The Spirit of Pong

by Larry Hodges

Andy “Shoes” Blue wants to be a table tennis champion, but he’s just another wannabe American. And so he goes to China to learn the secrets of table tennis. He is trained by the mysterious Coach Wang, and begins an odyssey where he learns the secrets of table tennis from the spirits of Ichiro Ogimura (who helped spawn China’s greatness) and Rong Guotuan (China’s first world champion in 1959, whose tragic story Andy must relive), and must face the mysterious “Dragon.” Can he overcome treachery and learn the final secret of table tennis in time to defeat his ultimate nemesis?

102 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 14, 2015

About the author

Larry Hodges, from Germantown, MD, was going to be a math professor (bachelor's in math), but science fiction writing and table tennis (yes, ping-pong) sidetracked him, and now he writes (and coaches the latter) for a living. He is an active member of Science Fiction Writers of America with over 80 short story sales. "Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions" is his third novel, and combines three of his favorite things: science fiction, politics, and table tennis. He's a graduate of the six-week 2006 Odyssey Writers Workshop and the 2008 Taos Toolbox Writers Workshop, and is a member of Codexwriters.com. His story "The Awakening" was the unanimous grand prize winner at the 2010 Garden State Horror Writers Short Story Competition. He's a full-time writer with eleven books and over 1700 published articles in over 150 different publications. He also writes about and coaches the Olympic Sport of Table Tennis, is a member of the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame (Google it!), and once beat someone using an ice cube as a racket. Visit him at www.larryhodges.org.