Christopher Golden
I met Christopher Golden at a Buffy convention back in 2003. Now, this was to be my first big convention far from home, and yes, the Catskills are far from home and I think technically trapped in a different area, like a seedier version of Somewhere in Time. It was a graduation present to myself (though as it turned out I didn't graduate till a year later, long story...) Since this time I have now gotten quite good at navigating cons to meet my favorite authors. I've also found it a great place to find and meet new authors. Of course, this being a Buffy con, I was going for the Buffy people; Giles, Warren, Tara, Clem and Spike. Christopher Golden is part of the extended Buffyverse, having written for the comics, tie-in novels and video games. I didn't know all this at the time. I had a Buffy book sitting on my shelf that he wrote that I threw into my suitcase and called it a day. I should have researched! If I had I would have realized he was the writer to my favorite video game EVER. The EA Buffy game, besides being full of awesome and win, got me through a tough time. I had taken a year off from school due to many deaths in the family, as well as a close friend. When school started back up I was completely overwhelmed. I had not only the current semesters classes, but all the classes I took an incomplete in the year before. The only escape I had was my Buffy game. I played it whenever I could and shoving a stake through a little electronic vamp was pure joy. In other words, this is a roundabout way of saying I wish I had got him to sign my game... even if the second game has my favorite line ever: "Zander Harris doesn't need doors. Zander Harris makes his own." Followed by an explosion.
Back to meeting Chris. So, the signing! I don't know which day of the con it was, but there was one time where everyone got to get in a long line trailing through the resort and wait to get their stuff signed. By this point I had realized how funny Chris is through his panels and his co-hosting the auction with "Clem." I had also made the video game connection by this point and was looking forward to getting a few seconds to say hi and how much I love his work. Anyway, they set Chris up next to Amber "Tara" Benson because they where doing this little awesome side project called Ghosts of Albion. No one seemed to want to talk to Chris seeing as he was being eclipsed by Amber. I wanted to talk to Chris, and because of the "Tara" backup, I got to talk to him more than I would have normally. We where talking about the video game and he mentioned that there was actually a glitch in the game in which the vampires overly repeated a certain phrase, to which we said in unison "there's only one of you and an endless supply of us." My friend Sara looked at me askance and to this day that memory brings a smile to my face. I'm sad the Chris didn't come to the next years con, he would have made it better. But still, he wished me monsters and it made my day.
