A Man In Search of Trails

Maybe you couldn’t tell from my constant tweets about sex scenes and the numerous, vulgarity-strewn fight scenes in my books, but I’m a guy who puts a high priority on fun.

I have a number of philosophical reasons for this.  Chief among which is that I believe that people absorb meaning much more effectively on a subconscious level, so I think it’s better to let the moral of a story be deduced and interpreted rather than hamfistedly shoved down a throat.  Another important reason is that I believe we engage through entertainment and it’s become a primary means of explanation.  Also, I think fart and poop jokes are extremely funny.  That’s another hugely important reason.

I believe it’s a beautiful thing to pursue things you find fun.  And I am at a fortunate place in my life where I can focus primarily on things that I find to be fun.

Hence, when the people at Paizo asked me to do a novel for their Pathfinder series, I was intrigued.

For those not in the know, Pathfinder is a tabletop RPG system that uses d20 rules to allow various people who shun the light of day to cluster together and weave out elaborate adventures full of monsters and magics and cheetohs atop tables.  The tops of tables.

If that were all I knew about the setting, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to do a book for them.

As fortune would have it, though, I happened to pick up a copy of Visions of War, by artist Wayne Reynolds, who did a lot of the artwork for the setting.  I’ve mentioned before that I don’t really have friends that could play a tabletop RPG with me, so I usually pick up books primarily for the art and something about Reynolds’ work struck a chord with me.  And being the visual creature that I was, I asked for more information.

So the good folk at Paizo sent me a few books, including a copy of their Inner Sea World Guide, the hefty tome into which the Pathfinder setting’s world and ecologies are written.

And I found myself voraciously devouring it.

Some cynical part of me, I think, expected to find a few instances of Not-Europe and, if I was lucky, maybe Not-Scandinavia and Not-Middle East, too.  I wasn’t prepared for what I found.

A country in perpetual revolution, seized by a grip of terror and the eternal falling of guillotines.  An empire controlled by infernal agents who work hand-in-hand with the monarchy to further it in a believable way.  Two warring countries of wizards who annihilated each other into undead bastions and spell-scarred oblivions.  Collapsing empires, savagely capitalist market-countries, icy lands alternately controlled by bizarre witches and giant frost wyrms, a jungle empire ruled by a Gorilla King.

A fucking Gorilla King, guys.

FUCKING SOLD.

Yeah, I was intrigued, basically.  I actually liked the idea of having a world all prepared for me to go mess around in, a place where I could create a story driven by a character that I could focus solely on.  While I’ve come to really enjoy worldbuilding, it’s characters that are my true talents.  And the Pathfinder setting has a lot of uncharted territory (I probably wouldn’t do a book in a setting that was so fleshed out that I couldn’t leave my own individual mark on it).

Some authors are hesitant to do tie-in fiction.  I guess that’s understandable.  I don’t really worry about it, though, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, this is a Sam Sykes novel.  It’s going to have everything you love about a Sam Sykes novel: humor, action, adventure, awkward romances, people filled with horrible emotional damage and relentless fun.  All that and maybe a Gorilla King, if I can swing it (a fucking Gorilla King, guys).

But I mentioned philosophy earlier, didn’t I?  That’s where the second reason comes in.

It’s 2015.  Comicons sprawl across the landscape.  Fandom organizes itself from varying tribes into tight battle-squares.  Books co-exist alongside all kinds of media: video games, comics, movies, etc.  We once (fallaciously, I think) believed that books would be competing with these other media.

I think books blend with them.

I feel the reader of today is becoming increasingly platform-agnostic.  People who read novels are also people who read comics are also people who play video games are also people who play tabletop RPGs.  Books aren’t on their way out, they’re strengthened by every form of media they come into contact with.  And I think it’s a very interesting opportunity to test this theory.

But above all else?  The main reason I’m doing this?

It looks fun.

I’m in a position to have the means of pursuing things I think are fun.  I might not always be in that position.  I’d rather not be in my old age, regretting the chance I could one day write about a Gorilla King.

A fucking Gorilla King, guys.

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