SethH Okay. Hi there, and welcome back to the He Goes There podcast. And this is another one of the kind of zoomed out episodes that I call sub-genre spotlights. And this time we're going to be talking about science fiction sports, the intersection of science fiction and sports. um I called it SF sports ball at some point, I think, and in our emails back and forth. But my guest for this is Chris Garcia. Hi, Chris. Chris Hello, great to be here. SethH Yeah, and I was i was telling you before we started recording, I couldn't remember how this happened. I think I had put out a ah plea on Twitter or someplace on social media saying, hey, if you if you ah have subgenres of science fiction that you're knowledgeable about, reach out to me. And and you reached out, hey, how about sports? Chris Yeah, well I'm always looking to talk and ah like the biggest truth about sports is if you like sports at all, you love to talk. SethH Yes, yes. um So what should people know about you? Where would they know you from? Chris ah Well, I am primarily known for my fanzine work ah in particular I do I started off doing one called the drink tank ah which won a Hugo in 2011 and then ah One called journey planet which won in 2015 for best fanzine and been doing those now. It's 20 years I just did my 20th anniversary issue of the drink tank and think we're about 17 or 18 for journey planet and you know, my my big thing is always I write about I write from a fan's point of view because I am no writer, though I do have a true crime book out. um But I really try to get make things relatable to my life. Chris even if it's, you know, if I'm doing a review, I'm writing about how my experiences of the world have informed that. And so I always try to do that. And it makes me sort of completely unpublishable in the real world, but makes me perfect for fancy. SethH Yeah, that is one of the things with with fanzines and fan casts and all that kind of stuff is like you get to know the people behind them. And and so you know knowing how you know how this fits into your life, what you know yeah why you like it is important to people who kind of develop ah the parasocial relationship with you. I think maybe that was a panel you were on that I saw you and worked on. Chris Yeah it was actually and that was a fun that was a fun panel um like all good audio endeavors it took place in a car. um And it was yeah was looking at how social media can be used as both a ah tool for the pro and from my angle was how could you use it as a fan and build the relationships that sort of make it possible to become a part of this community that we're all in. SethH Yes. Chris And you know science fiction fandom is now in so many different arenas and directions that it you know using tools to get that sort of happened is really interesting to see. And you know I spent 20 years as a computer historian. And so it was a fascinating time because it was from you know just the pre prior to the rise of LiveJournal and all that. And I made it all the way up through the beginning of TikTok before they laid me off. So I'm still bitter. SethH um Well, you know so another kind of thing that that we were talking about before we got started was the intersection of sports and and fandom and nerdery and that that kind of thing because like there you can geek out about anything right and and so ah when when Chris Isn't. SethH people get really enthusiastic about sports, right? There's a natural kind of geeky trend that can evolve there. And you end up where like, I was trying to study some Python and stuff to to get ready for a job interview. SethH And a thing came across my social media, learn Python with data analytics with baseball. And it's like, oh, yeah, cool. ah Because there's so much data. Chris it fascinating Yeah, it's fascinating. And what is great is that if you look at sports as literature, each individual sport is its own genre. And you have subgenres within there. So the best example I use is baseball is science fiction. It deals with mathematics. Chris It has deep ties to this idea that there is an ideal world um in which there is no cheating or performance enhancing drugs. um and It's this, you know, football is, in my eyes, football is 100% the war film genre. SethH Hmm. Hmm. Chris um You know, hockey is ah I would say hockey is romance, but I don't know if I can back it up as because it is about the love of the sport and your place because hockey is inherently Canadian in all of its forms. um Don't tell the Russians that. um But, you know, you have all these genres and we all attach to our favorites. Like there are people who are just readers and there are people who are just sports fans. Chris And, but there are also people who are hardcore baseball fans and there are people who are hardcore science fiction fans. There are also people who are hardcore old science fiction, like science fiction peaked in 1938. And there are people who are baseball historical fans who baseball peaked in 1921. So, you know, they this idea of fandom is universal across all things. And I think you definitely see that in literature and sports put together. I think it's a really interesting combination. SethH Yeah, I mean, that's really well put. And you know it there's something about the age at which you encounter something. right That becomes like the platonic ideal of of what it is. And so like people who grew up watching baseball and that in the 80s, where half the guys looked like they just you know came in off a bender or something, and and you know they they weren't buff. They were guys with beer guts, and that kind of stuff looked like a ah beer league softball game, um but with baseball, and amphetamines, of course. SethH um Chris Yeah. SethH And, uh, and so then they'll look at the, the modern game and they're like, Oh, it's too, you know, the, the analytics are ruining everything. And yeah you get into all those religious wars about, uh, the nerds ruining sports. Chris Yeah. SethH But even now we're like with football, right? They'll, they'll be like, Oh, the analytics say to go for it on fourth down here. Right. Chris yeah And it's it's interesting, I was reading a, I work at a literary foundation now, ah dedicated to this author named William Soroyan and whose peak was in the 30s. So I was reading some magazines from the 30s that one of them was an old time baseball player from like the teens, like 1910, 1920 in that that range, who was complaining about how the game had gone so far away from its ideal ah into the 30s. Chris And you know, you're always seeing that. SethH Hmm. Chris And I can think of a hundred panels I've been on. SethH Yeah. Chris where it's science fiction people complaining about today's science fiction how it's not bug hide monsters anymore and on and on and on which is great to see because it means that we are a part of a universal theory SethH Hmm. Yeah. um Okay, so so let's, I think normally I might kind of throw out part of the format here because normally we'd like to do like, where should people start with sports science fiction, but there's so much of it and so much of it in short form that I'm not sure I want to do that. I think I just want to just, we're just going to talk through recommendations that you have ah for where people should start and you know, why they're fun. But first I want to talk more generally about a science fiction story or or novel, you know, like what makes a good one. Chris and I actually, in many things, I believe there is a three-legged stool that represents how something is held up properly. And in sports science fiction, and I guess I should say sports genre because fantasy also plays a large large part of it, you have to have three things. Chris And one is you have to have a view of the game. You have to experience at least some aspect of the game in a way that engages you as the game is played. Chris ah If you think of Quidditch, the Quidditch sections of Harry Potter are exceptional. SethH Yeah. Chris um you know A lot of the short stories will primarily focus on that aspect of giving you a view of the game and tag on the science-fictional aspects, which I think is a great way to go. um The master of that is my hero, Jack Haldeman. Chris ah But the second aspect is you really need the, what I call the jock archetypes. um You need the washed up guy who just needs that one last big score. You need the young buck who is trying to change the system. You need the beyond board bad boy who is trying to take over the whole thing. It's like you need those aspects of it. Chris But I think the third one is maybe the one that's most flexible at least, but it's the one that I see as the ones that are truly powerful are allegorical. SethH Hmm. Hmm. Chris It's they take the sport as a ideal and they place it so it hang hangs around sort of other bigger ideas that we understand. Chris ah you know And so you can take even the same concept and put them side by side, but that allegory is slightly different. So you might one might be really an allegory about ah how the media is making out you know