is writing in the perspective of a lame D&D game. The more typical the worse it tends to be.
That was the panel. After that the readings were done.
When asked about the progress of his writing he said AFFC is not yet finished and it is taking a long time. He has Dany pretty much done and most of the Lannister chapters. He is still not done with the story on the Wall. He does not write in order but works on different POV's as it suits him.