About 60 people waited fervently at Borderlands Books in the Mission late Monday night. And no, it wasn't for the tenth Harry Potter book, as a gawker on the street wondered.
Instead, fans congregated at 12:01 a.m. to get their hands on a copy of "A Dance with Dragons," the fifth book in George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, which you may be familiar with through the HBO's series "Game of Thrones," based on the first novel.
I read all of the available books in the early 2000s and like many fans have been pining, impatiently, for more. Some others have been waiting since the series began in 1995 and have followed each of Martin's blog posts in hopes he'd stop discussing football, and maybe, you know, finish the damn book. Others seemed more hopeful about its completion, pre-ordering way back in 2008.
"I can't wait another minute for this darn book!" said Maria Pacana, at Borderlands last night. She figures she can read about 300 pages a day in hopes of finishing the 1,000-plus-pages tome before Friday. Co-existing with her excitement was a little anger about the six-year wait.