Two years ago, Suvudu hosted a sci-fi fantasy cage match, where they pitted fictional characters against each other in a tournament style series of one-on-one fights.
It was a cool concept, and it led to interesting match ups like Cthulhu vs Lyra. Cthulhu being an omnipotent elder god from the outer darkness, and Lyra being a plucky 13 year-old girl from Oxford.
Simply said, good times were had.
Kvothe was one of the characters they chose that first year, which was flattering, as back then I only had the one book out, and I was very new to the scene.
Even more surprising was the fact that Kvothe won his first match. Then his second. He made it all the way to the semi-finals after beating Dumbledore, Garret Jax, and Aslan.
Y’know. Now that I’m thinking of it, I’m going to retroactively award myself an achievement for that. Because it was awesome.
In my opinion, the best part of the cage matches was the fact that Suvudu posted write-ups describing how they thought the fights would settle out.
Even better, they invited the authors to submit their own write-ups, so WE could describe how we thought the fights would go.
I did a write up for Kvothe vs. Aslan, then later did another for Kvothe vs. Jamie. It was the most fun I’d had writing in a long time. At that point in my life, trapped under the crushing weight of book two, it reminded me that writing could actually be fun….
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Fast forward to today. Suvudu is running another tournament, and this time Bast is one of the players….
The Suvudu Cage Matches have been going for a couple weeks. I’ve been meaning to mention them here on the blog for a while, but I’ve been busier than usual lately, so I’m only now getting around to it.
Bast’s first opponent was Seregil, from Lynn Flewelling’s Nightrunner series.
I read the first two books of Lynn’s series and liked them. But in addition to being busy, I really wasn’t able to come up with a good idea for a scene between the two of them. I briefly entertained the thought of writing it up as a kissing contest between Bast and Seregil, but that seemed kind of… inappropriate.
Lynn, of course, is a better person than me, and did a delightfully playful write-up of the bout between them that you can see over on Suvudu’s site. It was a good scene, and I expected her to win because of it. But Bast squeaked by….
Bast’s second fight was against Richard Rahl. And again, I found myself at a loss for an idea for a scene. My only idea there was something involving bondage. And since I’m still fuzzy on the parody-as-fair-use laws, I decided to focus on a few interviews I was late on and the questions in my translator questions instead. Luckily, Bast won through that one without my help, too.
I feel like a bit of a slacker by this point, like I should really do a write up for this one.
So here goes….
“So, Rake,” Bast said. “At last we meet again for the first time.”
“Indeed,” said Anomander Rake, tossing his flowing white hair over his shoulder.
Bast looked over his opponent calmly. “I’ve heard tell that you are old as ages.”
Rake nodded, his face giving nothing away.
“I’ve also heard that you are well versed in the arcane arts, you have a floating fortress, and that you..” Bast snuck a quick look at a piece of paper he held cupped in the palm of his hand, “…can turn into a dragon.” Bast looked up, his expression a little disgusted. “Seriously? You can turn into a dragon, too?”
Rake had the decency to look slightly abashed, if only very slightly. “Yeah,” he said. “All that and a bag of chips, too.”
“And you’re also nigh-invulnerable,” Bast said.
“That’s The Tick, actually,” Rake said grudgingly. “But yeah. I’m pretty much nigh.”
Bast nodded at this, seemingly unsurprised. “I see,” he said gravely. Taking a deep breath, he looked up, meeting the tall man’s eyes. “All that aside, do you seriously think you can eat more pie than me?”
Okay. I’ll admit it. I haven’t read Erikson’s series. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it, and it’s on my list. It’s even a complete series, which is a huge selling point in my opinion. (*ahem*) But it’s also ten books long. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Given that I don’t know anything about Rake (And I don’t care to, thank you very much. So no spoilers, please.) I’m going to have pass on writing a full scene for this match too.
Right now, Bast is taking a bit of a drubbing, and perhaps rightly so. If he loses this round, I’ll still be proud he made it this far.
So I’m not saying anyone *should* go and vote. I’m just saying that if the Bast vs. Zaphod match ends up happening, I would write the hell out of that scene.
Over the last year and a half a lot of folks have e-mailed me, asking if there’s a place they can buy signed copies of my books.
Other folks email me because they *know* there’s an online store, but they can’t find it.
In the last year, I’d say I’ve had roughly ten billion e-mails of this sort. (I’m rounding up.)
