So I was lying in bed the day Small Favor came out, having finished it earlier in the evening, and I thought hey, I wonder if he's signing books in California - I live in Los Angeles, so I thought he might be signing nearby.
Lo and behold, I discovered he was signing in San Diego on Saturday, so a friend and I drove about two and a half hours to get there (traffic was pretty bad as we got to San Diego). Man, was it ever worth the trip.
The Q&A was hilarious and awesome. Jim introduces himself to a round of applause, then informs us that most places he goes to assume he's going to read from his books, but he tends to assume his audience is capable of reading on their own - so he's going to go right to the Q&A. He then decides that instead of sitting on the chair behind the podium, he's going to sit ON the podium. He was, as someone noted earlier in the thread, wearing a "Hello, my name is" nametag with "Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." written on it. It seemed like a very Jim thing to do.
There were a lot of good questions asked, and some very interesting answers, including the hints about the next book that have been discussed previously. I asked him two questions. One was how old Murphy is - he said she was around 30 at the start of the series, which makes her 38-ish now since eight years have passed. The other was whether there was any chance we'd get to see Lash again (as I phrased it, I've always referred to Lasciel/Lash, Lara Raith and Mab as the Evil Harem (although I guess Lash didn't count at the end), and I missed having Lash around). Jim considered this for a second, and then goes "I'm not gonna tell you!" in a sing-songy voice, at which point the whole store burst out laughing. I have now been officially mocked by Jim Butcher. I am awesome.
I'd already bought Small Favor, but since it was a numbered signing, I called up early and reserved myself a second copy so I'd get a number. I also bought a Proven Guilty so I could get it signed for my friend - which turned out to be the perfect number of books, since Jim was signing three (I brought my other Small Favor as well). I was number 107 in line, and my friend was 108, so I ended up right behind Valorclast and a couple of other people. We proceeded to have a rather entertaining conversation while we waited in line, especially when we got inside the store and started reading passages from random vampire books in very dramatic voices.
When I finally got up to Jim, I was complimented on my shirt ("The Top Ten Reasons I Procrastinate: 1.") and we commiserated about the fact that the publishers wouldn't let him make all the book titles really terrible puns. My impression of him before meeting him was that he was a cool guy, a total nerd, and someone who'd be a lot of fun to meet - and I'm glad to say he lived up to every one of my expectations.
I'll definitely have to go to Comic-con this year to see him again.
