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From: Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: (ReacTor) Five SFF Works About Contests and Competition
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2025 15:29:33 -0500
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On 6/2/2025 11:33 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> Five SFF Works About Contests and Competition
> 
> It's not about winning, it's about doing your best! And also winning!
> 
> https://reactormag.com/five-sff-works-about-contests-and-competition/

Zero for five.

Our own Ryk Spoor wrote a great book about space contests: "Grand 
Central Arena"
    https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Central-Arena-Ryk-Spoor/dp/1592116221

"It was supposed to be a simple test flight, one that pilot Ariane 
Austin was on only as a last-ditch backup; intelligent, superhumanly 
fast automation would handle the test activation and flight of 
humanity's first faster-than-light vessel. But when the Sandrisson Drive 
activated, every automated system crashed, the nuclear reactor itself 
shut down, and only the reflexes and training of a racing pilot saved 
the test vessel Holy Grail from crashing into the impossible wall that 
had appeared before them, a wall which is just part of a monstrous 
enclosure surrounding a space 20,000 kilometers across. With all 
artificial intelligences inert and their reactor dead, they had to find 
some other source of power to reactivate the Sandrisson Drive and - 
hopefully - take them home. And that was only the beginning. As Ariane, 
Dr. Simon Sandrisson, darkly enigmatic power engineer Marc C. DuQuesne, 
and the rest of the Holy Grail's crew explore the immense artifact, they 
discover that they are not alone; they have entered a place the alien 
inhabitants call "The Arena", and there is no way out without joining 
one of the alien factions...or winning recognition as a faction in their 
own right, playing by the Arena's rules - and by the Arena's rules, one 
failed challenge could mean death or worse - perhaps for the entire 
human race. Surrounded by alien factions, each with its own secret plans 
and motivations, some wielding powers so strange as to be magical, 
Ariane sets out to beat the Arena at its own game. With DuQuesne's 
strategies, Sandrisson's genius, and her own unyielding determination, 
she's going to bring the Holy Grail home - even if she has to beat every 
faction in the Arena to do it!"

Lynn