While the e-mails have been a little repetitious, they’ve never irritated me. It’s my own fault that there’s never been any sort of permanent link to the store on the website.
The best we’ve had until now is occasional links in the blog itself. Which is dumb. It’s like having a fully stocked refrigerator, except you can only open the door by walking into the bathroom and putting your foot in the toilet.
Actually, it’s not really anything like that. That’s a really awful analogy. I’m kinda tired right now, so my word-put-togethering is not all, um, good. I apologize.
Anyway, this blog celebrates the first step in the long path of tweaking and updating the website, something I’ve been meaning to do for years.
Those of you reading this blog directly off my site will see the new graphic up there on the right. It’s a little widget that will take people directly to the store where we sell signed books, posters, and other miscellany. A place we’ve decided to name The Tinker’s Packs.
I’m not going to lie to you. Nate sent me the art earlier today, and I’m really inordinately proud of the fact that I bunged that silly little widget together on my own.
I know for a lot of you, maybe even *most* of you, doing something like that is about as difficult as writing a check. But you have to understand that I know about as much html as your average dancing bear. So yeah. I’m gonna feel all sorts of self-sufficient because I didn’t have to run to one of my tech-smart friends for help on this.
For those of you that are interested, here’s a pic you can click to see a bigger version of the art:
Go on. Bask in its untrammeled glory. (I had to trammel it a bit to get it to fit in the space available for the widget.)
As always, all money spent in the store still goes directly to Worldbuilders. We’re not changing that.
So… yeah. That’s all I’ve got right now. I was just proud about my widget and wanted to share. Rest assured that in the relatively near future, we’ll be updating the website, adding some new stuff, streamlining the store, and generally embettering everything.
This interview ended up being a bit different. It was a phone interview. (That’s not the different part.) And when the journalist called, she asked if her daughter could listen in, because she was a big fan of the books.
I said it was no problem, and when I found out that she was 18 and about to leave for college, I asked if she wanted some advice. Because I have a weakness for giving advice, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s college.
She said yes, so I gave her some advice.
What’s interesting is that they included the advice to the daughter in the interview. After re-reading it, I’m happy to say it was pretty good advice. It wasn’t just a product of over-caffeination.
Second, I wanted to point folks at Wednesday’s comic over at Real Life.
Why am I pointing you at that comic? Because right now I’m brewing a batch of mead, and I have done exactly what he’s talking about. Except without the smartphone. Because I’m apparently the last person on earth without a smartphone.
Thirdly and lastly, a quick story. Or rather, a series of stories that make a sort of story gestalt.
Though I don’t gamble much, it’s always fascinated me. Back in high school, I used what little calculus I knew to create a roulette betting system that I was pretty sure would make me rich.
Luckily, at that point in my life I didn’t have access to a car or a line of credit. What’s more, when I wrote a computer program to model my betting strategy, it kept losing money. So I gave it up as a bad idea and kept playing D&D instead.
Fast forward to last year, when Worldcon was held in Reno. A reader contacted me and asked if I’d like some help finding a room in Reno. Jade worked in the hospitality business, and hooked me up with some accommodations.
He also sent me this map:
(Click to Embiggen)
If you click on it, you can see that it has helpful tips on it, such as, “Do not go here or you will die.”
I got a kick out of it, and posted it up on Google+ for other people to see.
A couple days later when I was doing a signing in Reno, someone came up to me and said, “I went to that place that the map said I shouldn’t.”
I nodded. This didn’t surprise me. I had the same impulse when I saw it. The main reason I hadn’t already gone myself is that I was too busy with the convention.
“Did you die?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “But someone stole my car.”
At that point I decided to take Jade’s advice a little more seriously. And, as you can see, I’m still alive. So I count that as a success.
I found out a couple months back that Jade had actually started up a blog where he talks about casinos and gambling. It’s not only funny, but informative, as he has a insider’s knowledge of casinos and casino towns.
So just a couple days ago, The Wise Man’s Fear came out in trade paperback.
(Cue the music from 2001.)
The new format looks even more monolith like than the hardcover. And in fact, there’s only a few differences between the two:
1. It’s cheaper.
2. It’s smaller.
3. We fixed a couple typos.
4. The front cover is slightly different. Now instead of saying, “New York Times Bestseller Patrick Rothfuss,” it says:
Which, I have to admit, makes me feel a little cool….
The last big difference is that this version has blurbs for The Wise Man’s Fear on the back.
(Click to embiggen.)