things that we would inherently think are terrible. Chris um And they they use this false sport as sort of a programming thing. SethH Okay. Chris It's really media commentary. But you can tell nearly the same story and make it about income inequality. And it's a really fascinating thing. You see that a lot in, actually in film, is one of the ways, places I see it the most. But I also see a lot of short films that deal with sports design fiction. So, a a problem of pro-diving film festivals is I see a lot of stuff that no one ever sees, some of which should never be seen. SethH nice and you know you you end up with you mentioned quidditch right where this is a made-up sport that does not exist out well now it exists right people people play some version of quidditch in real life but um you you do have a mixture of it's this is football but it's on mars right where it's it's a real sport but it's in a science fiction locale, right or in some way like that. Chris yeah SethH And then you have a bunch of things where it's just, here's a new sport that's kind of based on stuff you're you're familiar with, um like playing polo in space, for instance, um with with ships. SethH which there there was a That was an Arthur C. Clarke. I think that was Clifford Simak. um Chris yeah was in Yeah. SethH Yeah. um and And yeah, so it's kind of fun having that mixture. Of of course, the hurdle with the i'm making up a brand new sport is you have to explain it in a very kind of hard science fiction way, which can be a bit of a slog sometimes. Chris And I think one of the best examples of an author doing a great job of that is head on. um Hellketta is Beautifully explained in its simplicity though. Chris You get less of a view of the game than in a lot of these things But it's you know, it's obvious, you know, you're just trying to rip their head off and get it across the goal And talk about allegory as it plays, you know, it is clearly supposed to be football But with truly deep hardcore stakes and I love that aspect of it SethH yeah SethH Yeah Yeah, that makes me think of have you ever seen the movie the blood of the heroes Okay, it's it's ah it's a rigor hower movie and it has a sport in it the the people are called juggers and and you know, it's Chris I don't think I have. Chris and SethH sort of rugby football-ish, but with gladiatorial sport mixed in with it, where they're just trying to take a dog's skull and put it on a spike in the other goal, you know, and and that's it. Chris Oh nice. SethH Like, it's it's the kind of thing where, like, actually, I really like the movie, um and and it's, you know, nobody has seen it. And um and and yet, like, the game totally makes sense, like, the the way they kind of explain it and the way it's told but through kind of, you know, the visual medium of of a movie. Chris if SethH I think it might be easier in a film to do that. Chris It's certainly easier time-wise to do it in a film um because, you know, even if seeing a television screen that just gives you a few seconds of it, you can get the idea, oh, they're doing some sort of weird sporty type thing. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Chris um But it in a story, it can't take a lot of time. and But what's amazing is that a lot of sports stories work in the short form. which I love, and I've mentioned them briefly, Jack Haldeman sort of specialized in this, having about a dozen ah sports short stories published in mostly in Asimov's, a couple in Anthology's, but they were brilliantly simple, sometimes in a shared universe, um but Chris You know, and they're also very much written of their time. That's one thing I like about a lot of sports stories is that they really give you an aspect of the time. For example, he did a story about ah they wanted to move a franchise of the sports league team ah to a new planet and they found it easier to move the fans from their planet than it was to just move the team, which is a direct reference to the middle of the night Baltimore Colts. Chris moving out to the two but to Indianapolis. you know It's things like that where you know you're catching a little bits that make sense only if you know the moment. um There's a character in his stories who is Howard Cosell, arguably the greatest or worst ah broadcaster of all time, um and you know sort of famous for a very large nose. and And one of the classic story forms is that you are playing for the fate of your planet, the universe, whatever. SethH Yes. Chris And this one was you were playing for ah the the aliens or the humans would get to eat the entirety of the other race. SethH oh Chris And high stakes, and of course the humans lose. And they start with the Howard Cosell guy, they bite off his nose, decide humans don't taste very good and leave. Chris Again, it does something you shouldn't do as an author, which is making a promise you cannot deliver, but at the same time, it's funny because it's Howard Cosell. SethH here what What's that story called? I mean, you you mentioned Jack Alderman. Do you know the titles of him? Chris I think it's called, there are two of them, one of them is the thrill of victory and the other one is the agony of defeat. I think that's the agony of defeat. um But yeah, she's SethH Now, were those deliberately titled to to evoke the wide wide world of sports? Chris Exactly. SethH Okay. Chris um Yeah, Haldeman was a big sports fan. I only got to meet him once, sadly. His brother is slightly more famous, Joe Haldeman, I think. um but And they wrote a book together, actually. um And Joe Haldeman also wrote a sports story, ah which became the movie Robot Jocks. Chris so SethH oh wow Chris yeah But his stories were great. um And you can usually find he has things like, he writes about a variety of sports. So he wrote, ah a pure allegory about the 1960s election, which was something like the 1960 presidential election considered as a WWE steel cage match, a WWF steel cage match, which was in one of those Resnick alternate, I think it was alternate Kennedys. SethH Oh wow. Chris um And his stories are just so great. And they're hard to find now is a shame. One of my goals in life was to make him better known. um And I managed to do a little bit. But yeah, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat are sort of the two best known of them. And I think The Agony of Defeat is on his website, which is still up from 2001, which is a wonderful timeline. Someday, archaeologists are going to come across and go, now that's what a website looked like. Chris But yeah, and there are some authors who sort of, I wouldn't say specialize, but do a lot of them. ah Haldeman's sort of the best known. ah The late, great Howard Waldrip is another one. A couple of wonderful stories, including the only ah story I can think of that deals with sumo wrestling. Chris ah SethH well Chris called Man Mountain Gentian, or Gentian. ah I want to say it's Genian, because I work at an Armenian literary things, and I know that that's how they would pronounce it. SethH Well. Chris But but it's a wonderful about Zen Sumo, which is a mental form of sumo, and it's a very good story. SethH Oh, Chris um But ah yeah, and it makes me sad that there's far less professional wrestling, ah and because I'm a wrestling nerd. SethH not this. Chris um And wrestling is full of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. SethH and Chris um SethH yeah Chris but that the There's only one story that I can think of of wrestling other than that exceptionally allegorical and not very good Kennedy story called The Holy Stomper versus the Alien Barrel of Death, which is from 1997 by R. Noibii, I think it said. Wait, I have it right here. Noibii, yes. It made the cover of ah of that one book, that that one thing that has the guy on it, Asimov, Chris um which is one of the greatest covers they've ever done, as far as I'm concerned, and I am concerned. SethH Mm. Chris um But yeah, there's so many great, and you know, I love the Howard Waldrop stuff in general, and his he did one called Mary Margaret Rodegrader, which is fantastic, um and he did the Sumo one. SethH Yeah. Chris um In general, I think he's one of those authors who may be in danger of being lost. And ah because his output wasn't super huge, and he was never the biggest name. But I love that George R.R. Martin is currently ah producing ah short films of his stories. And one of which, ah two of which were submitted to Cinequest, one we didn't take ah just because we could only really take one from the same group. Chris another one called the ugly chickens and with felicia day in it and it's amazing uh... SethH Hmm. Chris i cannot write this whole thing off so perfect yeah i think so but only SethH Nice, nice. yeah I do think that um sports science fiction sports yeah i sports f SFF, right? um Does it suit the short story genre better? SethH or I mean, the the short form better than novel length? Chris I think as an element in a novel it works better, which is why I think the short form, because a a sports event has a natural structure to it already. SethH