I know that people like to bag on Zelazny’s Merlin chronicles because Merlin was kind of a doof, but I admit that much of my enjoyment of them was as the story of a supernerd recounting the adventures of his much more socially astute best friend (Luke was great).
Luke is the reason that I never bought into the traditional tech nerd hatred of sales. How’s that for random? (Yes, that invites a pun response)
Prior to that, my main fictional touchpoint was probably either The Music Man, or that Great Brain story about horse trading. The narrative was that sales was a con - the guy selling something was pulling something over on the customer.
Luke was this guy who entered every situation looking to find a way for everyone to come out of it a winner. That was such a radically different notion to young me that I didn’t even notice it slip under my radar and into my brain as something aspirational.
Note, it’s not like I went into sales as a result of it or anything. And, obviously, I’m still looking for cons everywhere. But being open to that *idea* of salesmanship made it possible for me to recognize it when I encountered it in real life rather than dismissing it all.
