Spider in Vancouver - September 29, 2001

My second encounter with Spider was more of an adventure than the first. This one took place at the White Dwarf bookstore in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Spider read from his latest novel, The Free Lunch. Getting there and back, all in the same day, involved 650 miles of driving and two border crossings. More about that later, you probably would rather see the photos I took.

			The White Dwarf and Dead Write bookstores on West 10th Avenue in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Spider chats with people in the small audience.
			Ted Powell is on the far left, Jeanne is the third woman from the right.
Jeanne looks on while Spider signs autographs. Spider doesn't just scribble his name. He adds humorous messages plus the date of the signing. He's been told the date makes the autograph worth more. Examples of autographs by Spider are on my "Spider in Seattle" page.
			The eye of the Spider is upon me as I get a picture of Lawrence and Rod, who maintain spiderrobinson.com
This view from behind Spider's table, looking toward the street, gives a good idea of the small size of White Dwarf Books. It is very well stocked with science fiction and fantasy, however.
			Diane and Ted Powell. Ted maintains an official Spider Robinson website.
Roland, the official bassett hound of White Dwarf Books, took all the commotion of having a world-famous author on the premises in stride.

White Dwarf is probably no bigger than the science fiction section of Powell's in Portland (but then, Powells' is huge), but I kind of doubt there's cookies, juice, and wine offered at Powell's readings. It was a very informal setting, with a collection of assorted chairs set up around the table covered with Spider's books. White Dwarf has been Spider and Jeanne's home bookstore for quite a few years (they used to live close to it), so everyone was pretty relaxed about the whole thing, especially Roland. I took a seat fairly close to the table in front of a rack of books so I could stand to take pictures if I wanted to without blocking anyone's view. I thought for a moment I'd end up sitting next to Jeanne when she came over and inquired if the next chair was taken, but she wanted to reserve it for a friend, who turned out to be Diane Powell, wife of Ted Powell. Ted maintains Spider's first "official" web page. They ended up sitting in a couple of chairs to the side very close to the table.

Someone mentioned that Lawrence and Rod (I spoke with them but didn't get their last names), who maintain Spider's pages at spiderrobinson.com, were there, and it was the first time they and Ted had met face-to-face, although they've communicated a lot online.

Before Spider began reading, he said he wasn't going to say much about the events of September 11, but he would have a column running in the Globe and Mail in the next day or two. He had, however, received an interesting e-mail from David Jerrold containing a graphic showing someone's idea of a rebuilt World Trade Center. He held up a copy which showed four buildings in a configuration that looked like what some in Canada call the "Trudeau salute." (For us Yanks, think "the bird," and I don't mean Larry.)

He spoke about how the book came to be. Around fifteen years ago, he went to Disneyland with David Jerrold and John Varley. He and John (Spider calls him Herb "for no particular reason"), with a little help from David, began discussing the idea of a book based on the idea of Disneyland done right. One of them would write the first chapter and send it to the other, who would rewrite it, write the second chapter, and so on. Spider spent a week at John's home in Eugene, Oregon where they worked out the mechanics and details of the project. Spider went home, wrote the first chapter, and sent it along to John.

Fifteen years later, Spider inquired of John how things were going on the second chapter. John admitted things were going a bit slowly and perhaps it would be better if Spider wrote the whole thing. Then in the same breath John proposed another collaboration. They're still friends, by the way. (You can read more about this in the Acknowledgements in The Free Lunch.)

Spider read Chapter One from the book, and a little from Chapter Two in order to avoid ending on a cliffhanger. (Chapter One ends in the middle of a sentence which is picked up as the beginning of Chapter Two.) I don't have much to add about Spider's reading style over what I mentioned in the Spider in Seattle page. There was less dialog and fewer characters for him to deal with compared to Callahan's Key.

In the conversation following the reading, Spider spoke about the Callahan's Crosstime Saloon game. This time he mentioned that the company that put out the game got taken over about a month after the game's release. The buyout was made to get rid of competition, so the new owners had little interest in promoting the game. It quickly became extremely hard to find. One thing Spider mentioned was that Josh Mandel, who created the game, used all his own puns in the game instead of copying Spider's.

Getting into Canada took less time than getting back. The wait to get to the crossing was only about a half hour, but then they wanted to search my car after the initial questions from the person in the booth, and after that I had to lock up the car and check with the immigration folks, which involved another wait which was a lot like waiting at a motor vehicle registry. I suppose my experience was a bit more involved than most peoples' because I was travelling alone, said I was only going to be in Vancouver for a few hours, and I wasn't working at the time of the trip. Just about all the other people I waited with were definitely not of the Northern European variety. For the return trip, the wait in line at a smaller crossing I'd been told about was an hour and 45 minutes, but once I got to the booth, all I had to do was answer a few questions, open the trunk for a brief search, and then I was on my way.

Of course, going up and back in the same day meant I didn't really see much more of Vancouver than a few roads on the western side of town plus the little commercial area around the bookstore, which is near British Columbia University. The next time I head up that way, I'd like to be able to spend a night or two in the area and see more. The neighborhood reminded me a lot of the area of Southeast Portland around Hawthorne Boulevard - mostly homes dating back to the earlier part of the 20th century. I was able to park on the street for free just a block off of W. 10th Avenue, so it was a short walk to the bookstore, and there was a sandwich place right across the street.