Sure. SethH Yes. Chris It has a beginning, it has a middle, it has an end usually. um I'm still waiting for the 2004 World Series to end. um but the So I think the form lends itself naturally to the short form because you can do that much more economically. I think as an element it works very very well in novels and in particular film ah because it can give you this idea of a more well-rounded world. ah You would expect a school of teenagers to have sport. You should expect a ah Chris a world in which a number of people are held in, locked in to have a way to express themselves and, you know, help get to make sense. ah You can have a world where it's one of the best little tiny moments in Back to the Future is when they show, you know, the was it the Florida Gators winning the the world series. And, you know, at that point there was no Florida team and we're like, well, um and that sort of SethH Yeah, I think it was the Cubs winning, ah and they they were playing Florida. Chris It was the Cubs winning the Friday beach floor. SethH Yeah, yeah, yeah, Chris That's right. And you know, that was like, wow. SethH Mm-hmm. Chris And I love, yeah, and it still makes no sense that the Cubs won. Chris But yeah, it's that sort of, you know, it's adding, it's a type of world building that, you know, I don't want to say highfalutin, but kind of highfalutin science fiction might ignore. But when you look at some of the stuff that does have sport aspects in it, surface detail by Ian Banks comes to mind. Chris um ah There's that great piece by Terry Pratchett, which I cannot think of what it's called for the life of me. um Only you can say mankind. SethH yeah Nice. Chris um That, you know, it gives you a more well-rounded thing because sports is so integrated into our lives. You'll just have to look at last weekend, we had the Super Bowl and, you know, Chris It's obviously going to be there. It's hard to be alive and in America, at least, without having it touched by the Super Bowl or the World Series. It's hard to be European and not have soccer be some part of you yourself. Chris um you know it's It's all there. SethH Right. Chris And you know I think that is the element that it needs to play in novels, more or less, is to give you that well-rounded aspect. SethH Nice, nice. Okay, so let's let's start spinning through some some recommendations. Chris Oh, absolutely. and SethH I mean, you've you've already mentioned a couple, but let's let's keep going. Chris Yeah, well, I think one of the things that is great is a whole bunch of people have seen that there are, the short story is the form that sort of has done it the most and some would argue the best. And so there are two classic anthologies, both of which you can find on eBay, fairly regularly and fairly cheaply. um And one is called the infinite arena. Chris And the other one is Arena colon SS. Arena apparently is an important part of that. SethH Mm hmm. Chris And there's a reason for that. And that is arguably the most famous early sports science, sportsy, because it's not directly sport, I don't think. SethH Right. Chris But it definitely is a contest, which we could have pulled into there. And a lot of people consider chess to be a sport in all these anthologies. SethH Yeah, yeah. Chris But those two anthologies alone give you an excellent, excellent early example. And Arena is in, I think it's only in one of them, I think it's in Arena SF. SethH Yes. Chris um Frederick Brown and it's, you know, it's a short story I hear talked about when the people talk about like the cold equations or ah that one about the TikTok man. SethH Yeah. Chris as one of the sort of the classic foundational pieces of science fiction. And I think Arena is, I hadn't read it in a long time and I read it last week and I was like, this feels less dated than it should. Chris And that is really key. And of course it became one of the most important ah episodes of Star Trek, which SethH Right. SethH Right. I mean, the the story of that is is interesting because it wasn't deliberately adapted. It was somebody wrote a story and then somebody on the staff was like, this rings a bell and realized that it was similar enough to the Frederick Brown story that it was probably actionable. SethH And so they reached out and got approval for it. um And so and then then I think they rekind of re-sculptured it to make it a little more a little closer to his story. Chris oh but Chris Oh, interesting. yeah and It as both an adaptation and as a standalone, which is really hard to do. SethH It is. Chris um SethH Yeah. Chris Because if you read if you read the original story, it feels like a view of a less-topian future. SethH Yeah. Mm hmm. Chris but um Whereas Star Trek is, of course, utopian at its core. SethH Right. Chris And so it's a really interesting way they went about it. SethH Mm hmm. Chris I love, I mean, the Gorn, how could you not? um But I think that the story itself is really, to this day, a very powerful piece. And you know I id say, start there, and it's anthologized everywhere. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah, yeah. Chris um SethH One of my favorite stories in that collection, because I i picked up that one and ah the Infinite Arena, um just because, yeah, I found them on AB eBooks. And um one of the fun ones in there was called Whispers and Bedlam by Erwin Shaw, where it's so good. um And and it's ah it's one of those, you know, it's a power corrupt kind of thing analogy or kind of message in it where it's this football player who is starting to go deaf in one of his ears. And and the only reason that he's even staying in the league is because there's like a cornerback or a safety on on his team who's reading the plays and giving him direction. SethH And then he starts to go deaf, and now now he can't get that direction. And so he goes and and gets you know Dr. Nick Rivera from The Simpsons to fix it for him. um and it yeah And essentially unlocks super hearing and like telepathy um so to where like he can't just read the play, he can read their minds. Chris Glad I'm not the only one who thought like that. SethH um and And all that ah you know that that but brings him fame, which leads to dissolution and luxury and all kinds of stuff. Chris Yeah, it's an excellent allegory for something that hadn't happened yet. SethH Yeah, yeah. Chris ah Yeah, it definitely is about performance enhancing drugs without having them at that time. SethH Yes. Chris And, you know, Sean's not a guy I would have expected to write one of my favorite ah science fiction stories. But it's a classic. It's, you know, it it is that classic sort of ah be careful what you wish for, because you might just get. SethH Mm hmm. Chris um But you definitely have the jock archetype. is SethH Yes. Chris And I love the fact that he wasn't like a superstar at the beginning. He was a guy who was barely hanging on. SethH Yeah, yeah. Well, not quite a scrub, but like like like ah a replacement level player is the way they theyd put it in baseball. Chris Like, that a- Yeah. Chris Yeah. ah Like, yes he is the guy who is the player to be named later in a trade. SethH Yes. Chris but yeah And that's a great story. SethH there Chris That whole anthology has some great stories. I think that one's certainly up there with my favorites too. um There was another one that whose name I have now forgotten because I am getting old. Chris um is ah ah was All the King's Horses was in that one. No, no, that wasn't. That was a different one. SethH No, no. Chris grat That Dodger's fan was in that one, which as a Giants fan, I was unappreciative of. SethH Yes. Chris But really, really interesting take of how... it's It's a Stranger Comes to Town story. And those can be fantastic. you know There are only two major types of stories. Stranger Comes to Town and Godzilla versus Mechagodzilla. And this is a good example of the first. Oh, the other one on that one was Mirror of Ice by Gary Wright. Chris um SethH It's very Death Race. Chris and And... SethH Yeah. Chris it's very And more important, and how can I forget death rates for this? SethH Yeah. Chris But what's amazing about it is, of all of the ones in here, arguably the hardest one to make, engaging, should be bobsledding. And yet, all the way through, this is an absolute, you know, I hate the term, ah this is a thrill ride that will keep you going until the very last word. Chris um It's just, I was literally exhilarating. I read that work on a couch, because we have a couch where I do a lot of my reading at slash napping. And um it was one of those like, I was getting up there like, whoa, keep going. SethH yeah Chris But yeah, that that whole anthology was just super solid. um SethH Yeah. Chris and SethH there There is a weird story in that one. that Gladys is Gregory by John Anthony West, where the sport is is husband fattening. Chris yeah SethH which Chris And that's one of the things I love is people who invent sports that are weird um for the sake of being weird. One of my favorites is a Haldeman story called behemoth about behemoth racing, um which