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Of course, I’m late in my write-up of this.  The past few days have been used to decompress and let my poor feet recover from their ordeal.

My very first DragonCon has come and gone and I must say, I had a lot of fun with it.  I’m never quite sure how Cons are supposed to go and, believe it or not, I’m always vaguely intimidated going into one.  Fortunately, my groove was located pretty quickly and I will not require a film demonstrating how I got it back.

I spent the vast majority of my time at the Pyr Booth, a handy little coffin big enough to fit several large men, decorated with our books and covers.  I’m sure Lou Anders will have some pictures of it that I conveniently forgot to take (more on that a bit later).  We came stocking dozens of books of our finest titles and representation of those titles from authors like Jon Sprunk, Clay and Susie Griffith and James Enge were all in attendance.  Also stocked were fifty (50), FIFTY (50!) copies of Tome of the Undergates.

…and we sold them all.

Yes, I could not be more pleased.  Absolutely every copy that came to DragonCon was sold by early Sunday morning, save for two (one of which went to my mom and one of went which to Wes Swingley of Sci-Fi Adventures), and 95% of them went out signed.  It seems a little self-deprecating to say I was amazed how popular the book was (of course it’s popular!  I wrote it, didn’t I?), but I truly was agog at how swiftly they flew off the shelf.  It’s a great and ominous thing to see the bare space where your book once was and know a bunch of people are walking around with a copy and I hope to feel it many more times to come.

I wasn’t on many panels…or really more than just one…but it was a blast to be on the Fightin’ and Writin’ panel.  It’s always a joy to be met with people who are curious about writing in general, and those who are interested in fighting, bloodshed and violence (not that I’d know anything about any of that) are even better!  I’m pleased to say that the audience was fantastic and eager with their questions.

So, anyway…what’s that?  You don’t care about my write-up?  You just want to see costumes?!  The nerve!  I was just about to write a thesis on communal spirit amongst nerds!  BUT I GUESS YOU JUST WANT TO SEE SOME SCANTILY-CLAD WOMEN!

…yeah, of course I’ve got those.

Not a girl, but come on…AXECOP!

Not even in costume, but I wanted to post this, anyway.  These were, by far, my favorite people at the Con.  A very lovely couple who came over and bought a copy of TOME (as well as several other books, bless them) and frequently came back to see how I was doing.  Much love to you both <3

Oh my goodness how did that get in there is that really fifty my gosh well isn’t that the darnedest thing goodness gracious oh my that’s certainly a lot of books

Go read this.

That might have irritated you something fierce.  If it did, you’re not at all alone, since this got posted shortly after as a means of clarification.  There are posts like this all over the place, exhibitions of this very curious tendency of bloggers and critics to go into “Highlander” mode and believe there can be only one form of fiction and only one type of author.  I suspect this isn’t even the first time this particular argument has been tossed about.  I suspect there are quite a few “literary snobs” sitting around and commenting on the status of The Black Prism as it compares to Jane Austen.  I suspect right now, there’s some fantasy writer agonizing over how his book is going to provide commentary on the world that desperately needs to be heard.

But we’re not going to talk about those guys.  We’re not going to talk about the Speculative Scotsman’s posts.  We’re not going to discuss the state of the genre as it compares to mainstream literary fiction.

Why?

Because I seriously don’t give a shit.

And why don’t I give a shit…seriously?

Because this does not matter in the slightest.

This particular topic has been hashed and rehashed to death and every time I read it, I can’t help but think I’ve walked in on a conversation toward the end, when people have set aside their wine glasses and begin rolling up their sleeves.  I always think I’ve missed something, because I sincerely can’t figure out why we’re discussing this in the first place.

One of my favorite reads of last year was The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, a story about an Indian cab driver and his reaction to the world’s attempts to destroy his dignity.  I loved this book a lot and so did a lot of people.  Enough that it won the Booker Award.  I can’t say it didn’t deserve it; it was a fantastic read and a great insight into a world I’ve never seen.

One of my favorite reads of all time is The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, a story about a lying asshole who quests first for riches, then for revenge in a world that he understands all too well.  I loved this book and so did a lot of people.  Enough that it’s one of the first books that comes to mind when people think of “great fantasy.”  I can’t say it didn’t deserve it; it’s a fantastic read and a great insight into a mind I’ve never seen.

They are two fantastic books.

I love them both.

To date, I have never asked myself “who would win in a fight between Aravind Adiga and Scott Lynch?”

Because there’s just no comparing the two.

“Yes, of course,” you might say, “there is no comparison, because one’s meant as a serious commentary and the other is intended for pure entertainment.”

“Or,” you other guys might say, upon reading that first ‘you’s’ comment, “there is no comparison, because one is a masterful insight into character in a glorious world and the other is stodgy mainstream.”

That’s not what I mean and I suspect you know that.

The White Tiger is no more stodgy mainstream for snobs than The Lies of Locke Lamora is pure entertainment.  I don’t compare the two because they’re completely different beasts and I get completely different things out of them.  They’re both entertaining, of course, and both well-written, but while I gather insight of one kind from one kind, I gather insight from another from the other.  At no point did it ever occur to me, when reading (or re-reading) either, to compare the two.

And this, I feel, is a good place to be in.  I can accept both books on their own merits, enjoy both their qualities for what they are.

Why can’t the rest of us?

If you’re at all familiar with this blog, you know I think the sheer amount of unfair comparisons in the genre is damaging to us all.  Comparing one author to another when they’ve little in common with each other diminishes the value of both’s contributions.  Applied to literature as a whole, it’s damaging to everything.  Suddenly, the expectations twist violently from expecting a good book to expecting something from a book that the book will never be.  Suddenly, the unfair criticism is no longer “this author isn’t George R.R. Martin,” so much as it is “this book isn’t Pride and Prejudice! I’ve been tricked!”

You can, in fact, enjoy both on their own merits.  The comparisons are silly.

It’s ridiculous.

It’s unnecessary.

I want to punch you all in the face.

Love,

Sam Sykes xoxoxo

Yes, it is the LAST day to enter the GREAT AMERICAN ARC GIVEAWAY FOR TOME OF THE UNDERGATES.

If you wanted a copy but just can’t wait until September, you must email me right the hell now and tell me ONE good reason why you deserve an ARC and also if all these constant font changes are annoying.

All entries go out to our CELEBRITY JUDGES tomorrow and they will choose those what who done get an ARC!

Also, remember this is for the Americans, only, since those UK folk got, like, eighty different giveaways.

What are you waiting for?  GET EXCITED.

YAAAAAAAAY.

So, Graeme Flory may have miserably failed us and brought great shame to his sheep-herding ancestors, but fortunately for us, the world is filled with many people who are not such incredible disappointments to country and kinsman.

Of course, I speak of THE BRAVEST CHALLENGE’S first victors!

Louis from LEC Book Reviews has completed the great challenge by reading David Bilsborough’s The Wanderer’s Tale, a return to Tolkien-style epic fantasy.  His thoughts?

In the end, as much as I might want to recommend The Wanderer’s Tale to even a slim, defined portion of the fantasy readership, but I find myself unable to. What David Bilsborough set out to do might have been admirable if he hadn’t done such a botched job of it. The results of his labor is a thick book that reads slowly, boringly and without much else. If you do somehow slug your way through this novel and for some reason enjoy it (and I can’t think of any reasons why you would) then the second volume in The Annals of Lindormyn, A Fire in the North, is available. I personally don’t have the heart to even go see if things improve in this sequel but well on you to do so.

Oh dear.  Well, poor fellow.  Louis did ask me what exactly I made of his findings and, to be honest, I’m quite pleased.  We’re not here to forsake, ridicule or lambast authors.  There are a few people out there who quite like Bilsborough.  Rather, we’re here to both move out of our comfort zones and to take a look at what might be great books with bad reputations.  I have great faith that we’ll see something like that in the coming weeks.

You can read Louis’ entire review here.

Next up, we have E.M. Edwards, talented writer (you can read some of his very cool excerpts here), who took on a challenge that was a little personal to more than one person: my very own Tome of the Undergates. Edwards prefaced this challenge by saying that, from everything he’s heard, he didn’t think it was going to be his sort of book.  He devoured it in a week, however, and had this to say (as taken from Twitter):

In the end it wasn’t the book for me, but I want to be fair where fair is due.  I think you’ve [Sykes] got great energy as a writer and that it was a character driven book, despite all the action.  But I’m glad I read it, and I wish you nothing but continued success as an author.

And I’m quite pleased with this result, as well.  I’ve been accused of being unconventional, as well as a deviant and bohemian before, and I’m always pleased to see peoples’ honest reactions to Tome. Sometimes they’re good (speaking of, did you see Ole Imsen’s excellent review of Tome here?  Or Specusphere’s positive review here?) and sometimes we get people who find that my style just doesn’t work for them.

All in all, the Bravest Challenge is a learning experience for us all: challenged, challenger and Steve from down the street.  Edwards does have a vested interest in supporting my beard so maybe Black Halo will be more for him!

And with the challenge completed, I am pleased to award The Raging Rothfuss to you both.

Congratulations!

As an aside, I have updated the Links section of the website to include a few more bloggers, a few charities and organizations I support and, most importantly, webcomics I follow.  If you’re a blogger that might like their work put up (and it helps if you’ve reviewed Tome), please let me know!  Also, man, that list of webcomics is pretty skimpy.  You better introduce me to some better ones.

Quick bit: only one week left until we choose the winners of the ARC Giveaway Contest.  Submit now.  SUBMIT OR BE DESTROYED.