A lot of these quotes I hadn’t actually seen before. So that was pretty cool…
I got to actually hold my first copy a couple of days ago. They used the same nice paper as the hardcover, so the book still has a solid weight to it. A satisfying feel. But the way I feel holding this book is far from objective….
The cherry on top of the book release sundae was a four-color ad in the New York Times Review of Books.
The ad quotes from the extraordinarily flattering blog George Martin wrote a while back when he was talking about who he was going to nominate for the Hugos this year.
You’ll notice that this picture is not guest starring my thumb, which is usually the case. This is actually guest starring the thumb of Amanda, one of the assistants I mentioned in my last blog.
It’s odd to me that out of all of this, that one small thing is what strikes me as most odd about all of this: Her thumb.
You see, four years ago, my publisher took out an add in the New York Times to help promote the paperback release of The Name of the Wind. At that point in my life, I’d barely been published for a year. I was a complete fluffy puppy of a newbie author, and the fact that my book was being advertised threw me for such a loop that I wrote a blog about it called Following Diogenes.
Then I walked to the grocery store to buy a copy of the paper so I could see the add for myself.
Now, four years later, I’ve got another ad. This one is in color and features glowing praise from an author who is, if not the biggest name in fantasy today, is at least in the top three.
And today, instead of walking to the store myself, my assistant grabbed me a copy.
It’s not just my assistant, either. One of my *several* assistants. I am now a corporate entity. I can’t do my own taxes anymore. Today I was talking to a friend and when I stopped to count, I realized that I employ nine people. Ten if I count myself.
I mean, what the hell is up with that? What has happened to my life that I now employ myself? I actually write myself a paycheck.
In what world does that make fucking sense? Am I supposed to give myself performance reviews and shit? Should I give myself a stern talking to if I’m late to a meeting with myself? At some point in the future, if I get increasingly insubordinate, will I be forced to fire myself and bring in someone else to do my job?
I know I’m into The Meta and everything, but all of this seems recursive to the point of absurdity.
(Recursive Absurdity would be a good name for a band, by the way….)
What’s my point? Fuck. I don’t know. I don’t mean to imply that I’m not happy with the way my life is going. I know I’m very lucky. I’ve met with more success than I have any right to.
But on the other hand, for someone whose personal philosophy has always been to strive toward simplicity, I seem to be doing kind of a shit job of things.
Gech. I’m rambling. And this blog has gone from fun and informative to something bordering on existential angst. What can I do to bring it up out of a nosedive before the end?
Ah. Of course. I’ll focus on my favorite complication. Little Oot.
Quick story: A couple weeks ago, Oot was nursing after a nap.
Then he stopped nursing, hugged Sarah’s breast, and said, “This is my birthday Christmas boob!”
I swear I didn’t make that up.
Lastly, here’s a picture of Oot wearing a Jayne hat that a fan made for him. The picture is pretty old at this point, but it’s got cuteness in spades….
Okay. I think the problems with WordPress should be sorted out by now. I’m pretty sure that means I can both post things and have things be seen by y’all out there in internetland. Which is nice.
At this point, a lot of people might be tempted to say something bitchy about WordPress. Something along the lines of: “grumble grumble … fucking wordpress … mutter mutter …. pain in my ass….”
But the truth is, I love WordPress. It’s so much better than my previous blog hosting site. And if occasionally they have a hiccup and something goes wrong. Y’know, that’s just life. Shit happens. Whatever went wrong, they fixed it inside of ten days. And this is key, I didn’t have to do anything myself to get things back up and running.
So. Huzzah for WordPress. We’re still BFF’s.
Anyway, on to the news.
Worldbuilders:
Over these last couple weeks we’ve been diligently drawing winners for the Worldbuilders prize lottery, then packaging them up and mailing them out.
Pictured here are the first batch of prizes we packed and shipped. *Not* pictured here were the 100 or so other packages that we managed to get out the door over the course of that long weekend.
The more observant among you might notice two bright, smiling faces in this picture other than my own. (I’m the one with the beard.) Those are Amanda and Nicole, my two new assistants. Without them, y’all probably wouldn’t get your packages until next year. With them as newly initiated members of the team, I have time to do things like write, eat, and occasionally breathe.
Why are we grinning like we’re high on E? Well, because I’ve found that pharmaceutical-grade heroin is a much better benefit than health insurance. Also, we were really pleased with ourselves when we finally figured out how to work the timer on the camera.