are big giant mammoth-like things. SethH yeah Chris And the sad thing is it's like horse races here betting on them. and it that ah He loses all of his money betting on this one one behemoth and the behemoth ends up falling in love with him and following him home and eventually crushing him and It's a funny funny story um in general just great and you know, you know people will talk about what if people will talk about Ender's game endlessly not me um ah But but it you know, it's this idea idea that SethH Yeah. Yeah. Chris You are building, not only now, you're not only doing your general world building, but your sports world building. SethH who Chris And that can be very tricky because we have a way we think things work. And when it comes to sports, we definitely have a way we think things work. SethH Yeah. Chris And this makes that so much harder. SethH Yeah. Yeah, Ender's Game is an interesting one because it's it's more military science fiction, right, where the game is part of the training. um and On the other hand, I feel like in that world building there should have been Chris yeah SethH adult leagues for this game. and And he never really goes there. At at the end, I think ah Anderson or whoever it was who was kind of in charge of of that ends up like commissioner of football. SethH And and I thought, why isn't he trying to to create this? Chris Yeah. SethH I mean, I would play a zero G laser tag. Chris Yeah, definitely. SethH It'd be awesome. Chris Yeah, and i think I think one of the things about Ender's Game is that when it came up in the late 70s, I actually just found my copy of it, ah the original, the other day, it was existing in a world where we were seeing the evolution of sports. And one of the things I think why a lot of the stories, ah short stories that particularly came out in the 70s, was that we were seeing the evolution of sports and we weren't sure if these were positive changes or not. And I think, I honestly think that this was a reaction to those stories, not necessarily to the original changes. And when you're, you know, two levels divorced, you sort of lose the thread, I think. And yeah, but no, pro leagues would have been so great. SethH Yeah, yeah. Chris Get someone on that. SethH yeah what Chris It's someone else's theory, so Brandon Sanderson must finish it. ah SethH So one I think it was at the beginning of the Infinite Arena, um there's ah there's a quote from the anthologizer. It says, our sports are constantly changing with the passage of passage of and advances in technology, passage of time and advances of technology. AstroTurf, metal tennis rackets, powered rifles, and instant replay devices. And I'm like, they thought AstroTurf was a good idea. I guess they did not realize how how damaging that was going to be to ah to everybody's knees. Chris Yeah, you can make a very good argument. I mean, Terry Carr, who was the anthologist, was one of those guys who knew everything about everyone. um And, you know, I think astroturf was a great thing, but that's only because I love how astroturf feels when you run your hand on it. SethH and Yeah. Chris It's sort of a strange thing there. um But yeah, that anthology is fantastic. Chris Yeah, Joy and Mudville, great story. um What was the one, ah the race one? SethH The Bodybuilder's an interesting one. Oh, um that's the the great, ah I've got it right here. I've got the book. Chris Yeah, the Great Cladnar Race. SethH Yeah, that was a good one. Chris um And again, you're sort of seeing ah this idea of sort of their equivalent of the bored immortal, I guess. SethH Mm-hmm. Chris and you know and it's It's always when I kind of think that people see sports science fiction as a way of expressing, they want to write the same story again, but they want to do it with a controlled narrative. Chris um you know And so that's why the you know battle for the survival of the species is so important, home is that you know it it's majorly important. SethH Mm-hmm. Chris And you can write that 100 ways with war, but in sports, it's a little bit trickier. SethH Yeah, I will. Chris And you have that. in, is it, The Closed Sicilian by, I think it's Barry Mulchberg, ah did a great job of that. SethH Yes. SethH yes Chris ah Yeah, and I love the fact that in many of these sports, cheating is a really important aspect. SethH Mm-hmm. Chris And one of my favorite Haldeman stories, actually, and one of the few stories about tennis is, ah and I wish I had written it down and I didn't, um I actually printed out a list of all the sports stories and I left it at work um along with the infinite arena. But right in there, right in the pages closed, um is that he can go back in time five seconds. So, and talk about the ultimate ah archetypes. He is ah obviously on his last round, ah you know, two days to retirement type and he's playing the young buck who is so good. And he has to choose whether or not to use his power Chris and it's really, really interesting. Plus he's going through a divorce and there's so much other stuff and it's wonderful. oh And you know these stories are are great to hang things on. SethH Yeah. Chris Warning for the farmer's market. um But yeah, it's it's fascinating that things like sun jammers, great little story SethH Yeah. Chris yeah which to me it didn't read like Clark and maybe it's just that it's been a long time since I've read any e Clark but I'm thinking this is a little more dare I say fun um but yeah it's it's interesting how much excitement you can get from a sports store, you know, the bobsled one. A lot of the, I think a lot of the Hellketta sections of Head-On are by far the most exciting. um I like Sculzy a lot, but this is like, for me, this is top-notch Sculzy. I liked it even more than I liked locked in, ah which I liked, but I didn't love. But this was like, oh man, I could read this all day. Chris um SethH Yeah, there's, you know, one of the perils of writing a short story or a science fiction short sports story, right, is not getting the sports right. SethH And I think most of Deep Space Nine had an episode called Take Me Out to the Holodeck. Chris Mm hmm. SethH And it drove me crazy as a baseball fan, because there's a ah key plot point where like one of the Vulcans like goes back to the dugout and the Nog has to go tag him out. And I'm like, no, no, he went back to the dugout. SethH He's out. The umpire should rule him out. um He abandoned the play. Out. He's already out. And anybody who knows baseball knows that. And um it's it it can be really frustrating when they don't get it right. SethH Where, like, Joanne Mudville is much better um with with the baseball portions. Chris and Chris Yeah, and I think part of that is that Paul Anderson was a gigantic baseball nerd. SethH Yeah. Chris In fact, I think the last conversation I ever had with him was about baseball. SethH Mm. Chris um I can say that about a lot. I can say it about the only conversation I ever had with Jay Haldeman was about baseball um because the Giants still needed pitching. SethH Yep. Chris um and you know ah When you talk to a lot of the the writers who really love sports, they there are a lot of them, um they will tell you that every little thing that is wrong with it, just like every other sports nerd. SethH Yes. Chris Yeah, this is one of the reasons why I think the 1960 presidential presidential debate as considered as a steel cage match um was so frustrating was that I'm a gigantic wrestling nerd. Chris um and And as a second generation fan and a third generation wrestling nerd, ah you know, it got me because it missed out so many things in earth um but and But I realized that that is 100% a. SethH Okay. SethH and Chris Somebody say wrestling. JP. like I know. SethH but Chris ah It is a massive thing to get wrong and I'm only going to nip on it because that's what I do. SethH Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chris And it's a very fan-ish thing to do. SethH I like that we got bonus content from from one of your kids. Chris Yeah, that was JP. yeah Massive wrestling fan, incredible reader. Currently after three days, 10 hours into his readathon. SethH Oh, nice, nice. Chris So yeah. SethH So a couple a couple of stories that are sort of similar, I need to pick up the book here. as I dropped it, are Steel by Richard Matheson and The Body Builders. SethH And I wanted to look up the author of that, um Keith Lauer. Chris oh yeah Yeah. SethH And those ones are you thematically kind of similar because you have essentially, you know, robot boxing of various kinds. And, you know, but my favorite thing about Steel by Richard Matheson is that Real Steel, the movie got made and that movie was so fun. Chris I remember seeing that in the theater. SethH Yeah. Chris um Yeah, and again, along the lines with that is Robot Jocks, which is very much a SethH Yes. Chris heavy It's a heavier story than you expect. And yeah, Lamer is an interesting author. He wrote a couple of sports adjacent stories. um I found actually today, sadly, a excellent list of sports science fiction stories um compiled by Yakum Boaz, which