COMIC BINGE: Book Discussion w/ R.A. Salvatore & More!
So last week during our fantasy football draft for the Binge Football League, I had the opportunity to go to a meet and greet with New York Times Bestselling Author R.A. Salvatore. Now, I will say in advance that I was unable to get him to sign a Babadiiiiick! into my book, but I purchased a copy and got it signed with my name in it. I wish I had been able to podcast with the rest of the boys, but I jumped at the chance to meet a really great author with a lot of credit to his name. I wanted to touch on his discussion here today because I thought it was a really interesting experience to share. I’ve only read three of Salvatore’s many books, most of which are contained within fantasy realms. The three I have read make up the Dark Elf Trilogy which is the character Drizzt’s origin trilogy, as he was not intended to be the main character when Bob first started writing his stories under the banner of Forgotten Realms. However, once his original trilogy was completed, it was obvious to him that the dark elf Drizzt had become the central character, and thus Bob’s character to write. It was strange to hear him talk about his experience with Wizards of the Coast and Forgotten Realms, and how the outlook on continuing Drizzt even after the first book was not that great at all. But he continued to write the character and the stories and I suppose it came to be one of the more popular fantasy series to date.
Other than discussing his character Drizzt and where he is headed with the Legend of Drizzt, he touched on a lot of the other things he is working on. He said after he finishes this new Homecoming trilogy, the first book of which is what we were there to hear about and get signed, he plans to return to his original world in the DemonWars Saga. DemonWars was illustrated as a passion project for him, something that he wanted to do earlier in his career but it didn’t quite work out to be. Before DemonWars he had worked on another series that was an original work, but it didn’t quite shape up to be what DemonWars has eventually become. He also discussed having just finished recently a Kickstarter, that was basically put together in order to publish and make available his own tabletop RPG. Me being the most curious cat when it comes to tabletop games and RPGs now, found this to be one of the more interesting tidbits in the discussion at Joseph Beth last week. Salvatore simply said, multiple times, that during his free time away from meeting deadlines and writing, he’s been playing the shit out of some DemonWars: Reformation. I don’t know the first thing about how to play an RPG, so I couldn’t necessarily tell what made Reformation so great, but he couldn’t stop talking about how much his group has played it.
So while I don’t have the first clue on the details of what the RPG is really like, and what kind of stuff these people were talking about, I definitely thought all of it was cool. Fortunately for my lady and I, we had a co-worker of mine come with us who is a huge Salvatore fan. So we didn’t feel entirely out of place, but we definitely had no idea what the group was talking about a good deal of the time. A lot of the questions asked pertained to characters, worlds, or things that Salvatore was involved with, outside of my knowledge. It was really interesting to hear him talk about all of these things though, as he was an excellent speaker. No question was dumb, and no question was out of his reach or hard for him to answer. He found a way to not only please the person who asked the question, but also kept his crowd interested. I had been told that R.A. Salvatore was a class act when it came to these events, but I was super impressed. I was at a loss for what to small talk with him about when it came my time to be at the table, so I considered having him take a pick in the draft for me if it was my time. Unfortunately it was not, but the guy is a Boston man, and even took a moment out of his time to mention that Tom Brady was free and everyone could suck it. I was positive in that moment that Episode IV could easily become a Bob Salvatore fan, and I thought back to this knowing what Bob’s answer would be to my fantasy draft. Tom Brady, and I had already picked him. Good luck to the rest of the BFL this year, but beware the Jaws of Geno! My squad comes unhinged week one.
If you’re interested in more of what Bob Salvatore had to say at the meet and greet, feel free to leave a comment below and I can answer! I retained all of what he talked about, I just don’t have as clear a perspective because I’m not as familiar with some of his work. He also discussed Star Wars and his infamous “command” to kill Chewie! Apparently the hit came down from the King… As school has taken up a lot of my time though recently, I have been left with very little time to actually read. I’ve read some assorted things over the past few weeks, but I haven’t had much that is discussion worthy since my last Comic Binge. I am currently working on Buffy the Vampire Slayer omnibus editions, and then I’ll be getting to my stack of new stuff hopefully here soon. Now that I’ve gotten a good feel for my school schedule the first few weeks of this semester, I should be able to find some time to do some more Comic Binging! But for now, I’ll leave you with this. Signing off until next time folks. Hope everyone had an excellent Labor Day weekend. Let’s go Pats football team and Tom “Free Bird” Brady tonight!!!