Galactic Games

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt (Editor), Robert Silverberg (Contributor), Mercedes Lackey (Contributor)

SCIENCE FICTION THAT TAKES HOME THE GOLD

The Olympic Games—pushing skills, minds, brains and bodies to their limits in the ultimate competition on Earth. Once mankind has reached the stars, playing sports will travel with us. Yet galactic sports come with new challenges and possibilities. And new dangers.

From downhill figure skating to horse racing with alien life forms; from baseball played with speedboats to basketball on Mars and golf on the Moon; from alien opponents to literally death defying stakes, Galactic Games takes the competition to a whole new level. Includes stories by top selling authors George R.R. Martin, Mercedes Lackey, Larry Correia, Todd McCaffrey, David Farland, and Seanan McGuire as well as legends Robert Silverberg, Randall Garrett, Gene Wolfe, Mike Resnick, Jack C. Haldeman, and more.

"With Focus" by Todd McCaffrey - bowling
"Little Games" by Mercedes Lackey - 1500 meter race
"Regulation" by Seanan McGuire - roller derby
"Earth, Corner Pocket" by Lezli Robyn - billiards
"The Great Kladnar Race" by Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg - alien horse racing
"Advantages" by Louise Marley - gymnastics
"Louisville Slugger" by Jack C. Haldeman II - baseball
"For The Sake of The Game" by Gray Rinehart - referee story
"Shooter Ready" by Larry Correia - competitive shooting
"Minor Hockey Gods of Barstow Station" by Beth Davis Cato - um hockey, duh
"Pompoms and Circumstance" by Esther Friesner - Cheerleading
"The Olympian" by Mike Resnick - distance running
"Petra and The Blue Goo" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - scavenger hunting
"Green Moss River" by David Farland - hunting
"The On-Deck Circle" by Gene Wolfe - baseball played on speedboats
"Stress Cracks" by Anthony R Cardno - downhill figure skating
"Run To Starlight" by George R. R. Martin - American football
"Mars Court Rules" by Brad Torgersen - basketball
"Last Shot, First Shot" by Dean Wesley Smith - golf
"The Great Ignorant Race" by Robert Reed - nude Amazing Race/Survivor extreme race

Genres: Anthologies, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Ebooks

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 7, 2016

About the author

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is a national bestselling author and Hugo nominated editor of adult and children’s speculative fiction. His fourth novel, Simon Says is a page-turning near future thriller. His debut novel, The Worker Prince received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best Science Fiction Releases for 2011. His children’s books, 102 More Hilarious Dinosaur Books For Kids and Abraham Lincoln: Dinosaur Hunter- Land Of Legends appeared from Delabarre Publishing in 2012. His short stories have appeared in Tales of The Talisman, Straight Outta Tombstone, The X-Files: Secret Agendas, Predator: If It Bleeds, Decision Points and many more.

He edited the anthologies Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 for Flying Pen Press, Beyond The Sun for Fairwood Press, Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera For a New Age for Every Day, Shattered Shields with coeditor Jennifer Brozek (Baen, 2014), Mission: Tomorrow (Baen, 2015), Galactic Games (Baen, 2016), Decision Points (WordFire, 2016), Little Green Men--Attack! with Robin Wayne Bailey (Baen, 2017), Monster Hunter Files with Larry Correia (Baen, 2017), Joe Ledger: Unstoppable with Jonathan Maberry (St. Martin's Griffin, 2017), Predator: If It Bleeds and Infinite Stars And Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers both for Titan Books, 2017 and 2019.

As editor, he has edited books for Grail Quest Books, Wordfire Press, Delabarre Publishing and authors including Andy Weir's The Martian which hit number 6 on the New York Times Bestsellers list in 2014, Alan Dean Foster, Mike Resnick, Frank Herbert, Todd McCaffrey, Tracy Hickman, Angie Fox, Leon C. Metz , Ellen C. Maze, David Mark Brown, and more.

He’s also the author of the bestselling nonfiction book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction.

