The people over at http://www.unboundworlds.com run an interesting competition each year. Just as the NCAA basketball tournament is wrapping up so to are the matchups between fantasy and sci-fi heavy weights. They pick iconic characters from various books and pit them against one another in a bracket style tournament until only one remains.
How did this all start? Well, from the words of the founders themselves-
A long time ago, on an internet far, far away, there was a website called Suvudu, which had been founded by some editors at Del Rey as a place to nerd out about sci-fi and fantasy. In the barely remembered year 2010, those editors decided it’d be a real kick to pit their favorite SF/F characters against each other in a fight to the death, and it’d be even MORE of a kick if they brought in some authors to write short scenes illustrating how they thought those fights might play out. And on top of that, they invited users to come vote on the outcome of those fights. And apparently you all liked it, because we’re still doing it seven years later.
They generally try to use different characters every year and it always leads to some interesting pairings. This year there was one head to head battle that caught my eye more than any other and the write up is absolutely fantastic. Which one is it?
For me the highlight of this years tournament was the matchup between Tom Bombadil (from Lord of the Rings) vs Devi (from Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Chronicles). The winner is determined by fan voting but the site will actually get different authors to weigh in on how the hypothetical duel might play out. For this particular match they were able to get Patrick Rothfuss himself to write just how this scenario might unfold.
I wont spoil it for you, but if you are a fan of either Lord of the Rings or Kingkiller Chronicles then I would consider this an almost must read. You can read it HERE and I would love for anyone that actually does to leave a comment telling me what they thought of it.
