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Blood Sport: A Journey Up the Hassayampa

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A pathbreaking, surreal novel of the outdoors.

255 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

9 people are currently reading
177 people want to read

About the author

Robert F. Jones

46 books12 followers
Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

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5 stars
80 (47%)
4 stars
51 (30%)
3 stars
22 (13%)
2 stars
7 (4%)
1 star
7 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
Profile Image for Jay.
546 reviews26 followers
July 14, 2016
What strange beast is this?
This is one of the strangest books I have ever read, but is amazing, in it's own way. Nasty, sexist, racist, and utterly unrepentant, but charming nonetheless, this is magic realism red in tooth and claw.
So a man and his son go up the Hassayampa, whose waters turn men into liars, so the boy can become a man. They are cowards, undeserving of names, but will earn them as their fates entwine with that of Ratnose, a trickster/murderer who may well be immortal. In the process, one will become a bandit, the other a god of vengeance and hate. Oh, there's fishing and hunting too.
The narrative is fluid, a tall tale as full of blood as wonder. Mythical creatures are killed and eaten, women treated as trophies, and tortures committed. And, yeah, I liked it, and am not sure how I feel about that.
Some have described this book as Deliverance on acid, and that'll do. It's not for everyone, obviously, but if you're willing to go with the flow and ignore the nastiness, it is one of the most engrossing novels out there. Shame about the puppies, though.
Profile Image for Olethros.
2,724 reviews543 followers
July 2, 2014
-Simbolismos y/o desconcierto, a partes iguales, pero de extraño atractivo.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción (por decir algo, estimados lectores, pero no se lo tomen al pie de la letra).

Lo que nos cuenta. El Hassayampa es un caudaloso río que nace en la parte más septentrional de China y que después de atravesar Wisconsin, da al mar en el sur del estado de Nueva York. Cerca de su desembocadura, cazan y pescan un padre y su hijo, acostumbrados a lidiar con la exuberancia de especies animales y vegetales de la zona, pero también con todo tipo de cazadores, tramperos, refugiados, rebeldes Mao Mao e incluso delincuentes, como el famoso y legendario Ratnose, con el que el padre tuvo un encuentro en el pasado y cuya figura (¿eterna?) es casi obsesiva para él.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Profile Image for Mr. Derp.
7 reviews3 followers
February 11, 2009
Blood Sport
Robert F. Jones

A very surreal and brutal book. Ranks as one of the best horror novels I have read in some time. Laugh out loud funny during parts as well. I find it hard to even begin to descibe the strange stuff that goes on between it's pages.

This Robert F. Jones guy was one weird dude. I am now trying to locate a copy of his other novel written in the same vein - 'The Diamond Bogo'.
Profile Image for Whitney Shroyer.
Author 3 books4 followers
July 28, 2010
This book is not quite "Deliverance on Acid", but then again, it is an awful lot like Deliverance on acid.
3 reviews
July 6, 2015
An earlier post about Blood Sport, refers to it as a horror movie, other readers call it hallucinogenic, weird, funny and more. One review presaged my assessment; and adds several facets and observations of the dynamics of human existence.
In discussions of great books I include this novel; I limit recommendations to 3-4 titles, and/or authors. Robert Jones captures the true essences of men as fathers or sons both in general societal terms and in the interplay between themselves. Cain slew Abel because his God was dismissive of Cain's offerings, and praised Abel's efforts, which led to the schism they personify. Fathers may despise, ignore, love, cherish or idolize their sons. A boy whose dad supports him, guides him, encouraages him, is off to a better life than that of the unfortunates who get criticism, anger, sabotage; instead of connection, interest, and inclusion in the loftier endeavors and warm family grace.
Especially when I talk to women about this book, I stress that Blood Sport illustrates what males face in life, and does so more adroitly than any source I know.
Profile Image for P.D..
Author 19 books33 followers
November 18, 2008
I read this book back in the seventies. And reread it a couple times after that. It is an extremely imaginative tale of a father and son who go on a fishing trip up the Hassayampa River.

The Hassayampa has its mouth in New York and its source in China. Along the way they have many bizarre adventures (including trolling for pedestrians using a lure that is a miniature speedster with a pimply teenaged kid at the wheel).

Eventually they run afoul of the legendary outlaw Ratnose and his gang of desperados. Ratnose tries to recruit the boy and destroy his father. The father encountered Ratnose in his youth, and now he must save his son from the outlaw.