I didn't see until today and I feel dumb because there are about 150 stories here. SethH Wow. Chris broken out by decade. um But yeah, Laumer did at least three that I could think of. But Laumer was best known for, ah yeah, the bodybuilders, 966. And Diplomatted Arms, another one that was crazy good. Chris ah But yeah, there's only those two. um But it's incredible that some authors who I don't think of as science, as not science fiction fans, they are science fiction writers, as sports nerds would be writing about sports. um It's an aspect in Triton by Samuel Delaney. Wouldn't be my first choice. um Again, Ian Banks, even Douglas Adams. Chris You know, folks, I wouldn't expect those elements to be in, but hey, they're there. And I'm i'm kind of excited for it. Octagon by Fred Sabrehagen may have been a little bit further seen than anyone else. SethH Hmm. Chris um The Octagon becoming a major portion of sports in the 21st century. SethH Yeah. Chris ah I was blown away when I realized that, and like, I was on a really fast reading day that day. SethH Hmm. Chris um One that I hadn't mentioned previously that I really think everyone should try and find because one, it's got an amazing cover. ah But two, it is a really interesting combination of things. Chris Is Killer Bowl by ah Gary Wolf. And Gary K. Wolf. Sorry, there are two Gary Wolf. SethH Yes. Chris Gary K. Wolf. Chris Which is a Chris It is a story, post-apocalyptic, about an old football quarterback for the San Francisco Prospectors. um Go Prospeys. And it is structured in a way that feels like a sports nerd wrote it. Chris and ah The great thing is it basically they close off a portion of the old city of Boston and they play in the actual cities with bombs and bullets and all sorts of flooding craziness. um That and Rollerball have a lot in common. um Both the movie Rollerball, which I think is phenomenal. It's a phenomenal satire. And the Rollerball Murders by William Harrison, um which is, it's a little more Chris I don't want to say cerebral because it's not quite cerebral, but it is more commentary. SethH Hmm. Hmm. Chris And I love when sports films get adapted, sports science fiction and films get adapted because you can see that each one is taking a different angle at it. And I really like that. Chris That's what I always like to say. I never like to step in the same river twice, even if it's the same water. And you know you can do that with a lot of it. And Rollerball and the Rollerball Murders are so different in tonal impact. Chris And that I love. I just love having that sort of aspect. SethH Yeah. Chris And you know Arena and ah that Star Trek, very, very different and wonderful. um SethH Yeah. Just as long as everybody remembers not to watch the Rollerball remake movie because that was terrible. Chris but it did give a paycheck to professional wrestling manager legend Paul Heyman, so I can't complain too hard. um Chris Like I have ah a friend of mine did a movie, Carolyn Kumar Go to White Castle, which ah she's in a wonderful technically competition scene. um Anyone who has seen it may remember it, it takes place in a bathroom. um And I often say, you know, you should watch it once just to make sure Kate gets a good paycheck. Chris oh That's the only reason why you should watch that movie. SethH Nice. Chris But ah I take that back. Doogie house is in it. Yeah, and I love one of the things actually, and another ah thing I really recommend is there is short films is part of my life. Chris And there's a current one that is The way I look at it is, the a of it's the same rough story as the Hunger Games, except the conceit is... Chris and instead of... SethH I lost you there for a second. You said the the conceit is going to start there. Chris Okay, yeah. The conceit is, yeah, so it's a hunger game, but the conceit is... environmental disaster survival as opposed to income inequality. And it's called no nation. And the idea is that in this post-apocalyptic world, being exposed to the sun will kill you. So every day, or I think it might actually be ah like one day in like a year or something like that, you have two teams that are put in these basic dungeons. Chris and When the sun comes up, it will roast one of them. And our main girl, who is 100% Katniss Everdeen, it's insane how perfectly mapped they are, is trying desperately to save everyone at the same time as playing this game, which is a ball game where you try to get it over the line on the other side. And it's exhilaratingly awesome. It's gonna be in CineQuest this year ah and in CineJoy, but No Nation is Chris I cannot recommend it highly enough. It was, in fact, actually while I was viewing, I went, I'm going to talk about this on this podcast. but So, yeah. SethH Oh, awesome. Is it based on a anything written or is it original to the film? Chris I think it's original for the film. um And I kind of looked into it, and then I realized I had to do the rest of the program, so I stopped. SethH Okay. Chris But yeah, film festival programming can be can be very difficult. um And this year was, SethH Okay. Chris However, we had 3,000 submissions and I watched 2,800 of them. So, yeah, it was fun. SethH Wow. Chris um But I also wanted to mention a couple of authors who are big names now, um who were kind of big names then who actually wrote sports stories, one of which is Georgia R. Chris r Martin. ah Return, or Run to Starlight, is that right? Run to Starlight and then The Last Super Bowl game, which is actually my favorite of the two. SethH Yeah. SethH Okay. yeah Rent to Starlight is the last story in the Infinite Arena. I was trying to finish this morning. I didn't get to that one. Chris it's It's good, um but it's George. And so you can bounce I can bounce off George real easily. But it's one of the ones that I really liked. But the last Super Bowl game is so good. And I think you can find that in a couple of different anthologies. ah If you get a chance and can find it, Kim Stanley Robinson, Chris ah Arthur Sternbeck brings the curveball to Mars. Chris It's so not what I expected from a KSR story. SethH Hmm. Chris It's so good. SethH Hmm. Chris um I love KSR in general, ah but this one's like, whoa, like here's a smart guy. SethH Hmm. Chris And Jonathan Latham, a vanilla dunk, slightly of its time. Um, but really good reading. Um, and I like, in general, I like let them, so I'm never going to say, you know, Oh, he's awful. Chris But ah did this story was like, yeah. Um, but yeah, you can definitely find a lot of. SethH i I do love the genre of let's take this sport and play it on Mars. And and what I especially love is like the golden age way of doing that, where it's like, we're not we're not even going to deal with the fact that Mars is 60% Earth gravity. SethH We're not even going to mention that. you know Why does it matter? I imagine Kim Stanley Robinson is going to talk about that. But like ah Clifford Simak, his story, Rule 18, is about an interplanetary football match. Chris yeah Chris Yeah, that's right. Yeah um And you know the one that I really liked was ah And I didn't reread it for this but I was really I read it years and years ago was the 19th whole second series by tassel stepson step Stepson I cannot pronounce his name. Um, it's from 1901 it is a universal Gulf story, which is so great. um I really wish I had gotten a chance um to reread that. But yeah, no, the the ones that kind of do deal with the weird physics, um you get you start to really see those in the 60s and a little bit in the 50s too. and But I think that the interesting thing about those is you're taking something that is really easy to Chris to sort of configure, you know, you're going to have people who are passing for 5,000 yards on a ah lunar football team, um which makes so much sense. SethH yes Chris um And, you know, that aspect when you get those little bits are great. SethH yeah Chris um But I just want to mention one other thing is that I guess it would be a sub sub sub genre. um is the game-playing aspect of it. SethH Yes. Yeah. Chris Because sports is the physicality of game, and you know, humans are human ludens, man the game-player. But this idea of chess as a sport gets often mangled about, and you know I thought that the all those sort of chess when you see in the 64 square madhouse by Fritz library is a good example. um One of my favorite again, Haldeman stories is about, ah which I think it's called playing for keeps. Yes, it is called playing for keeps. And it's about a alien who comes to take over the world and shows the kid a globe that is the earth. And he's, you know, planning on destroying it. And he Chris puts it on the ground and puts all the other planets around to make sure that, you know, we're taking over all the planets, and the kid thinks they're playing marbles. And he knocks all the planets out of alignment. Chris And the alien bugs out. Chris It's such a good story. And even me telling it, the whole plot will not ruin it in any way, shape, or form. SethH Okay. Chris ah It's really great. Also, I forgot, I can't believe I forgot to