On the final day of the second annual StokerCon—which took place in Long Beach, California aboard the now permanently docked Queen Mary—I disembarked with one of the Guests of Honor to record the fifth and final Eating the Fantastic episode of the weekend. We headed to Thai District, which serves dishes from Northern Thailand, as opposed to most of the other Thai restaurants in the area which tend to focus on that country’s central region.

I’ve known this episode’s guest in the flesh for decades, and on the page for even longer, going back to my earliest days in comics fandom. George R. R. Martin is a multifaceted talent, with a list of credits so vast, many might only be aware of a fraction of them.

Some of might know him from the superhero short stories such as “Manta Ray Meets the Executioner” he was publishing in the ’60s in one of the greatest fanzines of all time, Star Studded Comics (which is where, as a young teen, I first encountered him), or as the creator and editor of the long-running Wild Cards series of mosaic, multi-author novels, some may know him better from such award-winning short fiction as “Sandkings” and “The Pear-Shaped Man,” or novels like Fevre Dream and The Armageddon Rag, while still others might know him best from his TV work … like … you know … The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast—and don’t forget Max Headroom!

We discussed why he was annoyed Marvel Comics printed his letters but DC never did, the reason Gardner Dozois was responsible for his first science fiction short story sale, how the rock ‘n’ roll novel Armageddon Rag got him a job on the rebooted Twilight Zone, what he learned from the arc of Stephen R. Donaldson’s career, how losing the John W. Campbell Memorial Award got him his first editing gig, why he almost became a realtor, the time Harlan Ellison convinced him to apply to be the editor of Analog, and more. PLUS: Hear a snippet from an interview I did back in 1993 in which he makes an amusing admission about “a fantasy novel I’ve been working on off and on for awhile.”

Here’s how you can join us for our Thai feast—

1) Subscribe at the iTunes store, where all 42 previous episodes can still be downloaded.

2) Grab the episode for the device of your choice by using the show’s RSS feed of http://eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com/rss.

3) Or simply listen here via the embed below.

Check out what we ate during our chat—

Chicken larb
(roasted rice, red onions, kaffir lime dressing)

Hung-Lay Northern Style
(Northern spiced braised pork belly & pork loin, tamarind, turmeric, fresh ginger, peanuts, roasted young garlic)

Drunken noodles
(beef, Thai basil, onions, red bells, green long beans)

Som Tum
(green papaya salad, peanuts, crispy anchovies, lime dressing)

Thai crispy rolls
(sweet pineapple reduction, root vegetables)

Potstickers
(soy ginger, crispy stuffed chicken dumplings)

There’s one thing I feel I should point out about that photo of George above. Unlike every other Eating the Fantastic photo of every other guest, it was not taken during our meal and recording, but days later, after we’d parted and returned to our respective homes.

With George having become such a recognizable figure, he can sometimes get swarmed by fans when out and about, and I was trying to protect him from that. Not wanting to be the cause of the hounds being unleashed, I skipped my usual on-site recorded intro, tried not to even mention his name aloud while recording so as not to attract attention, and never lifted a camera or iPhone to snap a shot when he was across from me. I thought putting out a “nothing to see here” vibe would protect him from being recognized, and so failed to snap a photo on site.

My efforts, alas, ended up being for naught, and he was recognized (and I was distracted) by quite a few of the other diners as we were leaving (which is a story for another time), but the end result is I took no photo the night of the dinner, and so … the image which illustrates the post about our episode instead features George brandishing bacon from one of his later breakfasts back home.

And speaking of bacon—

I want to remind you that if you enjoy this episode, if you liked the 42 previous episodes, if you want to aid my mission of capturing the voices of great creators like George, and perhaps allow me to bring you more episodes more frequently, please visit Patreon to find out what you can do to help. There are invisible costs to producing each episode, such as bandwidth, equipment, transporting my guests from conventions to restaurants and back, the food I put in front of them to loosen their tongues, and more, so if you’d like to cover some of that, and perhaps receive some fun perks depending on your level of support, check out Patreon.

If that level of commitment’s not for you, though you can always tip Eating the Fantastic with a one-time donation of any size via Paypal.me.

I recently had to replace my H4n Zoom recorder after it crashed in the middle of an episode during Readercon (an unfortunate and unexpected expense), plus I’ll be buying meals for five guests during next month’s World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki, so I’d be grateful for your support.

Next up, you’ll get to hear my chat at Pittsburgh’s now-shuttered Conflict Kitchen with the Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Award-nominated writer Brooke Bolander, whose “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies” was one of the most talked about stories of the past year.

I hope you’ll decide to come back then!