This is a very good book that deserves a wider readership. If you like the bizarre and imaginative, you will like Blood Sport.
Profile Image for Matt Holloway.
143 reviews7 followers
December 9, 2008
How easy, I thought, to kill in this mood -- but what? I tensed the trigger, brought its sear up to the cracking point, fanning the tall blade of the sight through the black-and-gold webwork of willows, searching for flesh, any flesh. The sleet melted from the branches and fell in clumsy, sibilant splatters. The moon grinned sideways, going down. Madmen, all of us.
Profile Image for Brad.
103 reviews12 followers
January 14, 2010
This is like a hilarious pastiche on masculinity and coming-of-age tales. Except I'm not sure it was meant to be read that way. Basically, every stereotypical, masculine, chauvinist situation is encountered, and dealt with with a double-dosage of machismo. Like Hemingway and Norman Mailer, writing an outdoor adventure novel, while high on crack.
Profile Image for Randy Cauthen.
126 reviews17 followers
June 12, 2010
Great book by unknown author: magical realism meets Hemingway.
Profile Image for Judge.
5 reviews2 followers
May 13, 2012
an american classic...

an inspired exploration of what it means to be a civilization, human, parent, child, male, alive...complete, visual...adds unique insightful textures to classic archetypes of evil, betrayal, the questioning good, youth, fear...

an epic coming of age...
Profile Image for Avid Cobwebber.
53 reviews
January 19, 2022
First of all, the cover. Mine is better than the purple, it has all blue sky and wilderness and many details from the story are depicted subtly within the image. Paperback artists had their Golden Age at that time. How could you not immediately tout this book as "one of the greatest of its kind" before you even purchase it? Then the word "Vonnegut" appears in a blurb, and you think, man, I am starting to see that comparison more and more when they want to sell a million paperbacks.

However, do not be swayed, disswayed, or dissuaded: This book is well worth it. I ended up reading much more RF Jones. And while nothing touches this one, his writing is rugged and well-built, and you feel like you are way far away from society, holed up in a cabin of moments.

The weather in this book is good, the action high-octane, and the fixation (the nemesis) is clear-cut and consistent throughout the whole text. The world imagined is beautiful, and makes one nod solemnly at a confluence of histories and cultures that we don't have on Earth; a confluence of biologies and food webs, too.

The downsides are built into that miracle--the work is akin to Hemingway, with its partiality to maleness and a predilection for honing violence as a natural survival skill.

One thing that Jones does, perhaps in all of his books I've read, is he switches first person perspective when moving to another Part of each tale. This feels like a major no-no, as it makes you feel like you picked up a different book all of a sudden... but really, it's just unconventional. It seems to be his thing. I felt like he must have had to pad the narrative after completing it, but among his books this one has the most natural flow.

Read it for sure, and if you liked it a lot you could check out Blood Root or Slade's Glacier. I remember liking those. But nowhere near Blood Sport. Hassayampa for life!!
Profile Image for Chris.
150 reviews5 followers
March 7, 2022
Hell, I dunno. Don't really even know how many stars to give it. so i'll say two. The first section was confusing as hell, but I've read Robbins and Vizenor and plenty of Vonnegut so I know how to hack through some weird. But still, didn't really know why to keep going. So I didin't. Put it down on the side table for a year and some change. Picked it up, started at section two, and blew through it in a weekend. Definitely finds its legs in the second part, and the prose style was entertaining in its... unexpectedness. But also the crudity didn't seem to have the weight that folks like Robbins and Vizenor (read Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles) give it. And then it just kinda stops. Not even a poteeweet or a honey I'm home. I wanted some weird irony at the end, but didn't get it. So I dunno. Two stars I guess.
Profile Image for Matthew McClintock.
25 reviews3 followers
January 23, 2020
Hard to tell if this is a good book or not, but it's one that has stuck in my mind for years after reading it. Probably time to re-visit and either figure out why I like it or take it off the shelf!