A few other frequently asked Worldbuilders questions:
When will I be announcing the winners?
Well…. I won’t.
For one, it’s a privacy issue. It would be rude of me to suddenly post up everyone’s names without asking first.
For another thing, I really don’t have the time to sort all that out and post 500 winners up online. Or to e-mail you all individually. It’s just not possible. Not even with my delightful new assistants lending a hand.
What about the big prizes, like the ARC of Stardust and the Golden Ticket? Will we get to find out about those?
As those prizes are drawn, I’m contacting the winners individually. First to make sure they want the prize, and then to make sure we have everyone’s address right.
I’m also asking those folks if it’s okay for me to mention them on the blog. If they say it’s okay, I’ll be posting up news about them when we post the official fundraiser wrap-up in about a month.
How will I know if I’ve won something?
It will show up at your house. Keep in mind that we’re shipping things media mail to save money, so they’ll take a little longer to get to you.
Fair warning: this is a random drawing, and therefore the odds are excruciatingly fickle, if not outright cruel at times. We had one person who donated $1000.00 but due to sheer bad luck didn’t win anything. While someone else donated 80 dollars and walked away with 6 gorgeous signed hardcover books. (I sent the thousand dollar donor something out of my personal stash anyway because I felt bad about their crummy luck.)
My advice is to assume you didn’t win, then be pleasantly surprised if something shows up on your doorstep.
How many of the books have you mailed out?
Somewhere between half and a third. We package everything carefully. Plus we had a lot of books this year, so it’s taking a long time.
Here’s the most important thing. Don’t e-mail us asking if you’ve won something. It slows down our shipping and makes my assistants cry. And while it’s true that I occationally enjoy the sound of my employees weeping softly to themselves in low, despondent tones. It’s one of those pleasures I prefer to enjoy in moderation, lest I develop a tendancy to laugh maniacally while gently petting a fluffy white cat.
Okay. First and foremost, I have a couple of readings/signings/Q&A things coming up in these next couple weeks.
One of them is right here in Stevens Point at my local independent bookstore, Bookfinders. It’s on Friday, Feb 24th, at 7:00. I’ve also heard that one of the cool local coffee shops will be providing treats for the event. So even if you don’t care about hearing me read some of my newer stuff… y’know… treats.
The other event that’s rapidly approaching is in Virginia. Specifically, I’ll be in Blacksburg.
Here. Let’s just do it like this:
STEVENS POINT, WI February 24th at 6:30 PM
Reading and Signing at Bookfinders
1001 Brilowski
Stevens Point, WI 54481 Facebook Event
BLACKSBURG, VA February 29th at 7:00 PM
Reading, Q&A, and Signing
Virginia Bioinformatics Institute Conference Center
BLACKSBURG, VA 24061 Facebook Event
HIGH POINT, NC March 2-4, 2012
Literary Guest of Honor for StellarCon 36
Best Western High Point
135 South Main St
High Point, NC 27260 Facebook Event
I don’t get down into that corner of the world very often, so if you’re interested in seeing me and maybe getting a book signed, you should catch me when I’m in the area.
As always, you can get details about my upcoming appearances on the Tour Page. I’ll be updating it with this summer’s conventions pretty soon, too.
Lastly, for those of you who enjoy hearing me ramble about one thing and another, we have a couple interviews from a while back. I didn’t get a chance to post them when they happened because we were in the thick of Worldbuilders.
So the other day a friend forwarded me a link to the very first-ever film adaptation of the Hobbit.
It’s only about 10 minutes long, and worth your time. I’m embedding it here as an example of why I’m extremely leery of anyone ever making a movie out of The Name of the Wind.
Isn’t that an absolute trip? They added a princess to the story and everything.
Now it turns out there are good reasons for why this adaptation was bizarrely short and startlingly off-script. But rather than summarize them, I’ll just link over to a post where the guy that made the film explained why it turned out as it did. It’s actually a really interesting story.
After watching it on youtube, I saw a link and followed it over to watch the trailer for the Hobbit movie.
I won’t deny that I got a bit of a tingle watching it. But honestly, my response was half-tingle, half anticipatory dread.
A dread-tingle. Or dringle, if you prefer.
You see, the first video I posted up there was bad enough to be good in a funny train-wreck sort of way.
But the trailer makes me think that the Hobbit movie is going to be good enough that big pieces of it will make me want to vomit pure bile.
