“I’m a member of the Screen Actors Guild, a Kung-Fu Master, and a former vice president at a bank,” Time Siege and The Lives of Tao author Wesley Chu introduced himself in his recent Reddit AMA on r/books. “I summited Kilimanjaro last year and now have a 3 month old baby who thinks sleep is for the weak, so I’m a little delirious from not having more than four hours of sleep at a time in over three months.” Perhaps that deliriousness is what provided him with the perfect answer for one Redditor’s question, about which fictional character he would put up against one of his own in battle.
Chu gave this a lot of thought.
It’s no surprise that he would pick Roen Tan, the out-of-shape IT geek who gets possessed by the alien Tao, forcing him to train as a secret agent in order to save humanity from possible extinction by Tao’s race, the Quasing. (The folks behind Agent Carter recently optioned The Lives of Tao!) But who would be a worthy opponent? How about the Wheel of Time’s Dragon Reborn? Here’s a fun bit of fanfiction for you:
redhelldiver: Hey, Wesley! Thanks for doing this AMA. Congratulations on the new little sleep stealer in your family.
Speaking of kung-fu masters, if you could take a character from any other book to battle one of yours, who would it be, and who would win?
Chu: Hmm. Okay, let’s set some ground rules. No magic, no future tech, no guns. Sword and board are okay. Cool?
In that case, I want Roen Tan to fight Rand Al’Thor from Robert Jordan’s excellent Wheel of Time. Rand got a hand cut off but so we’ll let him use a sword. Roen isn’t allowed a weapon because we are a civilized folk and demand relatively fair odds.
Here’s my beef with Rand. He earned a Heron-marked sword something like 3 months into the story. That’s like earning a PHD in organic chemistry after taking Bio 101. It’s not just done, so step up One-Hand Al-Thor! Show me what you got! Prove yourself worthy.
Okay, I obviously put a lot of thought into this.
redhelldiver: This is awesome. This is so awesome, I almost regret asking because now where can I read this battle? Should you find yourself holding your young padawan late one night, awake and unable to move for fear of waking the child, please remember that thanks to technology, you can type a whole story one handed now!