Surreal.
Profile Image for Armando Hernandez.
57 reviews1 follower
August 17, 2025
Muy entretenido, la primera parte es algo confusa y hay partes que no llegué a comprender, sin embargo a partir de la segunda parte se convierte en un libro de supervivencia y aventura, Ratnose y su banda son impredecibles. Un libro sangriento, violento, sexual y sucio.
Profile Image for Jane-Rebecca.
Author 14 books22 followers
November 2, 2017
It's sort of like if a smug erection was writing its take on the pitfalls and stereotypes of the kind of revered searing masculinity that is so deeply appreciated in North America.
Profile Image for Simone Mascardi.
2 reviews2 followers
March 14, 2019
Very strange book, it is hard to describe, better read it, it is a fascinating journey with a touch of psychedelyc madness
Profile Image for Bob Box.
3,171 reviews24 followers
June 29, 2020
Read in 1975. Psychological coming of age tale.
Profile Image for Jason Serrano.
3 reviews
November 16, 2024
This is one of my all-time favorite novels. Such an excellent unique, modern myth. I’ve been fly-fishing since my youth so it does have a special connection for me.
9 reviews
February 3, 2026
Got better mid way through it. Rough at times and sometimes too explicit but definitely well written. I had the paperback version bought my dad over 50 years before I read it, I picked it off his shelf just because of the awesome cover artwork. I'd recommend it if you bump into it.
2 reviews
January 6, 2023
My goodness, what did I just read? I don't even know what to call this type of literature... post modern? Adventure writing for the insane? Nature writing ala Sigurd Olson, under the influence of bath salts or PCP? The thing is, I couldn't put it down. And I somewhat hate myself for that. This would be a book that I'd hesitate to recommend to anyone I know, lest they think I'm mad. Please don't tell anyone I know that I gave this crazy little tome 4 stars.
Profile Image for Jorge Luis.
29 reviews
December 17, 2023
"Deporte sangriento" es un libro singular en el género fantástico, que escuché recientemente en su versión audiolibro con voz sintética, preparado por un amigo. Y que había leído por primera vez en papel muchísimos años atrás en uno de los tomos de la antigua y primera Colección Nova Fantasía de Bruguera, y después muchas veces más tanto en papel como en digital en los últimos años.

Creo que es la mejor recreación que he leído o escuchado de un lugar o entorno fantástico complejo: el Río Hassayampa que según la novela:

"...nace en el Norte de China, serpentea a través de la Reserva India de la Zona Central de Wisconsin, y desemboca finalmente en el Lago Crotón, a poco más de un kilómetro de donde yo vivo, en la Zona Sur del Estado de Nueva York.". Sería un trabajo de tesis literaria interesante dilucidar la traza del Hassayampa, en base a los datos de localización geográfica que van aportando las sucesivas narraciones del viaje, y trazar un mapa del Hassayampa fantástico. Pude ver que hay un Río Hassayampa real en USA.

Y todo este Mundo fantástico del Hassayampa expuesto en un libro normal, de doscientas ochenta y tantas páginas en la edición original en castellano en papel, y poco más de 8 horas de audio en el audiolibro. A mí como que me amedrentan un poco las n-logías de libracotes de 1000 o 2000 páginas cada uno. Y me da un poco de nostalgia de antiguos libros que en 200 y tantas páginas presentaban masterpieces del género. Podría citar entre los de ciencia ficción libros como: "Universo de locos" de Fredric Brown, "Un anillo alrededor del Sol" de Clifford Simak, "Alas nocturnas" de Robert Silverberg, "Entre los latidos de la noche" de Charles Sheffield, o "Darwinia" de Robert Charles Wilson... Y entre los libros de fantasía: este: "Deporte sangriento" de Robert F. Jones, "El circo del Dr. Lao" de Charles Finney, o el mismo "El Hobbit" de J. R. R. Tolkien.

El Río Hassayampa me parece que es el verdadero protagonista de la obra, un entorno absolutamente duro y salvaje que insufla crueldad y una especie de inexorabilidad en el comportamiento y la acciones de cada uno de sus habitantes, y en cada anécdota o pequeña o gran aventura que se narra en el devenir de la historia. Y la historia no es otra cosa que una especie de viaje iniciático tanto para el padre como para el hijo que emprenden el viaje, y que terminan en su retorno curtidos en crueldades y sobrevivientes a las monstruosidades del entorno, de los habitantes del Hassayampa, y de su propias mentes moldeadas y vueltas a moldear por el entorno salvaje. Y el otro gran protagonista del libro es Ratnose o Ratanose, una especie avatar o personificación del propio Hassayampa, o su custodio, semidios, inmortal, personaje de mil leyendas.