“But Pat,” I hear you say, “Why the concern? The Lord of the Rings Movies were good!”
Yeah. They were good movies. I won’t argue that. They were also moderately okay adaptation of the books.
And yes, I’m aware that referring to something as ‘moderately okay’ is the very definition of damming with faint praise.
Without going into it in any detail, (that would be a whole separate blog’s worth of post) my main problem with the Jackson adaptations is that they lose the subtlety of the original stories.
It’s like this: Tolkien’s books were full of subtle tension, drama, action, good characters, and a world of startling and immersive richness.
Jackson’s adaptations had some brilliant action scenes, great special effects, some pointless action scenes, drama, melodrama, a lot of panoramic cinematography, good casting, and an inexplicably Scottish dwarf with all the character depth of a Disney animal sidekick.
So I’ll say it again. Good movies. Ah hell. I’ll even admit that they were great movies just for that fight scene with the rock troll in Moria. But only moderately okay adaptations.
In the Hobbit trailer, I see the same thing happening. The Hobbit was a lighthearted story about a slightly bumbling average-Joe who goes off on an adventure and discovers hidden resources inside himself. (Spoiler alert.) It was fun. If the book came out today, it publishers would probably market it as YA.
While it had action and drama, it was not an action-packed Hollywood-style dramapalooza where Gandalf and Galadriel have emo makeouts.
I can tell in my bones that the movie is going to be chock full of scenes that were never in the original story. I’m not talking about a little extra dialogue here and there. I’m talking about completely invented cutaway scenes that stuff more action in, and subplots that were only barely alluded to in the book. My off-the-cuff prediction? At least 20 minutes worth.
It will be a good movie. Maybe even a great movie. But it will also be, at best, a moderately okay adaptation of the subtle, sweet book that I grew up loving.
You know that it’s going to be like? It’s going to be like wandering onto an internet porn site and seeing a video of a girl I had a crush on in high school. You probably knew someone like her. The smart girl. The shy girl. The one who wore glasses and was a little socially awkward. The one who screwed up the curve in chemistry so you got an A- instead of an A.
She was a geek girl before anybody knew what a geek girl was. And that was kinda awesome, because you were a geek boy before being a geek was culturally acceptable.
You liked her because she was funny. And she was smart. And you could actually talk to her. And she read books.
And sure, she was girl-shaped, and that was cool. And she was cute, in an understated, freckly way. And sometimes you’d stare at her breasts when you were supposed to be paying attention in biology. But you were 16. You stared at everyone’s breasts back then.
And yeah, you had some fantasies about her, because, again, you were 16. But they were fairly modest fantasies about making out in the back of a car. Maybe you’d get to second base. Maybe you could steal third if you were lucky.
And maybe, just maybe, something delightful and terrifying might happen. And yeah, it would probably be awkward and fumbling at times, but that’s okay because she’d be doing half the fumbling too. Because the only experience either one of you had was from books. And afterwards, if you make a Star Wars joke, you know she’ll get it, and she’ll laugh….
That’s the girl you fell in love with in high school. You didn’t have a crush on her because she was some simmering pool of molten sex. You loved her because she was subtle and sweet and smart and special.
So you stroll onto this porn site, and there she is. Except now she’s wearing a thong and a black leather halter top. She’s wearing fuck-me red lipstick and a lot of dark eye makeup. Her breasts are amazing now, proud and perfectly round.
Someone’s taught her to dance, and she does it well. She’s flexible and tan. She has a flat midriff and walks like a high-class Vegas stripper. Her eyes are dark and smouldering. She has a riding crop, and she likes to be tied up, and her too-red mouth forms a perfect circle as she sighs and moans, and tosses her head in a performance designed to win any number of academy awards….
And what’s the problem with this? Well… in some ways, nothing. What you’ve found is perfectly good porn. Maybe even great porn.
But in other ways the problem is blindingly obvious. This girl has nothing in common with your high-school crush except for her social security number. Everything you loved about her is gone.
We loved the sweet, shy, freckly girl. We still remember her name, and after all these years she lives close to our heart. Seeing her in lipstick and stiletto heels dancing on a pole is like watching Winnie the Pooh do heroin and then glass someone in a bar fight.
It just isn’t something that I look forward to seeing….
And that’s how I’m going to feel when I watch the Hobbit.
I’ll be one part entertained, two parts nostalgic, two parts irritated, three parts outraged, and one part oddly titillated.