Anyway, how many of y’all remember Dragonlance?  Saladin Ahmed, my fellow SFWA Author (did I not mention I joined SFWA?  Well, I’ll tell you all about it when you’re older), does.  As he brought up this point (which I will now horribly paraphrase because I am not going to sift through Facebook posts just for YOU, Ahmed) in a recent Facebook post:

It’s not “cool” to like Dragonlance anymore.

For those of you who are unaware, Dragonlance is one of the many series that fall under that auspicious genre of “Tie-In Fiction”: fiction where the commonality between books is the world and the mythos, not the author or characters, usually based on table-top or pen-and-paper games.  Dragonlance was one of these, and along with stuff like Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun, it formed the introduction of a lot of young men and women into fantasy literature.

And it was awesome.

But Saladin is pretty much right.  For those of you who are aspiring authors out there: you are not allowed to enjoy Dragonlance, or any tie-in fiction, once you become published.  That was something you did when you were younger, like thinking spinach was gross and watching scrambled pornography.  Now you’re a big man and you will read ADULT FICTION ABOUT MAGICIANS AND THE WOMEN WHO LOVE THEM.

Actually, what’s far more likely is that you’re probably going to become startlingly aware of the mechanics of tie-in fiction.  You’ll have seen where the magician keeps his rabbit, so to speak, and suddenly it’s just an old pedophile in a fancy suit on stage.

There are a number of grievances against tie-in fiction: it’s cheap, it’s not original, it’s “kiddie,” it’s for dorks who aren’t serious about their fantasy, whatever.  Amongst all of these complaints, the only one I see as truly valid is the one that also ruined a lot of tie-in fiction for me: it’s limited by the world.

The characters and the author become slaves to the worldbuilding: they can affect it, but only so far as it can pertain to the world.  A king can be unseated, but only temporarily.  The Unspeakable Darkness was defeated, but only in a little part of the world (and there’s an even more Unspeakable Darkness two books down the line).  Things can change, but only as long as the source material allows.

It’s the same reason MMOs are generally not as satisfying as single-player games.  Sure, you’ve defeated the Forces of Evil with your Ragtag Band of Heroes and you’ve Saved The World From A Thousand Years of Darkness, but so has that other guild (and their shaman doesn’t stand in the void zone, you big stupid).  In a single-player game, once the evil is dead, it’s dead and you killed it.  In a non-tie-in fiction book, the impact is felt a little stronger because you know there’s not going to be an external source that contradicts what happened.  Ned Stark is not coming back.

But there are merits of tie-in fiction (when they’ve been given good authors) and that’s because there’s a subtle, silent advantage in having “the world” not matter very much: in such a case, characters matter so much more.  And this is pretty much the difference between good tie-in fiction and bad tie-in fiction: you come for the characters, not the world or its complex political systems or its oh-so-awesome magic weaving.

And this is basically my point (you didn’t think I had one, did you?  Shows what you know!).  It seems that we occasionally skirt a line that suggests characters don’t matter as much as a unique gimmick or angle on fantasy does, be it a magic system, worldbuilding or mythos.  These are important, sure, but as ever, they don’t matter if they don’t affect the characters.

In my impetuous youth of six months ago, I considered “nice worldbuilding” to be a backhanded compliment, the equivalent of saying “she’s got a great personality” about a book: it’s unspecific, unimportant and sort of sends the conflict and characters to the backseat.  Granted, I’ve wisened up some and realize that sometimes the worldbuilding is just pretty awesome in a book and it deserves recognition.  After all, characters need to affect the world, but if there’s no world to affect, it’s kind of pointless to be writing in fantasy.  No one wants to hear about how Raygar the Mighty experienced a personal epiphany while filing his taxes in That City That Is Totally Not New York Because We Gave it a Different Name.

But when reading reviews, I’ll occasionally see someone rave about the unique magic system, the complex socio-political structure of a race that never actually does anything, the haunting lyricism of a created language that was once used to write a poem about things that are no longer happening and have no relevance to the plot.  This is great and all, but what’s the point?  If it doesn’t affect the characters, why do we need to know about it?  We don’t and it’s kind of unfair to show us all this awesome lore and backstory and then tell us it’s never going to be used in the book in a meaningful way.  Worldbuilding without characters is a fancy playground behind an electric fence: it looks awesome, but you can’t do much more than look.

And this is what we have to learn from tie-in fiction.  We should not look at it as kiddie or lame or unoriginal, but rather we should use it as a study as to how to make complex worlds apply to the characters.  We should see why we care about Enus the Wise if his magic is the same as everyone else’s magic.  We should see what makes Boris the Barbarian worth more than his axe.  We should see what makes these characters, insignificant and limited, work in a world that continues to move regardless of their deed.

If that doesn’t convince you: a tie-in fiction author won the David Gemmel Legend Award.  So…you know…

Est sularus oth mithas, bitches.