Bryan can be found online at Facebook, on Twitter as @BryanThomasS and @sffwrtcht and via his website.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a mostly original anthology of short science fiction stories dealing with sports and games. The stated theme is the Olympics on an interstellar scale, but most of the stories don't really fit that. The five stories that were previously published are: Gene Wolfe musing on baseball with speedboats; Jack C. Haldeman II (Joe's brother) has another nice baseball tale; a Mike Resnick excerpt from his novel Birthright that does fit the theme well; Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg have the oldest story, a funny alien racing tale; and George R.R. Martin's fine old football story from a 1974 issue of Amazing Stories (presumably because the higher-paying markets of the time weren't interested) Run to Starlight. (In the introduction to it there's a quote from Vince Lombardi, who's identified as a former Washington Redskins coach... which is true, but I'll bet the Legions of Lambeau don't think of him that way!) The new stories include Todd McCaffrey's very funny look at athletic administration, Mercedes Lackey with a running story, Seanan McGuire has a roller derby story (of course!), Lezli Robyn wrote an unusual pool story, Gray Rinehart looks at officials, Larry Correia has augmented shooting as a steroid metaphor, Esther M. Freisner has a very amusing story about cheerleaders (Pompoms and Circumstance, what a title!), David Farland has an unpleasant hunting story, Anthony R. Cardno writes a YA kind of story about skating, Dean Wesley Smith writes about golf on the moon, and the final story is Robert Reed's very odd riff on Lord of the Flies. Or Survivor. Or something. My favorites were Advantages by Louise Marley (a nice gymnastics story), Minor Hockey Gods of Barstow Station by Beth Cato, Mars Court Rules about basketball on Mars by Brad R. Torgersen, and a very fun scavenger-hunt-in-the-library, Petra and the Blue Goo by Kristine Kathryn Rusch; it's the least thematic of the lot, but quite entertaining. There have been a lot of collections and anthologies about sports and games with a futuristic or paranormal twist, and this is another good one.

[Beth Cato]

Not a review. Contains my story "Minor Hockey Gods of Barstow Station."

[Aiyana · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's rare to love every (or almost every) story in an anthology, but this one hits the mark. And I'm not even much of a sports fan! In this collection (peppered with quotations from real-life sports greats as well as brief author bios), authors imagine Olympic games of a far-distant future. From a pool game played for the fate of the planet, to the challenge of developing football tactics against an alien race, to a marathon attempt to recapture something of humanity's long-lost history, these stories cover a wide range of sports and moods. Most lean a bit towards the humorous, but all are incredibly inventive, and as I mentioned, you don't have to know much about sports in order to enjoy them.

Also, thank you Seanan McGuire for giving a roller derby player the name "H.G. Welts" -- I still haven't stopped laughing. (The other names are great, too-- you'll have to read the story to learn them!)

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked most about this collection is that they explored all aspects of a event like this. From the event organisation, to the diplomatic or cultural fallout of game participation and outcomes. A good mirror held up to our own Earthly events enhancing the myriad issues and scandals that frequent them. With each story being different, this collection didn’t get tired by the end. I would say that George R. R. Martin’s story (the longest one here) was the weakest in that it got bogged down by describing the minutiae of a play in American Football. I’m not sporting and care little for football, American or otherwise and had no idea what half of the terms meant. The story resolution also didn’t make the drudgery of going through all that worthwhile. Otherwise a good collection.

[Tom Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent and relatively fun collection of stories centered on a Galactic Olympic theme, although it doesn't stick to it all that much. Stories have a lighter touch. I thought that I might read some Rollerball or gladiatorial type scenarios, but instead it was pretty much a genre beach read.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of sci-fi sports stories from an excellent group of writers.

[Shayla Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with any anthology, there's ups and downs, and stuff I like and stuff I didn't care for. I also only read the free excerpt from the publisher, and not the whole book, so here's blurbs on the stories I read:

WITH FONES, by Todd McCaffrey - Just couldn't get into this one, so I skipped ahead. Nothing specifically that turned me off about it, but I just found I didn't care. 1/5

LITTLE GAMES, by Mercedes Lackey - Well that was a punch straight to the joy. "Galactics finally arrived in all their glory to save Earth. Of course, it wasn’t until after the fact that people realized the Galactics had not been saving the Earth for humans." Yes, we are a self-centered lot, aren't we? 5/5

REGULATIONS, by Seanan McGuire - Roller Derby teams of the solar system suicide pact and 'stick it' to force effective safety regulations for their sport. 5/5

EARTH, CORNER POCKET, by Lezli Robyn - Colonization of Earth is up as prize in a pool game. It's a short story, so you know, not a lot of background on that, but whatevs. Characters were interesting, and it was an enjoyable read, though there were several typos. And I will never understand why so many authors apparently want to equip characters with gills but have no idea how they work - a couple tiny gill slits on the side of the neck of a human-mass organism are not gonna cut it! You need a LOT of surface area for oxygen exchange. At least have the gills run down your characters back and/or sides. 4/5

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Regulations is a story of roller derby in the future, and how the game is changed by virtue of the fact that humanity has changed to adapt to our new homes around the galaxy. The heart of the tale, however, is about the players fighting for their rights. While the concept is intriguing, I felt like the story was a bit too short to really make me care. I was really intrigued by the evolution of humans, so it would have been nice to talk about that a bit more. So great idea, but not the best execution.

[Shayla Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roller Derby teams of the solar system suicide pact and 'stick it' to force effective safety regulations for their sport.

[John Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked most of the stories, but Brad Torgerson's was the best as far as I was concerned.