Scheduled and scheduling.

First, some upcoming things which didn't make Issue #2's "Happenings" which I've recently learned about:

• I had local author John Claude Bemis' The Wolf Tree in Happenings, but not the book's launch party at Purple Crow Books in Hillsborough on August 28
• Brandon Sanderson is reading and signing from Way of Kings: The Stormlight Archive, Vol. 1 at Quail Ridge Books on September 7 at 7:30 PM
• William Gibson (!!!) is bringing his Zero History tour to Duke University on September 21 at 7:00 PM

Second, and on the topic of scheduling, I've started putting together a schedule of folks you might see at the Bull Spec dealer table at NASFiC/ReConStruction this weekend. While I don't know yet when some other folks will be dropping by, David J. Halperin has gotten the ball rolling by scheduling some time to meet and greet and talk to folks about his upcoming book (February 2011) from Viking, Journal of a UFO Investigator. I first heard about the book from SFScope, but did not read that last paragraph and had no idea that Dr./Prof. Halperin was writing from, literally, down the street from me. That bit of information only came via meeting him at a lunch outing with the Raleigh Write to Publish Meetup Group. Since then I've been very much looking forward to reading a book described like this:

The book is "structured like The Wizard of Oz and influenced by the work of Philip K. Dick, Philip Pullman, and Madeleine L'Engle, the book tells the story of a 1960s teenager whose mother is slowly dying. He keeps himself sane by spinning a story in which he duels with the embodiments of death, unravels the mysteries of time and existence, and becomes lover to the most desirable girl he can imagine, all in a world in which nothing happens that is not conspiracy. Eventually, the boy descends into the nether-world and emerges transformed. Much of the UFO content in the book is based on factual lore."

 And David is polishing up another book as well, so there's lots to talk about. He's going to be available Thursday (1-2p, 4-6p), Friday (11a-1p, 2-3p), and Saturday (2-4p), so there's plenty of opportunities to fit him into your schedule, and to ask him how much of the UFO journal is autobiographical...