As I've mention before, one of the oddest moments a writer has is when real life imitates your fiction.
This one isn't as weird as it is eerie. When I published Shockball, the fourth novel in the StarDoc series, my decidedly grim vision of future pro sports made quite a few diehard enthusiasts angry. No way, I was repeatedly told, could a game as vicious and brutal as shockball ever become a reality (and for the record, I certainly hoped it never would.)
Guess what?
Yeah. Well. Looks like I may have to rethink the whole psychic thing (and my thanks to Jessica of Chevres Chéveres for the heads up and sending me the Tazer ball link.)
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Oh yeah. You gotta rethink that whole psychic thing. :)
ReplyDeleteWhoa! I have to say if thats the future of sports I don't want anything to do with it.
ReplyDeleteI would like to say "men!" but I guess you'll even find women involved in this stupidity.
I spent last weekend reading the Hunger Games trilogy following the recommendations I read here and I thought we were above such barbarity but apparently not. Its only a short step from the future of sports and the Hunger Games. When will we ever learn?
Lynn... lotto numbers. I'm telling you.
ReplyDeletejust send me 5 or 6. If I win, I'll share.
Oh...that's just a creepy coincidence. Truthfully, I could always see a game like shockball in the future. Survivor. And while bored one day I was looking through channels and saw MTV's freakish line up of Challenge Games.
ReplyDeleteHeh. Curse Clarke and his Three Laws, really.
ReplyDeleteThe trick to writing compelling sci-fi (or spec-fi as the case may be...)
It's having an accurate grasp on the future and seeing trends converge down a timeline.
Sports like Shockball are inevitable. The UFC, for instance, is merely a watered down version of the legendary Rio street fights, and such brutal sports have always existed in ghettos. Look at van Damme's early work, f'instance.
Richard K. Morgan's Market Forces is a bleak look at the inevitabilites of the 21st century.
Gender exclusivity is a distinction that is made less and less nowadays.
Male pro athletes tweak a knee and they take 2 months or more off. Pathetic really.
Dancers, whether male or female... They don't quit. Neither do the dispossessed or the working class.
For the former, a career is so short that there is little margin for error. As for the latter, ask them if they have a choice.
I so despise this century.
Still and all, William Gibson said it best and I paraphrase here as Maelcum would phrase it: "Future, it ain' all here, mon, it errywhere and nowheres."
Have a good day.
Wow. Just wow.
ReplyDeleteAre you sure one of them didn't read your book and just decide that it sounded like a cool new hobby? Not that I doubt your powers of prediction in good scifi, but imitation IS the sincerest form of flattery. ^_^
ReplyDeletewow
ReplyDeletereese
I knew something like this was coming. lol. When I was an airman training in the Army combatives program, the second level of training was one of the worst, imho. (The third level was more advanced, extremely difficult, but you were preparing to become an instructor, so it had welcome breaks).
ReplyDeleteYou were struck daily, and repeatedly by the instructors during your 8+ hour sessions. Most to deaden you to attack in the field (for which I'll always be grateful that one time!!!), and to get you ready for the next part...
Going one on one with men and women...a few of which would have tasers dropped in their pockets. When you fought, you had to be ready for a weapon, just in case. It kept you on your toes (which is good for close fighting/hand to hand...again, thanks to this training, I'm alive), but that taser bit, and deadened the immediate muscles.