En su carácter de libro iniciático y de aprendizaje, tanto para el padre como para el hijo de la pareja protagónica central, este libro me ha hecho acordar un poco al "Demian" de Herman Hesse, pero aquí el aprendizaje consiste en meramente sobrevivir luego de entrar a ese Mundo salvaje y se podría decir que prístino en su salvajismo, del Hassayampa. Y Ratnose es una especie de Abraxas, más duro, más cruel, más tangible, más inexorable. Aquí Sinclair no habría sobrevivido ni dos minutos. También creo que el libro tiene un germen del concepto de las historias de "Bosque Mitago" de Robert Holdstock, porque tanto Ratnose como el hombre y el niño que inician el viaje de aprendizaje se terminan convirtiendo en verdaderos arquetipos, objeto de leyendas, pasadas, presentes, y porque no futuras del Hassayampa.

La crueldad de las historias dentro de la historia llega a ser repulsiva, asquerosa en grado sumo una y otra vez, pero el libro tiene algo que a uno como lector, asqueado de tanta crueldad, lo hace seguir, a pesar de todo, e inexorablemente como decía antes, hasta terminar el libro.

Y tal es la impresión que deja su lectura o audición, que uno no tiene más que concluir que es uno de esos pocos libros imprescindibles del género fantástico, aunque muy poco conocido, la verdad.

Un saludo cordial.
Profile Image for Big Enk.
218 reviews2 followers
February 20, 2024
0.5/5

In a complete reversal from my last read, the cover of Blood Sport is by far the best thing about it. It was the reason I picked it up off of a pile of dusty books in some shop despite no prior knowledge of the title or the author. I wish I had left it there.

Blood Sport follows a father and his son as they travel on a Narnia-esque adventure up the mysterious Hassayampa river. On this adventure, where they spend most of their time hunting and fishing, the son abandons his father to join the famous bandit group lead by 'Ratnose', someone the father has had run-ins with on his previous journeys on the Hassayampa.

It's a deeply and unapologetically racist, sexist, and perverted book that has no redeeming qualities(other than cover illustration). It's a book that is obsessed with the idea of masculinity in all of the wrong ways, and rails against western society preventing men from achieving some elevated and supreme form of manhood. It's also obsessed with hunting, and spent more time describing shoot game birds than any fantasy book ever should. Moreover, it's disgusting, depraved, and poorly written. There's some seriously graphic content here, and yet none of the outlandish and simply weird content that the cover describes.

It was simply a waste of my time, and were I not so stubborn I would've DNF'ed it 30 pages in when there's a graphic description of snakes having sex in the river. Assuming it to be bad, I had hoped it would bridge the gap into 'so-bad-it's-good' territory, but alas, no. Obviously this novel is no longer in print, but should you find it lurking in some dusty bookshop corner, I'd advise you to do what I didn't and back away slowly.
Profile Image for Ashley Lambert-Maberly.
1,822 reviews25 followers
February 7, 2017
This was not for me. Pretty much like when you bite into unfamiliar food--sometimes (celeriac) you love it, and other times (black licorice) you don't. There's no point continuing to eat it. I gave it the old college try (50 pages) but it was weird, straight, obsessed with hunting, too macho for me.
69 reviews6 followers
September 27, 2008
One of my favorites, starts as a simple fishing trip with a father and son, quickly becomes a Homeric journey while still remaining accessible. The book is raw male- the parts of our brains that we only let out on occasion and hope that the women that we love never see. Once you read what Runner, Tilkut, and Ratnose are thinking, you'll not feel alone or ashamed again.
Profile Image for Ben.
909 reviews17 followers
June 19, 2009
Never would have seen this had a patron not recommended it. Unique and unpredictable enough to keep me reading, it has a nice balance of brutality, comedy, and bizarre adventure. A distinctively strange voice, but I doubt I would read more of him.
Profile Image for Sam.
43 reviews2 followers
June 19, 2020
A truly disturbing and questionable start turned into a thrilling and wonderful romp through the harsh wilderness of the Hassayampa. After Part 2 began the book finally stretched it's legs and started running.
Profile Image for Tim Rodems.
40 reviews
May 16, 2012
Do you like to do drugs? Well then you will LOVE this book. (unless you said 'no' to my opening question).
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