mention auto-defe. ah with all of the late ah the recent look at Dangerous Visions, ordered to say by Roger Zelazny, is a really, really interesting little story. SethH and Okay I mean Okay ah Yeah, I mean like the player of games by by inan banks, right? Chris um And you know that's another one where you have another game player, one in there. ah The story from that guy who I love, ah the poker game story is also there. Chris And why can't I remember his name for the life of me? I've read all of his stuff. I'll remember it later. but yeah SethH and That's all about games and it's Kind of a remarkable book just because I I don't know how it works, but it does Chris Yeah, and there's a lot in that player of games. social but the interesting but um We did an issue of the drink tank ah dedicated to banks, probably shortly after he passed away. um And while I was going through it, I read reread that and I'm like, I don't know whether or not I'm smart enough to understand how this works. Chris Because there's a lot going on that I just don't understand. SethH yeah Chris ah Yeah, there's a lot of... Roll Them Bones. That's an infestory. SethH Oh I've heard of that one. Chris Yeah, it's a it's a classic. It's heavy as hell, again, of its time. But problematic? Yes. Really, really fascinating. Also, yes. Chris um Another one of those stories that I will read occasionally and see listed in the all-time ah greats and say, yeah, that one probably deserves to be there. SethH Yeah, yeah i've been i've been recently reading, uh brittle innings by michael bishop Which which was a finalist for hugo and um I'm still at the point in the book where it's just a baseball book, right? Chris But, you know. Chris Oh, yeah. SethH There's no science fiction element to it and it really like I'd heard from people and this is reading true that it like you can practically smell the grass like the the way the baseball is evoked now it is set in the 40s and so some of the dialogue between the players involves a lot of epithets of of various kinds um you know kind of of its time thing although it's not so much of its time it's of the time that it's written about right where that is realistically the way people talk but it you know Chris Yeah. Chris Yeah, and there's, there's, yeah, one of the things, if the aspects that actually was reading a really interesting thing, got might've been a year ago now, about how sports brings out the best and worst in people. And it's because you always want to be the best at whatever you're doing. Chris in a sports aspect so you want to be you know be able to say the most affecting thing the heaviest thing and stupid alarms and they can't even turn them off but okay yeah it's this idea that you know it amplifies you because you want to be the best and I get that idea it just you don't always have to say everything you think oh SethH Mm-hmm. Yeah, I lost you again there. Hmm. SethH Right. Right. yeah yeah Yeah. Yeah. Smack talk in in sports, right? you You are trying to rattle somebody and and yeah, you can end up with some pretty offensive stuff being said. Chris oh yeah Yeah, um and I think actually there's a really interesting thing. I didn't get to find it. I should say this. um But there are two things that I am very excited for. Chris One, if you ever find Tim Sullivan's The Mickey Mouse Olympics from 1979, buy it because it it's brilliantly weird. SethH Hmm. Chris um But there are two stories, actually, I think. everyone should find. And one is called c Prose Bowl. ah It's by Barry Malzberg and ah Bill Prozzini. And it is it is what the box tells you it's going to be. um it is It's a lot of fun and it's hard to find, ah sadly. um But the other one is, and I want to get the name right. Yes, here it is. It's a play, actually, by ah Nigel Neil. And it's called The Year of the Sex Olympics. Chris And if you want to see how, this is like, to me, when I read this back in the way back times. SethH Thank you. Chris No, go. Chris Exactly. Chris um it's it's a It's a perfect version of a 1970s Playboy story done as a play. Chris And it I tried to find a good copy of it and for a reasonable amount and I couldn't. that that's one I remember reading it, I was probably 16 and being like, this is both salacious and... Chris um But yeah, there's a lot of stuff. SethH Yes. Chris And you know you can go on and on for days and days about sports science fiction. But one of the things is, you know a lot of us encounter it and don't realize we encounter it. You know, we realize the Hunger Games. Chris No, that's a post-apocalyptic. No, it's just it's a sports story. SethH Yeah. Chris You know, she is the one who wants to make everything right. She is Joe Montana. um And I will hear no argument on that. um That's so weird. SethH I love Joe Montana, so. Chris You you can't not love Joe Montana. SethH Yeah, yeah. Chris but um You know, it's all of these great concepts that we see just pieces of, and then suddenly comes clicks into play when you it finally clicked into place for me, was an issue of a zine called Miyakis, by a wonderful fan by the name of Ed Meshkis, ah passed away, I think, two years ago. And he put out this issue that was sports science fiction themed. And there's some great stuff from like, ah Chris ah Fred Lerner. And there's actually the listing for an anthology that Gardner Desroix and Mike Resnick never managed to sell on sports. And it actually, oddly enough, what it looks like is it reads like, what if we took all the good stories from Arena SF and all the really good stories from the Infinite Arena and put them in one package? SethH Yeah. Chris And that that sort of served as a reading list for me ah when I first started down this this road to ah figuring out that sports science fiction is something I really love. SethH Yeah. Chris um But you can find actually that issue of MIOC is it's N-I-E-K-A-S issue 46. It's on ah fanac dot.org. It's really good reading. Chris um In general, I think it's one of those, the better ah zines of the time. And I think that The fact that it's dealing with sports in a very, very high level way just makes it better. SethH Cool. SethH Do you want to talk ah a little bit about movies, sports, science fiction and movies? Chris oh SethH I mean, we've, we've sprinkled in some of it, right? Chris ah web SethH um Chris Yeah, definitely. And I think some some of the ones that you know instantly come to mind for me, yeah, Robot Jox is one, ah Real Steel is another. ah I do need to see that again. Death Race, though. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Chris ah Yeah, have two sort of stories that are basically the same stories taken again from different aspects, which is The Running Man and Death Race. SethH yes Chris And The Running Man is arguably the best satire of SethH Yes. Chris reality TV there is. um The fact that the producer of The Amazing Race said, what if we made The Running Man but nobody got killed as part of his pitch was like brilliant. SethH Right. Mm hmm. Chris But you know, the aspects of ah satire and allegory are all there. in all of these, and you know, Rollerball, Running Man, very closely related. Chris The Hunger Games is actually an interesting one that it gets further away from the game the further along you go in the the thing. And I like that. SethH Yeah, Chris um It's because you have established the world. SethH well. Yeah, I wonder if, like, gladiatorial games, right, and hungry games definitely falls into that, right? Gladiatorial games say something about a society very much, and and so so it does make sense to extend that into to talking more about the politics. Chris yeah Chris Definitely. um There are some some sports movies that are sports themed like the second rollerball are terrible. SethH Mm. Chris ah And ah it's odd that we haven't seen things like and haven't seen things adapted that really sort of give you the bigger role like the space opera type things you really don't have much there's a great book by i think one of the goldens christopher maybe no um the older one it's from the 70s called scavenger hunt and it is a intergalactic scavenger hunt and it's fantastic it's one of my favorite novels it was an old laser book i don't even know if it's ever been reissued i probably has because SethH Yeah. SethH Hmm. Hmm. Chris a lot of those sort of books got second releases. And it's really fascinating in that it is taking this idea of the scavenger hunt, a great game that is theoretically a sport, and making it spacefaring, which makes so much sense. Chris um as a guy who worked at a museum, I've done scavenger hunts for years, because we all try to use them. But, you know, the spacefaring aspect of that is great. Chris There's a lot of like, ah there's a space jousting story that I read years ago that I was like, okay, that's cute to have rocket packs, they're in space, it's a 1930s, great. um And i could I could argue that you would see things like SethH Yeah, yeah. Chris the I tend to watch films with a very weird sort of mindset. um So when you have a definite sports film, like, say, A