Mistaken Identity

I was at the buffet in Souper Salad with Pablo today, and I saw a man with long salt and pepper hair. He seemed slightly familiar. Mind you, I didn't think that I knew him, but I felt as though I'd seen him before.

When we went and sat down in our booth, he was sitting a few booths down from me, and I noticed that he had a nifty little book rack that was holding a book up in front of him as he ate. I thought that was sort of odd, and yet cool at the same time. The woman with him was also just sitting and reading quietly.

Then I noticed that it was a fantasy book, with a vivid dragon or something on the cover, and I thought to myself, The only kind of person that would sit in Souper Salad with a fantasy book on a stand has to be a fantasy/science fiction writer himself. Just off the top of my head though, I could only think of a single fantasy writer that lived in Santa Fe, and he was an older guy with salt and pepper hair.

So when I went to get desert, I stopped and I asked him, "Excuse me, but are you George R. R. Martin?"

He looks up at me and he said, "No, but he's a friend of mine."

The woman at the table looks up from her book and said: "This is S. M. Stirling."

Hahahaha.

So, I mistook one famous fantasy writer for a famous science fiction writer. I thought that was highly ironic. Still very cool for me though. I first read something by S.M. Stirling as part of a collaboration he did with Anne McCaffrey called The City Who Fought which was absolutely magnificent. It's actually one of those stories that I think would make a brilliant movie and I wish I could write the screenplay for it.

Anyway, I asked him if he and Mr. Martin ever do any signings in Santa Fe, considering that they both live here. He said maybe in September.