Lev Grossman chronicled his night out with several famous fantasy and science fiction authors at this year’s Comic-Con 2011 convention in a recent TIME online Comic-Con diary. The Magicians author had this to say:

So George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Christopher Paolini, Scott Westerfeld, David Anthony Durham and I walk into a bar.

No, seriously, we did. After the show floor closes at Comic-Con, big entertainment companies throw parties at bars all around the city. Mostly they’re the big movie and game companies — in the great Comic-Con hierarchy of artistic media, books rank somewhere below injection-molded action figures and just above those little flair buttons people pin to their convention lanyards.

But Random House threw a party last night, and the writers at the show descended on it en masse. It was at the Double Deuce, a cowboy-themed bar complete with mechanical bull. An interesting choice.

Christopher Paolini and Patrick Rothfuss rode the mechanical bull. Both acquitted themselves admirably. I will say nothing further.

It’s certainly an interesting look into the con-lives of authors, notably tame compared to their movie, television, and music counterparts! Can you picture Christopher riding a mechanical bull?