Luis "Halfgrip" López

So, here’s one of the dorkiest thing I’ve ever done. But what the heck I am a geek—not even trying to hide it—and by the way, if you are reading my blog probably you are one too.

As you may well know I like fantasy books (what a surprise) and I recently discovered one of greatest recent authors of the genre, Peter V. Brett. I was going to write a post about his books but—as all the phrases that start with “I was going to” the only possible ending is—a racoon came in and ate it… Yeah, carbon footprinting is a bitch and I haven’t had a minute to write. That and my recent trip to Madrid (expect another post soon) had kept me busy, so I was forced—yet again—to abandon my poor ¡qué cotorro! Anyhoo here I am, so let’s get this post rolling.

I’ll get to my dorky action in a couple paragraphs; let me first compliment the chef of the Demon Cycle, definitely one my favourites and a must for everyone, fiction fan or not. Brett has 5 books planned for the cycle, of which the first two are out: The Painted Man (The Warded Man in the U.S.) and The Desert Spear (btw, El hombre marcado is now available also in Spanish). What I like about his books is that they are real… (wait! let me finish) The problems in them are real: human, crude, raw, dirty and that makes them believable. There’s cowardice, murder, rape, incest, courage, alcoholism and even hints of homosexuality. That makes his work a buffet of emotions. Not like the Mormon-Disneyland stories by Brandon Sanderson.

On the other hand, his characters are a bit simplistic. To my taste they are too pure; the hero is too much of a hero and does not have a dark side. The healer is a beautiful gal with no place in her heart for evil. The hero of the other culture is absolutely devoted to—in his own perception of—the greater good, much like a by-the-book dictator, nonetheless again he knows only one side of the force (his force). Most shocking of all is the next main character, and the reason to that-dorky-thing-I-did. His name is Rojer; his nickname, Halfgrip.

It turns out this halfgrip guy has my exact hand. If you know me personally, you know what I’m talking about; if not, keep reading. I was surprised of the coincidence—and a little flattered as well if I might add. So I decided Peat (as he calls himself) might want to see a real life version of his character’s hand and wrote him an e-mail (yep! that was my dorky mischief). To my surprise, he answered, and in very friendly way! Sometimes is hard to think of these creativity geniuses as normal down-to-earth people, thanks Peat!

Leaving aside all my privacy fears, here I post my letter to Peter, and leave you the link to his Peephole in my Skull where it was first posted and the inspirational reason of the current post. I also offered him some funny stories of what does it mean to live with a notorious difference, here’s the link to another of my posts, Oligodactilia (unfortunately this one’s currently only in Spanish, I’ll translate it one of these days).

Dear Peter,

My hand is like Rojer’s! Normally I don’t disturb my favorite authors with e-mails but I thought the similarity was too much of a coincidence to let it pass and maybe you’d be interested. I attach a couple of pictures of my right hand—missing its index and middle fingers—wondering if maybe that’s how you imagined Rojer’s (darn, I even have a scar on the same spot where Rojer’s fingers weredevoured!)

I do not play a fiddle but I do sometimes have that same felling that some instruments (e.g. scissors) become an extension of my arm, otherwise hindered if my hand was complete. The only difference is that I do not consider it a “crippled” hand.

If you are by now wondering, this lack of fingers was not due to some corelin attack ;-) or accident of any sort, it was a birth condition called Oligodactyly. If you look closely on the picture with my face, I’m covering my mouth with my left, where I’m missing my middle finger. Those scars were product of a surgery from when I was a baby supposedly to make the grip stronger but or course, I don’t remember any of this.

Going on with the coincidences, I have a trip planned to Paris on the exact same dates of Les Imaginales, I didn’t know it existed but I might find some time to drop by and who knows, maybe I’ll even bump into a copy of “L’Or de Brayan”.

Yours sincerely,

Luis “Halfgrip” López