Balticon50 Part 3: Meeting George R.R. Martin

George R.R. Martin limits the amount of autographs he does at conventions and securing a spot during one of Balticon's scheduled sessions was my top priority. It wasn't so much the autograph for me. I had pre-ordered the autographed Balticon50 special edition of GRRM's 'In the House of the Worm' so I was covered there. What I really wanted was simply to meet my favorite author and after years of being a superfan, Jer, Jonas and I were finally set to meet George.

I always thought I would meet George eventually and now it was happening. Naturally, the anticipation of this meeting made me feel a bit anxious. I tried not to have too many expectations but I would be lying if I said I didn't have any. I knew our time with him would be brief but I was excited for it and hoped the short moments would leave a positive impression. It would have been disappointing if he turned out to be disconnected, signing autographs like an automaton on autopilot.

I spent some time prior to the convention thinking of a way to make the experience unique and found the answer in dragon eggs. Jonas had a 'Knights of the Roundtable' themed birthday party and we made Game of Thrones inspired dragon eggs out of thumbtacks to use as decoration. I used them again as decor for our annual Feast of Ice and Fire that we have on the night of the Season Premiere of GOT. Not to brag, but Jonas and I did an amazing job on the dragon eggs.. 

Our awesome dragon eggs made out of 1500 individually lacquered thumbtacks.

So after some deliberation, Jonas and I agreed that when we met George we would give him one of our prized dragon eggs. For those of you who don't know Jonas, he is a pack rat. He doesn't like to get rid of anything, including socks that no longer even function as socks anymore. He loathes the idea of parting with anything so when he semi-happily agreed to the idea, I was pleasantly surprised. The black 'Drogon' inspired egg was out of the question for Jonas but we compromised and agreed on giving GRRM the white-gold 'Viserion' inspired egg.

The morning we were to meet George R.R. Martin began with me forgetting my Balticon badge at the hotel. It was not a long walk to the hotel but we were halfway to the convention and I wanted to be as early as possible to ensure a good spot in line (which turned out to be a non-issue). I prayed that Balticon had a contingency plan for scatterbrains like me and gratefully they did. I got my replacement badge and Jer, Jonas, and I started to mingle in the gathering crowd outside the autograph room. We didn't really have to do that since our tickets (which were first come, first serve) had numbers on them and were being called in groups of 20. Based on your number, you may have had time to walk around the convention before coming back and being called. This was awesome because when you were called in to the room, it felt incredibly intimate and relaxed.

When it was our turn to meet George, Jonas handed him his copy of 'The Ice Dragon' and George signed it jovially, shaking Jonas' hand. Jonas then handed George the dragon egg and George exclaimed, "It's a dragon egg! If I sit on it, will it hatch?" Jonas said he didn't think it would but we both agreed we couldn't be absolutely certain. George laughed warmly and thanked us for the egg. He paused and turned to Jonas and said, "I feel I need to pay you for the egg..." He then went to his pocket and plucked a Faceless Man coin down on the table. Jonas smiled impishly and took the coin. I whispered to Jonas to say 'Valar Morghulis' which George answered, "Valar Dohaeris". We had a few more moments of easy small talk before Jeremiah brought up a copy of GRRM's novel, 'Armageddon Rag', to be signed. It was actually a book that was lent to me by our neighbor Robert, and I thought it would be fun to give it back to him signed by the author.  It was a great book but for some reason didn't sell very well. George joked with Jer saying, "So, you're the one who bought this book!"  Our meeting with George R.R. Martin is an experience my family and I will always treasure.

Meeting George

I didn't get to have any philosophical discussions with George, but truthfully, I liked it better that way. I had already spent so much time connecting to George through his books that I was looking for a personal, human connection. A brief exchange that would give me a real glimpse of the man with a 1000 worlds in his brain. One may think this isn't possible to know in the few minutes we had, but it is. George has given us so much. He gave Jonas 'The Ice Dragon'. He gave Jer 'A Song of Ice and Fire'. And he gave me all that and so much more. I was glad I could finally thank him for it.

Coming Soon: Balticon50 Part 4: Panels and Convention Highlights