Saturday, March 12, 2011

Disappointment

One of my favorite authors, Patricia Briggs, was in town this week doing a book signing. I had planned to go for a few weeks. I have never been to a book signing, and if any authors I like come into town, I generally don't find out until after the fact and have missed it. So anyway, I was extremely excited. If you look at my Strong Women booklist, every book Briggs has written is on there. She's an incredibly good solid fantasy writer, and I haven't read any book by her I haven't liked (obviously). I also love her heroines. Although they are often the "kick-butt" variety, Briggs avoids a lot of the traps many other authors fall into with kick-butt heroines. She doesn't have a 95 pound woman who can take on any opponent and win every single time, no matter how outmatched she might be or how many foes she might be fighting (although I do think a woman with training and skill can certainly take on a man bigger than her and overpower him, sometimes it just gets ridiculous in these books--it's a 5 foot woman against 20 thugs a foot and a half taller with far more weapons/skills/odds in their favor...yet somehow she always wins) . She doesn't have her heroine obnoxiously right all the time, and use that as an excuse not to listen to any other character ever, and so on. Her heroines are strong, fully three-dimensional and independent; but they're also human, and they get hurt and are sometimes vulnerable and they actually show emotions other than anger or aggression, and they love and trust and need others. They may push themselves to the limit or sometimes get in over their heads in a fight; but they are also smart enough that if there is an ally who is stronger/smarter/better skilled, they will step aside and let that person take over if necessary.
So what happened? Well, the book signing on a Tuesday an hour after I got off work. Mondays and Tuesdays are extremely long days at work for me, so by the time I get off on Tuesday night, I'm generally in a lot of pain physically with the chronic stuff all flared up. And then I had a massive migraine starting by the time I got off work Tuesday. And blah blah blah pity party, there was just no way I could go stand in line for who knows how long to see her. So boo. She does live in Washington, so maybe next book release, she'll be by the area again?

Although in other news, another author I absolutely love, Jasper Fforde, who writes the Thursday Next series, is going to be doing a book signing on Monday. (Seriously, we never get of my favorite authors in town, and then two back to back, what's going on?) And I'll actually have a few hours to recover between work and when this one starts, so crossing my fingers, maybe I'll actually make this one.

1 comment:

  1. Sorry you didn't feel well on Tuesday. I'm sure she'll be back again and I really like Patricia Briggs as well. Love you!!!

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