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geekwayne's review against another edition
4.0
Editor Paula Guran has put together a really great anthology of sf stories involving a variety sports and games in Future Games. From a sport involving planets colliding to a story about the children of enemies playing football, the stories span the familiar to the unfamiliar.
There are a wide variety of authors included in the collection with stories going back as far as 1965. Included is the original novella for 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card as well as stories by Cory Doctorow, George R. R. Martin and Scott Westerfield, among others. There are encounters with alien beings, reality television events and sports played on strange terrain.
An editor of an anthology has the job of deciding what to include and exclude in a collection like this, and usually I walk away liking most of the stories. In this case, I can't think of one I didn't enjoy in this collection. There are a couple standout favorites, but the collection stands quite nicely in it's complete form. All the stories seemed to focus on what it means to be human and compete, whether your opponent is an alien lifeform, or your own mind. I'm glad I picked this one up.
There are a wide variety of authors included in the collection with stories going back as far as 1965. Included is the original novella for 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card as well as stories by Cory Doctorow, George R. R. Martin and Scott Westerfield, among others. There are encounters with alien beings, reality television events and sports played on strange terrain.
An editor of an anthology has the job of deciding what to include and exclude in a collection like this, and usually I walk away liking most of the stories. In this case, I can't think of one I didn't enjoy in this collection. There are a couple standout favorites, but the collection stands quite nicely in it's complete form. All the stories seemed to focus on what it means to be human and compete, whether your opponent is an alien lifeform, or your own mind. I'm glad I picked this one up.
hckypylon's review
5.0
I started this collection of short stories this morning. It's very cool see how each of the authors has taken the games we play to today into the future, like American football & Sumo Wrestling, as well as create future games from scratch.
caramm's review
i definitely wanted to be more into this collection than i'm ending up. the premise is great, but the collection seems to suffer from two problems: 1) it feels very dated, and 2) there's a lack of... imagination overall. the first issue has to do with the fact that while the anthology was put out in 2013, the most recent story within it was first published in 2008. additionally, the collection feels dated because of its composition - of sixteen stories, only five are from women (who play more games and sports than either industry's media likes to give credit to), and the majority of stories are from authors over 50 (whose relationship to games and sports is and was probably a lot different than that of more contemporary players and athletes). the imagination issue was more disappointing, in the sense that i wasn't often wowed by the sport-ness that was introduced. i like sports and games A LOT, and i think that anyone who does too might have come up with some more clever twists on rules and goals.
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