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Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic
Sporty Spec: Games of the Fantastic views sports and games with a speculative twist, in prophesied futures, parallel presents, and imagined pasts. From tennis matches with Death to chess games with Oberon, from free throws with the Fairy Court to surfing with werewolves, every sport imaginable (and a few unimaginable) exist within this speculative city of games. 42 authors, veterans and rookies alike, have contributed flash fiction and poetry that will take you from pong with a dust mote at the beginning of the world to sailboarding through the stars at the universe's edge. Contributors include: Paul Abbamondi, Marge Simon, Robert Frazier, E. C. Myers, C. A. Gardner, James S. Dorr, Todd Wheeler, Deborah P Kolodji, Jude-Marie Green, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, Samantha Henderson, Roger Dutcher, Amanda M. Hayes, Ruth Berman, Lawrence Schimel, Larry Hodges, G. O. Clark, Jennifer Crow, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Rob Rosen, Andrew C. Ferguson, and 21 more.
156 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2007
4 people want to read
About the author
Karen A. Romanko
18 books25 followersAuthor of Women of Science Fiction and Fantasy Television (McFarland, 2019) and Television's Female Spies and Crimefighters (McFarland, 2016). I love Bob, Malibu, and snapping pics.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 26, 2020
A collection of poems and flash fics about fantasy, sci-fi, games, and sports. Lots of gems in this one, from the Seelie Court watching the Celtics to a young woman making a game of climbing the innards of a marching mechanical giant. Definitely the kind of book you take down and flip through when you want something short and distinctive.
January 5, 2015
I really enjoy poetry anthologies; for me, an anthology is a like a brew pub sampler.
Some pieces will be weak, some will be tart, some will be down right bad, and some will be excellent. However, for the money, you usually get a great deal, and get to try a little bit of everything. So it is with Sporty Spec, recently published by Raven Electrick Ink. Now, speculative writing concerning sports (or sports writing of a speculative nature) could be cheesy, if not downright silly and demeaning to both genres of writing. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the pieces in this anthology worked.
Some pieces that stood out, for me:
*
"The Sport of Kings" is a flash fiction piece which pits a real horse and rider combination against mechanized, robotic horses. Author Paul Abbamondi opens up the question of the real advances made by technology, and what happens to the authentic or natural when competing against the mechanized or virtual.
*
C. A. Gardener enters a game of chess with Oberon in her poem "Riding to Faery," and redefines the game using pagan archetypes.
*
"Running for Life" by Brenta Blevins features a dark cross country coach, an even darker,
mythic woods, and a young girl who discovers the real reason people run.
*
Deborah P. Kolodji writes a tanka that approaches ice moon Europa from the
view of an ice skater.
*
Samantha Henderson's "The Tithing Hunt" is a dark lyric, which starts out with a deceptively simply rhyme scheme, imitating an English folk song. However, like many folk songs and rhymes, once the listener reaches the end, things aren't as pleasant as one expects.
*
Local poet Michael Ceraolo celebrates man's imagination by pitting it against machines in his poem "Games People Play."
*
Camille Alexa teeters into magical realism with her short fiction piece "Night Vaulting," which concerns the dreams of a young paraplegic.
However, my favorite piece in the whole anthology would have to be "Organic Geometry" by Andrew C. Ferguson, which uses cricket and a cricket player to analyze and question the destructive drive of humanity.
The pace of this anthology works well. Each piece is short, so a reader has time to nibble, taking a few minutes at a time to read each one and savor it. The range of this anthology is also impressive, spanning from the eerie and dark to the fun and silly, and touching every base in between.
However, the work rarely gets tired or forced, which is impressive, considering the obscurity of the anthology's topic. Karen A. Romanko did a great job putting together this anthology, and it would make a terrific read for anyone interested in speculative literature, sports literature, or good writing in general. Rumor has it that she is putting together another speculative anthology focused on film and cinema; based on the superb job done with this anthology, I am eager to see what she comes up with next.
Some pieces will be weak, some will be tart, some will be down right bad, and some will be excellent. However, for the money, you usually get a great deal, and get to try a little bit of everything. So it is with Sporty Spec, recently published by Raven Electrick Ink. Now, speculative writing concerning sports (or sports writing of a speculative nature) could be cheesy, if not downright silly and demeaning to both genres of writing. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the pieces in this anthology worked.
Some pieces that stood out, for me:
*
"The Sport of Kings" is a flash fiction piece which pits a real horse and rider combination against mechanized, robotic horses. Author Paul Abbamondi opens up the question of the real advances made by technology, and what happens to the authentic or natural when competing against the mechanized or virtual.
*
C. A. Gardener enters a game of chess with Oberon in her poem "Riding to Faery," and redefines the game using pagan archetypes.
*
"Running for Life" by Brenta Blevins features a dark cross country coach, an even darker,
mythic woods, and a young girl who discovers the real reason people run.
*
Deborah P. Kolodji writes a tanka that approaches ice moon Europa from the
view of an ice skater.
*
Samantha Henderson's "The Tithing Hunt" is a dark lyric, which starts out with a deceptively simply rhyme scheme, imitating an English folk song. However, like many folk songs and rhymes, once the listener reaches the end, things aren't as pleasant as one expects.
*
Local poet Michael Ceraolo celebrates man's imagination by pitting it against machines in his poem "Games People Play."
*
Camille Alexa teeters into magical realism with her short fiction piece "Night Vaulting," which concerns the dreams of a young paraplegic.
However, my favorite piece in the whole anthology would have to be "Organic Geometry" by Andrew C. Ferguson, which uses cricket and a cricket player to analyze and question the destructive drive of humanity.
The pace of this anthology works well. Each piece is short, so a reader has time to nibble, taking a few minutes at a time to read each one and savor it. The range of this anthology is also impressive, spanning from the eerie and dark to the fun and silly, and touching every base in between.
However, the work rarely gets tired or forced, which is impressive, considering the obscurity of the anthology's topic. Karen A. Romanko did a great job putting together this anthology, and it would make a terrific read for anyone interested in speculative literature, sports literature, or good writing in general. Rumor has it that she is putting together another speculative anthology focused on film and cinema; based on the superb job done with this anthology, I am eager to see what she comes up with next.
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June 25, 2017The theme was wonderful, but the execution really varied. I felt the fiction was stronger than the poetry, but I should note that spec poetry has undergone a huge explosion in the years since this book was published.
Source of the book: I think I got this from PaperBackSwap before it changed the ToS and I stopped using it
Source of the book: I think I got this from PaperBackSwap before it changed the ToS and I stopped using it
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews