It started with a tweet. Twitter user @maskofbun, whose display name is Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood, read a great book and plugged it to their followers.
Bigolas Dickolas followed up a few minutes later, emphasizing how vital it was that everyone go out and get this book right now:
I can verify that the book in question, This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, is really good. It’s about two rival agents, Blue and Red, who chase each other across time and space, leaving threats and love notes in a timey-wimey pas de deux. It’s a mind-bending science fiction romance on a vast scale, which somehow fits into a slim 200-ish pages. When it was published in 2019, it won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards for best novella. Bigolas has good taste in books.
What happened next is every author’s dream. Bigolas Dickolas’ tweet went viral, and This Is How You Lose the Time War suddenly rocketed to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list. In fact, the book occupied several slots on the list, since it’s sold in multiple formats.
Amal El-Mohtar, one of the two authors of the book, was floored by the book’s sudden resurgence in popularity.
At this point, you might be wondering who exactly this “Bigolas Dickolas” is. Are they a book blogger? A critic? A literary tastemaker? Well … kind of! @maskofbun is actually a fan account for the anime Trigun. The display name is a play on the name of Trigun‘s main character, Nicholas Wolfwood (although you can’t tell me there’s no Monty Python influence in there).
Now, in the wake of the cultural phenomenon that is Bigolas Dickolas’ endorsement of a science fiction novel, the bookstore Waterstones is playing with the idea of rolling out a sticker that says “As recommended by Bigolas Dickolas.”
Forget Oprah’s Book Club! Screw you, Pulitzers! Show me a writer who wouldn’t kill for a Bigolas Dickolas endorsement sticker on their book, and I’ll show you a writer who doesn’t know what literature is all about.
Of course, other bookstores aren’t waiting for an official sticker. They’ve already introduced a bookmark that says “As seen on Trigun account B.D. Wolfwood’s viral tweet.”
So there you have it. If you’ve been hearing the name “Bigolas Dickolas” in conjunction with This Is How You Lose the Time War and you couldn’t figure out what was going on, now you know!
And if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work on my book manuscript. I need to earn one of those sweet, sweet stickers.
(featured image: Saga Press)
