Equally inspired by a conversation with Cat McDonald about which equine from the Equus anthology I thought could beat up all the other equines, and Hal Friesen‘s character Death Match events from a couple years ago, I present to you:

Fourteen Equus contributors have agreed to pit the equine from their story against the equines from all the other stories and fight it out until only one remains standing!

Dun dun dun!

This is going to be a whole lot of fun 🙂

Here is what the tournament looks like:

(Thank you PrintYourBrackets.com!)

Since those titles are abbreviated allow me to elaborate–the competitors are:

• Lightless by K.T. Ivanrest
• Rue the Day by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
• To Ride a Steel Horse by Stephanie A. Cain
• Neither Snow, nor Rain, nor Heat-Ray by M.L.D Curelas
• Stars, Wings, and Knitting Things by J.G. Formato
• Eel and Bloom by Diana Hurlburt
• Above the Silver Sky by Daniel Koboldt
• The Boys from Witless Bay by Pat Flewwelling
• Different by Sandra Wickham
• Riders in the Sky by VF LeSann
• A Glory of Unicorns by Jane Yolen
• The Last Ride of Hettie Richter by Cat McDonald
• A Mother Unicorn’s Advice to Her Daughter by J.J. Roth
• A Complete Mare by Tamsin Showbrook

The battle begins on May 2nd when I will post the character stats for the first two competitors and we will open up voting. Because guess what? You get to help choose the winner. You’ll be able to vote by leaving a comment on the blog post.

We didn’t want this to just turn into a straight-up popularity contest though, so our competitors won’t just be sitting quietly and watching votes come in, they will also be stealing those votes.

Each Tuesday I’ll post that week’s competitors. Then on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday each of the competitors will roll a d20 (that’s a twenty-sided die for those of you who don’t speak that particular geek dialect) either in 3 dimensions or using Roll Dice Online. They will then steal that number of votes from their opponent and add it to their own total.

I will update those totals as a comment on the blog post as well as on social media.

Votes will close each Sunday at midnight MST, and the winner of that round will be announced the next day (Monday). Just in time for the next set of opponents to be announced on Tuesday.

If all goes well, and I counted correctly, the victor should be crowned the week before Equus comes out 🙂

Combat Schedule

May 2nd

To Ride a Steel Horse vs. Different

Rue the Day vs. Eel and Bloom

May 9th

A Glory of Unicorns vs. Neither Snow, nor Rain, nor Heat-Ray

Lightless vs. The Boys from Witless Bay

May 16th

Stars, Wings, and Knitting Things vs. Riders in the Sky

Above the Silver Sky vs. The Last Ride of Hettie Richter