Because one book signing per fortnight isn’t nearly enough, Crispy and I met up with Stray to hear William Gibson reading from and discussing his new book (which is currently 30% off at Amazon, apparently).

Although the event took place at the same B&N at which we saw HST, it had a very different sort of flavor: a smaller, calmer crowd, overall (although I suspect the level of fanatical devotion was approximately equal - it’s just that Gibson’s fans were less drunk). Because Gibson was actually reading and answering questions, there were even chairs for the attendees, instead of the Line Without End. We got there early enough to score front row seats, which meant that not only could we actually see the stage, we were first in line to get our books signed when the time came, and since Gibson was actually on time (not that I can really blame HST for being late - he’s got a reputation to maintain, after all), we were out of the store and eating dinner at Zen Palate by 7:30.

Gibson himself seems remarkably down to earth; he’s funny in a very dry sort of way, and we loved how he dealt with some of the more questionable questions. When one guy asked about his use of the word otaku in PR and whether his readers would understand it, Gibson responded that they probably would (given his demographic), and if they didn’t - they could just Google for it. When I got a chance to talk to him during the signing itself, we discussed (briefly) weblogging, of all things; he told me it’s something he really enjoys but that already he can see it will probably end up taking a backseat to other things, like the book tour (right now) and any other writing he might be doing (later).

In any case, the whole thing was pleasantly less of an ordeal than we’d expected, dinner was great, and I have a couple of my favorite books signed. Today is all about feasting on the spoils of yesterday’s NYU Valentine’s Day Thing (which spoils include some really alarming and nonfeastable glow in the dark condoms and glitter putty stuff along with the massive quantities of candy), and heading to the movies later with the notorious S.T.H.