My Fungal Weapons Versus Your Dragon: Fantasy Mortal Combat
Jeff VanderMeer • July 9th, 2011 @ 9:00 am • Uncategorized
So I’m bored today. So I’m gonna ask you a question. If any fantasy/SF authors got in a battle against one another and they had to fight through proxies like weapons, allies, etc, and were able to summon up anything weapon-y from their novels, including beasties as allies, to use in that conflict…what match-ups would you find interesting, and whose weapons would help them win?
Personally, I’d like to see Pern dragons versus GRRM dragons, sand worms versus Smaug, space squid versus…something.
If everybody mentions just male authors, I’m gonna send my fungal weapons after you. And they burn.
July 9, 2011 at 9:49 am
KJ Bishop’s decadent duelists versus The Three Musketeers. (Was Dumas SF/F? If not, let’s go with The Lovers from Mieville’s The Scar.)
July 9, 2011 at 9:50 am
Fine, fine. I would like to see a battle between the Care Bears, with their dreaded Care Bear Stare, versus Edward Cullen’s sparkly emo vampirism.
July 9, 2011 at 4:23 pm
I’d love to see a battle between the Shrike from Hyperion by Dan Simmons and Tolkien’s Ents. Chop… chop… chop…
I’d also like to see a well trained unit of policemen with fungal guns storm Hogwarts defended by baby wizards with their puny wands.
July 9, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Severian/Terminus Est vs. Eddard Stark/Ice in a head chopping contest.
July 9, 2011 at 7:17 pm
I would very much enjoy sipping chilled Pernod while nibbling upon a bag of candied locusts, and stood witness as Christine the Magician (of Cisco’s “The Golem”) and the Lady Casimira (from the venereal city in Cathernine Valente’s “Palimpsest”) match wits and talents for control of tomorrow’s stories!
July 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
Larry wins. I was going to come up with something involving Okorafor’s sprit-land beasties but he done did Pratchett’ed the thread.
July 10, 2011 at 9:47 am
Alice vs. Dorothy
July 10, 2011 at 11:01 am
Elric of Melniborne vs. Harry Potter
Conan vs. Mieville’s slake moths
Gollum vs. Veniss Underground’s Meerkats
Cthulhu vs. The Shrike
July 10, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Hercules vs Aslan (let’s see if the best is fiercer than the Nemean lion)
July 10, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Elric of Melniboné v. Anamander Rake?
Soul-stealing sword showdown! By, er, immortal elves.
July 12, 2011 at 9:09 am
Maureen McHugh vs. Jeff Vandermeer. Zhang Zhongshan works quietly as a welder and handyman in occupied Ambergris. Meanwhile, the gray caps have no idea he exists, and if they did, they wouldn’t care.
July 12, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Mr Moles–ahahaha! Excellent.
July 14, 2011 at 10:01 am
Lovecraft vs Barker – I predict a pyrrhic victory for Lovecraft…
Steerpike vs the Phantom of the Opera – manipulative bastards, no matter who wins, you’ll be happy
Mary Shelley vs Robert Louis Stevenson vs HG Wells (limited to Moreau) – 19th century mad science battle royal!
Lina Inverse vs Elric of Melnibone (note: Lina was a novel character before the anime)
Dirty Pair vs The Stainless Steel Rat (DP were also originally novel characters before their anime)
Randolf Carter vs John Carter – just on principle
Buffy vs Cullen – please? pretty please?
Alucard (Hellsing manga version) vs Cullen – cherries on top?
Harry Dresden vs Anita Blake – monster fighters on an ever-increasing power arc… dresden wins because he only thinks with his gonads on occasion.