And I’ll watch it, and I’ll enjoy it, and afterwards I’ll go home and feel more than slightly sad….
Suvudu Cage Match….
Two years ago, Suvudu hosted a sci-fi fantasy cage match, where they pitted fictional characters against each other in a tournament style series of one-on-one fights.
It was a cool concept, and it led to interesting match ups like Cthulhu vs Lyra. Cthulhu being an omnipotent elder god from the outer darkness, and Lyra being a plucky 13 year-old girl from Oxford.
Simply said, good times were had.
Kvothe was one of the characters they chose that first year, which was flattering, as back then I only had the one book out, and I was very new to the scene.
Even more surprising was the fact that Kvothe won his first match. Then his second. He made it all the way to the semi-finals after beating Dumbledore, Garret Jax, and Aslan.
Y’know. Now that I’m thinking of it, I’m going to retroactively award myself an achievement for that. Because it was awesome.
Even better, they invited the authors to submit their own write-ups, so WE could describe how we thought the fights would go.
I did a write up for Kvothe vs. Aslan, then later did another for Kvothe vs. Jamie. It was the most fun I’d had writing in a long time. At that point in my life, trapped under the crushing weight of book two, it reminded me that writing could actually be fun….
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Fast forward to today. Suvudu is running another tournament, and this time Bast is one of the players….
The Suvudu Cage Matches have been going for a couple weeks. I’ve been meaning to mention them here on the blog for a while, but I’ve been busier than usual lately, so I’m only now getting around to it.
Bast’s first opponent was Seregil, from Lynn Flewelling’s Nightrunner series.
I read the first two books of Lynn’s series and liked them. But in addition to being busy, I really wasn’t able to come up with a good idea for a scene between the two of them. I briefly entertained the thought of writing it up as a kissing contest between Bast and Seregil, but that seemed kind of… inappropriate.
Lynn, of course, is a better person than me, and did a delightfully playful write-up of the bout between them that you can see over on Suvudu’s site. It was a good scene, and I expected her to win because of it. But Bast squeaked by….
Bast’s second fight was against Richard Rahl. And again, I found myself at a loss for an idea for a scene. My only idea there was something involving bondage. And since I’m still fuzzy on the parody-as-fair-use laws, I decided to focus on a few interviews I was late on and the questions in my translator questions instead. Luckily, Bast won through that one without my help, too.
Now it’s the third week, and Bast is going head to head with Anomander Rake from Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen series.
I feel like a bit of a slacker by this point, like I should really do a write up for this one.
So here goes….
“So, Rake,” Bast said. “At last we meet again for the first time.”
“Indeed,” said Anomander Rake, tossing his flowing white hair over his shoulder.
Bast looked over his opponent calmly. “I’ve heard tell that you are old as ages.”
Rake nodded, his face giving nothing away.
“I’ve also heard that you are well versed in the arcane arts, you have a floating fortress, and that you..” Bast snuck a quick look at a piece of paper he held cupped in the palm of his hand, “…can turn into a dragon.” Bast looked up, his expression a little disgusted. “Seriously? You can turn into a dragon, too?”
Rake had the decency to look slightly abashed, if only very slightly. “Yeah,” he said. “All that and a bag of chips, too.”
“And you’re also nigh-invulnerable,” Bast said.
“That’s The Tick, actually,” Rake said grudgingly. “But yeah. I’m pretty much nigh.”
Bast nodded at this, seemingly unsurprised. “I see,” he said gravely. Taking a deep breath, he looked up, meeting the tall man’s eyes. “All that aside, do you seriously think you can eat more pie than me?”
Okay. I’ll admit it. I haven’t read Erikson’s series. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it, and it’s on my list. It’s even a complete series, which is a huge selling point in my opinion. (*ahem*) But it’s also ten books long. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Given that I don’t know anything about Rake (And I don’t care to, thank you very much. So no spoilers, please.) I’m going to have pass on writing a full scene for this match too.
Right now, Bast is taking a bit of a drubbing, and perhaps rightly so. If he loses this round, I’ll still be proud he made it this far.
But I’ll also be a little sad. Because if Bast wins this round against Rake, and Zaphod Beeblebrox wins his match against Saphira…
…then the next round would be Bast vs. Zaphod.
So I’m not saying anyone *should* go and vote. I’m just saying that if the Bast vs. Zaphod match ends up happening, I would write the hell out of that scene.
That’s all I’m saying.
pat