Knight's Tale, Chris that is not necessarily genre, but it definitely feels in that realm. SethH It does. Yeah. Chris um Yeah, I mean, can post-modernist be genre? I guess so, um he said. SethH Hmm. Chris But, you know, there's lots of things like that. SethH Hmm. Chris I love, I absolutely love, one of my favorite films of all time is Rollerball. I say this often when I was doing my 52 weeks to science fiction film literacy. Chris It was one of the ones I really focused on because John Houseman is a genius. um but What we you also kind of see is everything in a film has to be ramped up. You can do something in a story where It is more personal, I think. But in film, and particularly in science fiction when it's dealing with sports, you have to amp it up and you have to make the stakes higher, at least to sustain a long scale film. So, you know, Robot Jocks, you absolutely see that. You definitely see that in The Hunger Games, um which is kind of, you can see from the book too. But I think it's the the length and the literal cost. But there are a few, you know, technically, Chris Air Bud is one. SethH Right? Chris You know, any time you have a chimp as a player on a football or baseball team. SethH and Yeah. Chris but SethH Or the the Flubber movies, right? There's always sports on those. Chris Oh my God, Slubber, how could I forget Slubber? SethH yeah Chris Yeah, or even to to a degree, the Legend of Bagger Vance. You know, we have all these where there are elements. And I think that speaks to the role of sports in a society. SethH Right. Chris And I think that ultimately we're always going to have sports stories in genre because they're always going to be sports. Chris I think, I hope so. SethH Yeah, yeah. Chris I could live without wrestling. SethH I will say that in anybody who's interested in The Running Man might want to check out The Prize of Peril by Robert Sheckley, which there was a lawsuit with with see the Arnold film because it looked so much like the German adaptation. SethH Or maybe it was the French one. Chris that SethH um there There were two adaptations, one and one in German and one in French of that story. And some of the sets look identical to to the Running Man ones of the movie. But the book is quite different than the Arnold film. SethH and I think we're getting a new adaptation of that this year. Chris Are we? Oh, good. SethH Yeah. Chris Oh, that's nice. SethH Yeah. Chris Yeah, the right man is like the whole story of, you know, strive to survive, you know the most dangerous game, all that is fascinating. And I love that the most dangerous game is a sports story, that if you map it out, it exactly parallels everything we're talking about here, except it just doesn't happen to have any genre in it. SethH Mm hmm. SethH Yeah. SethH Mm hmm. Chris But but you know when you look at some of the most important concepts in sports, ah ah surviving being the last one left of your generation means something in sports. Chris ah you know You had your George Blanda who lasted from you know the 50s all the way up through, I think 1979, 80 or something like that. you know This huge long career, he was the last or survivor and he made it through. Chris you know you know Allegorically, when you amp that up to the next level and you make it about survival survival, not just you know remaining relevant, ah it really does make for good storytelling. SethH Yeah. Yeah. SethH yeah SethH Let me see here. oh A couple of my favorite sort of made up sports um in in movies and TV, there was Pyramid in Battlestar Galactica and they sort of tried to show how the sport was played and I thought, I'm not sure how you'd get a team on the court that size. SethH Maybe they were playing the half court version or something, because Starbuck and Anders were playing it at some point. Chris ah SethH And I always did want to see what Parisi Squares was like in night Star Trek the Next Generation. Chris I remember there was a panel discussion at, I think it was time con in like 94 or something like that. Maybe it was another convention in the Bay Area. Chris And that was one of the things they brought up. I was like, I'm curious, but not so invested that I'll go out and try to invent it. SethH right Chris There's a lot of things like that, but that's one of them. There's one that I was thinking of that was a mysterious stranger oh ah arguably the most the best baseball movie that falls into the genre section has to be field of dreams and while i think it time falls into the trap of being manipulative um i do think that it tells an interesting set of stories SethH Right. SethH Yes. Chris And it's, I mean, it's also just beautifully shot. Like that's a gorgeous movie. But I often forget when I think about that, it is a fantasy, but it definitely is a fantasy. Chris You could say the same thing about the natural, honestly. SethH Yeah, yeah. I do think there's something about baseball that people who really love baseball are more romantic about it than other sports fans are about their sports. Chris ah SethH um And I've been trying to convince my Take Me to Your Reader co-hosts to do the Field of Dreams for baseball season this year. um We usually stay to science fiction, where where Field of Dreams is more magical realism kind of stuff. SethH But you know, it's essentially got, you know, ghosts in it. So it's fantasy. Chris Yeah, oh, definitely. And there was a story, I don't remember where it was, and I actually think it might have been like a French story translated, where it was ghosts playing a game, and every time you scored a point, you became a little bit more physical. ah And this, I would have read this probably 30 years ago now, but it was. Chris um It was definitely, I know it would have been a little bit around that time, because it was around the time Ghost came and, you know, they pushed a little thing. And ah it was this idea that pushing, ah that one of the things they were trying to do, you had to push a ah round ball over a line, which was about an inch away, and on two sides, and they were both trying to push it. And they said after 16 years, it had gone four millimeters. Chris Yeah, actually, and i have one thing I also do want to say is that, um and I didn't realize that when I read this the first time, ah Ib Melchior did the story that Death Race was based on, um which I read years ago, but also one thing about SethH Right. Chris naming for science fiction is that you always come up with great titles in sports stories I've noticed more than anything. So I love the agony of defeat and the thrill of victory. SethH Yeah. Chris But one of them is J.G. Ballard's The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race. um Another great one. SethH Wow. Chris But also the 64 Square Madhouse. Great one. um So many. I just love I think sports lends itself to reference. Chris And, you know, Joy in Mudville is a great example of that. SethH I. Chris And also a great story. SethH Mm hmm. Chris I hadn't forgotten how much I liked Joy in Mudville. That was just, that was are really impressive. There's also a story called Casey at the Bat. So. SethH Yeah, I love the bit in there where like the the aliens that are playing baseball are kind of like the thermions from galaxy quest where where if they hear a story, they just assume it's true. Chris that's right right SethH Yeah. And so their spirit is just crushed by Casey at the bat. Chris ah yeah I forgot about that. That makes so much sense. SethH Hmm. Chris Yeah, the Thermians. Oh, there's a grace. There's a great grace. Of all the great alien races that have ever been consumed, Thermians are right up there. SethH Hmm. SethH yeah Chris Yeah, because I was was very big into the writing of Robert J. Sawyer. We're going to be guests of honor at a convention once, and he couldn't do it sadly. and But I read all of his books, and I realized that, one, Chris He creates very fascinating races, that if they existed, the world would be way weirder than I think it is. And I think it's pretty weird. SethH you Chris Like, weird. SethH Yeah. Chris But yeah, the therapies are great. SethH Yeah. Chris um SethH Yeah. Chris yeah i i think sports science fiction film is slightly rare just because there are, it does have a gateway to entry. You kind of have to be into both the sport and the genre. Chris And that, you know, while we know we exist, I don't know if studio executives know we exist. SethH Yeah. Chris um I kind of hope they do. ah But I actually had a tab somewhere that actually had sports science fiction films and I lost it. SethH Well, I do like like what you said earlier about that that, you know, adding sports into fiction is, is you know, a key part of world building, right? Chris ah SethH Because it's a thing that we do, a thing that creatures do, we like to compete. Chris Yeah, and we like to compete for a whole bunch of very good reasons. One is that it there's a theory that we started inventing games as a way of making sure we were strong enough to take the resources from the bad guys. Chris Which, uh-oh. Chris You there? SethH