Thank you, Bay Area!

 It's always great to be back in the Bay Area! The past two days in the South Bay have been so fun. Yesterday morning we did our live webcast from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Planetarium. We had tens of thousands of people tune in from all over the world, including Egypt, Azerbaijan, Poland, and of course my good friends down in Brazil.

Above is a statue of Horus on the grounds of the museum. Below, a giant-sized game of Senet. Dibs on the traffic cones!

Tawaret greeted us as we walked toward the entrance:

 And here I am at the main entrance, which is modeled after the temple of Karnak. Those are papyrus plants growing on either side of me, and the golden doors have handles shaped like the "was" symbol, the staff of power that many gods carry.

 The entrance is also flanked by ram's-headed sphinxes, which would probably give Carter and Sadie the creeps, as they look exactly like the sphinxes that attacked them in The Red Pyramid.

Inside, we got ready for the webcast with a full run-through. These shots might give you some idea how many people it took to put together a live show!

 I haven't seen the final product, but I'm told it looked good and I certainly had a great time leading the tour! If you didn't get to catch it live, no problem! You can register for free on the School Library Journal site, and very shortly they will have it on the website ready for viewing at your convenience.

We had a ton of great questions come in from all over the world. Some of the ones I didn't get to answer:

Q: Pancakes or waffles?
A: Dude, waffles. Not even a choice.

Q: Are you as sarcastic in real life as you are in your books?
A: No, not at all. (rolls eyes sarcastically)

Q: Do you have a cat?
A: Two cats, but they're pretty sure they own me, not the other way around.

Last night, we kicked off the book tour with our first event for Kepler's Books at the beautiful Fox Theater in downtown Redwood City. You can see the crowd gathering above, and my name on the marquee, along with the British Invasion, MMA battles (Coach Hedge approves!) and the ABBA concert.

Redwood City had its first ever farmers' market on the street outside the theater, which gave the evening a festive atmosphere. There was even a bouncy house, though alas I didn't get to go in. I'm told the crowd forming for our event was so huge the mayor of Redwood City walked over from City Hall to see what was going on. I hope he wasn't disappointed that I wasn't ABBA.

1100 people showed up for the event, and we had a great time. I read a section from The Mark of Athena and everybody seemed to like it (phew!). The questions were great, and my publicist said the fans were screaming so loudly at one point her eardrums popped. Thanks to Kepler's for hosting our launch event, and to everyone who attended!

Today, I'm off to Utah for my sold-out event with the Provo Library. Can't wait! I hope you all are enjoying The Serpent's Shadow. I'll keep you posted from the road.