When I met Someone who Defined My Childhood (At Comic-Con)

At Comic-Con, the A-list personalities had their own wall, but a lot of smaller personalities had booths, like authors of fantasy series, or respected artists, or actors that couldn’t quite make the Big Wall. I was walking around, when I turned the corner to see, no joke, my favorite author of all time, Michael A. Stackpole. This was a guy I started reading in 5^th grade (my first “real” books) and kept reading through college (and now). He wrote Star Wars books, so I read his stuff and all the other ones other people wrote. Then I saw he wrote Battletech books, so I read his stuff and all the others. He turned to fantasy, so I followed him and read all his stuff and then all the other good guys like Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin. Also, he's awesome.

He was just standing there! I can’t really do justice to the way I felt when I saw him. It was totally unexpected, and it just hit me how much his writing influenced all the stuff I read for fun and thought about for so many years. I mean, I legit cried when I thought he killed off my favorite character at the end of one book. I completely froze and sort of paced back and forth and stared at him while he sat behind his little booth and hawked some of his books (all of which I’d bought before and read).


I’ve never, ever felt like such a stupid fanboy. This was seriously a case where I wanted to run up like, YOU’VE CHANGED MY LIFE IVE READ ALL YOUR BOOKS OMG I AM YOUR NUMBER ONE FAN I LOVE YOU, and be completely and totally serious about it. This guy literally changed my life. So I paced some more and tried to cool off while some FOOL was asking him about the Yuzhan Vong and definitely didn’t understand the intricacies of balancing a galaxy-wide invasion (what an IDIOT). I glared. The guy left and it was just me and him.

So I walked up all cool (even though he’d noticed me sort of hovering for the past 15 minutes, I thought I was going to get arrested).

“So is this your new book?” I pointed. It was. He looked like a total dork! A writer just like any writer would look like. He was really nice, and I asked him about his new work and he filled me in on it. I nodded a few times before I broke.

“Sorry, I just had to say I started reading your stuff in like, 5^th grade, and I followed you from Star Wars to Battletech to Fantasy, and you’ve influenced pretty much everything I’ve ever read. I just wanted to thank you” shoving my hand towards him for a shake. He did, he was really nice. I asked for a book and an autograph, and there was this really weird period where he wasn’t Michael Stackpole the Best Author Ever but a dude who was trying to make change for the 20 I was giving him, but he signed the book and thanked ME but then I just kept thanking him. Of course, I had to prove how cool I was:

“I mean, I’m here for a CONFERENCE, I didn’t even know Comic Con was here, but I saw your name and thought I’d come by.” I think I was hoping I could someone help him with my Great Communication Expertise to somehow pay him back, but I don’t think he was interested. What a jerk thing to say! But I couldn’t get over that I wanted him to think I wasn’t just another fanboy, that he really meant something to me, and I had to prove it.


Anyway, it was a really overblown reaction for a really short and awkward (for both sides) conversation. I'm pretty much going to frame this  book now. Michael Stackpole!


!!!