I'm still here. Chris Okay, good, you froze. SethH Okay. Chris Yeah, um which is an interesting theory. um Oh, there's my list. Oh, ah wow, there's a whole bunch I didn't think of. um Yeah, Space Jam. SethH All right, lay them on me. Right. Chris It's right there in the name. Chris Yeah, Space Jam, actually, Space Jam is some really interesting storytelling. Even the new one um did some very, very interesting things. Chris How you look at familial relations and how you pass on you know your expectations to your kids, um which I think is a really neat way to do. SethH Hmm. Chris And it's very easy to do in science fiction. ah Yeah, oh, there's blood of heroes. SethH Hmm. Chris um Chris ah What was the other oh the Autobots from and You can't oversell a movie with Rector Howard and you just can't um I've seen so many wonderful ones over the years Really SethH I probably, I probably oversold the blood of the heroes. SethH Yeah. SethH It's got a very young Vincent de Nofrio in it as well. Chris oh before I guess it would be contemporary with his his finest role as Thor in Adventures in Babysitting SethH Yeah. Chris um SethH ah Chris Yeah, oh, and forgot Speed Racer. SethH Yeah, yeah. Chris Yeah, there's a lot, I mean, there's just, you can go on and on, Death Sport, which I had forgotten about, which is also great. There is a feature film version of Arena, which is very good and even less faithful to the original. Chris But yeah, there, SethH I mean, it was called death sport. Chris ah there was death sport and then there's also a movie called arena which is a yeah i'd forgotten i saw that years and years ago um that was uh you know it's a it's okay get away get away ticked off you're bad um but uh yeah it's crazy but yeah and i SethH okay SethH Okay. SethH I'm not sure how, because we we covered Arena for um for Take Me to Reader. I'm not sure how we missed the movie. Maybe it's hard to find. Chris Oh, yeah, definitely. SethH Yeah. Chris I want to say I literally saw it at one of our Psychotronic film festivals. So that makes it difficult. Fine. SethH Yeah. Chris But yeah, I think I think that sports science fiction film is an an area that really needs to get bigger. And because there are stories I want to see done. SethH Yeah, yeah. Chris I want to see one where. SethH Well, yeah, and and I'll definitely recommend the Infinite Arena and and Arena Sports Science Fiction, or SportsSF. Chris Good. Chris and Yeah, they're excellent entry points. And I know that a couple of the stories in there were read on other podcasts. Escape Pod did, I think, did Arena. Chris um And it was an excellent reading. SethH Yeah. Chris And because I hadn't read it in so long that, you know, hearing it was really nice. SethH Yeah. Chris um and Yeah, they there's so much stuff I could think of off the top of my head that now is just completely gone. um ah So much stuff. oh Like there was that one I've sent and I've now forgotten completely and my head is exploding. SethH Well, do make sure to send me links to, I think you said you had done some some actual work on on one of your sites, about the sports sites. Chris Oh yeah, definitely. SethH Yeah. Chris I'll send i send a whole bunch. um Oh yeah, there's, oh wait, come back here. SethH Okay. Chris why does Why do computers stink? um One that I really enjoyed, and then I realized maybe I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought was Rookie by Scott Sigler. Chris ah Scott's stuff's good, and this is actually a very good. As a sports story goes, it was super solid. I don't know as if as a general story it was as solid, but like I like Scott's stuff to a degree. Chris um and And the big ship at the edge of the universe is worth is worth looking into. ah that one is i love What I like about it is the same thing I like about ah the most of the writing of Philip K. Dick. I know what's going on, I kind of understand it, but I don't know what's gonna happen next. And I love that aspect. SethH Nice. Chris And just big chases. SethH and Chris Yeah. And ah anyone who really likes Quidditch, which is, as far as I know, the only science fiction sport that has actually come, an actual sport. Chris I believe there is a Quidditch World Cup match coming in the next few weeks. SethH so so back to the blood of the heroes people have recreated that game it's just called the game um the game and the people who play it are called juggers yeah Chris Just called the game, interesting. Chris Chuggers, intro, okay. Now I'm gonna have to find, am I gonna have to become a jock? That's not fair. SethH Well, the nice thing about the game is there there are different sort of skill positions, you know, like, like, Vincent D'Onofrio is quite a large man, right? So, like, he's the guy who's like swinging this big chain net kind of thing. Chris Yeah. SethH And then there's somebody called the quick who's essentially the seeker. um And that's played by by Joan Chen. And then I can't remember what what Rooker Howard is, he you know, he's the grizzled old guy, like trying to, you know, one one more season, kind of kind of. Chris yeah Yeah, Jonathan in Rollerball. SethH um SethH and Yeah. Chris Yeah, I think yeah it's it's very clear that that archetype i idea is definitely there for all of it because you know you need your jock archetypes. SethH Yeah. Chris You need to be told, yeah, oh, this is the guy who does this thing. And I just like archetypes. Like the trickster or Captain Caveman. SethH Yeah. SethH um Yeah, i mean i I think we're starting to wrap up here and and i just I like that intersection of of of the kind of things that I'm nerdy about, about sports and and science fiction. It's so much fun to to think about. Chris Yeah, and we're entering into the most important time of the sports year for me, which is WrestleMania season. um which you you know i am it's the most like I literally will go around going, it's the most wonderful time of the year and be thinking about Roman Reigns. Chris um so yeah And if you like, so this is a weird a weird pitch, but if you like sports and you like science fiction and you particularly can handle professional wrestling, SethH Nice. Nice. Chris There was a group called Chikara Pro, and one of their entire storylines was one of their wrestlers came unstuck in time. And at one point, a time loop causes the entire promotion to go back in time a year. Chris Yeah, someday I'm gonna write my my big essay on ah professional wrestling fans who are also science fiction fans. Because you have me, you have the Thomassuses. I'm sorry, ah Hugo Fonts the Thomassuses, because they have all of them. um ah Dick Lupov, like there are hundreds of us, Nick Mamatas and like wonderful folks. And you know, every time I get to see them, I get to make some wrestling reference, which, you know, is hard to do at convention sometimes. SethH Nice. um So yeah, I will try to ah to put some structure around yeah like ah references to stories and things that we talked about through this kind of unstructured conversation um and so that people can can check it out because I feel like we didn't really spoil anything and and ah these things can still be consumed and enjoyed. Chris Oh, absolutely. And I'll definitely, I'll send some links to some fascinating stuff ah that no one will have ever heard of, but now will. SethH Okay. Perfect. Nice. Well, ah Chris, before we sign off, where can people find you? Chris Well, you can find me just about everywhere as ah Johnny Eponymous, J-O-H-N-N-Y-E-P-O-N-Y-M-O-U-S. um It's Johnny named after Johnny. um And ah that's on all my socials. But ah you can find me at ah JourneyPlanet dot.org is ah the zine JourneyPlanet. And we're putting out issues left and right. Well, OK, about one every month or two. But ah we've got some really good ones coming up, one on Hellraiser. Chris Hellblazer. Sorry, not Hellblazer. SethH Oh, John Constantine. Chris Hellblazer. Yeah, exactly. SethH Okay. Chris um That is gonna be great. And one coming up on the wonderful city of San Francisco. So yeah, there's gonna be some great stuff. SethH me Chris And you can check out the drink tank. We just put out an issue last week for our 20th anniversary. And we're doing one ah The deadline is in a week for David Lynch, and I've got some really fascinating things to say about his 54-second version of the Black Dahlia. SethH Nice, nice. Chris yeah SethH What was I gonna say? Oh, don't, don't hang up anything. Don't, don't shut your browser. Um, I'll, I will sign off, but don't, don't believe me. I'm signing off for for the listeners, but not for you. Chris okay SethH Um, so, uh, I was trying to think if there was anything else. So, okay. like I think that'll do it. Um, so. All right. Well, Chris, thank you so much for doing this. I mean, it's been like a year and a half since we first started talking about doing it. SethH And that's the way it always goes on my podcast, but I appreciate your patience and, uh, and willingness to come on and and talk about this. Chris ah It's been so much fun. Thanks so much for having me. SethH All right. All right. Bye now.