While the rest of us were memorizing "Thanatopis" for English, one of my high school buddies memorized this passage from "A Forest Battle," the second chapter of The Gods of Mars:
It was into the eyes of such as these and the terrible plant men that I gazed above the shoulder of my foe, and then, in a mighty wave of snarling, snapping, screaming, purring rage, they swept over me--and of all the sounds that assailed my ears as I went down beneath them, to me the most hideous was the horrid purring of the plant men.
Instantly a score of cruel fangs and keen talons were sunk into my flesh; cold, sucking lips fastened themselves upon my arteries. I struggled to free myself, and even though weighed down by these immense bodies, I succeeded in struggling to my feet, where, still grasping my long-sword, and shortening my grip upon it until I could use it as a dagger, I wrought such havoc among them that at one time I stood for an instant free.
What it has taken minutes to write occurred in but a few seconds, but during that time Tars Tarkas had seen my plight and had dropped from the lower branches, which he had reached with such infinite labour, and as I flung the last of my immediate antagonists from me the great Thark leaped to my side, and again we fought, back to back, as we had done a hundred times before.
Time and again the ferocious apes sprang in to close with us, and time and again we beat them back with our swords. The great tails of the plant men lashed with tremendous power about us as they charged from various directions or sprang with the agility of greyhounds above our heads; but every attack met a gleaming blade in sword hands that had been reputed for twenty years the best that Mars ever had known; for Tars Tarkas and John Carter were names that the fighting men of the world of warriors loved best to speak.
Check out the thews on those guys!
Anyway, I wonder who y'all think writes (or wrote, this inquiry extends across all of space and time) good fights.
I'm not talking about action in general, or thematic and character stuff like the real-time psychological impact of violence. I'm talking about blocking and verbs and clarity--does that make sense?
Who would be in the first round of inductees to the International Prose Fightmasters Hall of Fame, and which of their works would land them there? If you want to be super-specific, what passage would be inscribed on the plaque underneath their tasteful bronze statues?