Yes, it’s true.   I will be heading to San Diego for Comicon at the end of the month, for the first time in… ah… a bunch of years.

That’s not news to most of you, I know.   There have already been a raft of stories out there about HBO’s plans for promoting HOUSE OF THE DRAGON at Comicon  (which plans are pretty mind-boggling, by the way), and my name has popped up in a good many of them.   So I’m not revealing any secrets here, but I can confirm.   I’ll be joining the HOUSE OF THE DRAGON panel  in Hall H, together with showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik and eleven of our cast members.   I will be as excited to meet them as you are.   I was not able to visit the Hot D sets, so this will be the first time I have met any of them… well, aside from Matt Smith, who I did meet for about two minutes in the lobby of the Hard Rock Hotel at a previous Comicon, but he was the Doctor at the time, not Daemon Targaryen, and that’s not at all the same.

I will also be doing a couple of signings at San Diego.   One for my publisher, Bantam Spectra/ Random House.   I will be signing copies of FIRE & BLOOD and my other novels.   And one for Marvel Comics, with Paul Cornell, to promote the new Wild Cards graphic novels that Paul has scripted.   Raya Golden, ace minion, art director, and illustrator, will be travelling with me, and she’ll be on hand to sign copies of STARPORT, the graphic novel she adapted and illustrated from an old unproduced television pilot of mine (which may come back to life as a feature film, but that’s a tale for another day).   This being Comicon, where the crowds are immense,  all these signings will be capped and strictly limited, so if you want me to scrawl on one of your books, join the queue early.

(Sorry, I will NOT sign while walking the floor, eating lunch, or taking a piss in the men’s room.   Don’t ask, okay?)

In June 2021, I went to Chicago for a week to accept an honorary doctorate from Northwestern.   Aside from that, this will be the first time I have left home since the pandemic struck in March 2020.   I am looking forward to it… but, truth be told, I am also a tad anxious.   I have managed to avoid getting covid so far, knock wood… but if this Comicon is like the last one I went to, I am going to be in one big room with 150,000 other people, some of whom may not have been as careful as we have.  That could be a challenge.   Yes, I am fully vaccinated and double boosted, but that’s true of a number of friends of mine, who have still contracted omnicron despite that.   (Mild cases, mostly, but still).

I do not want covid, not even a mild case, so please be advised, I will be doing all I can to prevent that.   I will be masked almost all the time.   I will not be shaking hands, sorry.   Or even bumping fists.    You can take my picture when I am signing your book, but stay on your side of the table, please.   No selfies.   No hugs.   In past years, I was always glad to do all that, to make myself available to my readers, but these are not normal times.    Once covid goes away for good — if it ever does — perhaps I will be able to do all that again.   But not now.   I cannot get sick.   I have too much work to do.

I ask for your understanding.

And I hope all of us have a great time in San Diego, regardless of these challenges.

Current Mood: anxious