I had already made two appearances in the virtual reality world Second Life. I figured my third time would be old hat. Alas, the metaverse had it in for me. My scheduled appearance on Meet the Author with host Adele Ward (aka Jilly Kidd) went nowhere near as planned.

To start, Second Life was having rolling server shut downs. So when I attempted to login five minutes before the start of the show, I was blocked out and couldn’t get back in. Luckily I could still dial my voice into the conference line for the audio feed. However, a nice bloke named “Secondo” (a very apt first name) had to take my place on the stage. For the entire first half of the show, the crowd was convinced I had shown up in the guise of an ostentatious vampire complete with top hat, frilly coat, and fangs. I’m a horror fan, but more George Romero than Anne Rice.

Ah well, the show must go on. So I plodded on, reading the first half of “On Time,” the fourth story in The Love Book. I was a little nervous about reading the story in two parts as it slowly winds its way into the plot (unlike the other stories in the collection which attack from word one) and requires a bit more listener patience. It’s a great story, but you have to go with it to get to the payoff. Thankfully everyone seemed to enjoy Part 1. Then I was finally able to log in and my avatar appeared on stage. My luck seemed to be changing for the better. Or so I thought… I was booted out a few more times by Second Life’s server blackouts. Bloody ‘ell.

Luckily, I was finally able to get my tail back in-world, my zombie avatar revived once again, and just in time to read part 2 of “On Time,” giving the crowd a bit more of Daniel’s misadventures and strange obsessions. The fan response afterwards told me it was worth the gamble. Everyone liked the two installments of the story and were itching to read the ending.

If you missed it, you can watch the full video via SLCN’s site. Just click on the photo to the left.

And here are some snapshots from the event. Enjoy.