Dystopian Death Sports Fiction
Honored samurai, ruthless ronin, wayward vagabonds, shadowy ninja and helpless villagers... welcome.
Opening Volley
I’ll be the first to admit that I never even knew that dystopian death sport fiction (DDSF, anyone?) was a thing. Well, not necessarily a hot topic in any circle that I’m aware of, but it certainly seems to have been a blip on the radar at one moment in time. The 70s? This article is as much a probe as it is a light introduction.
Main Event
The thing is, anyone who grew up in the 70s and 80s (at the very least) is familiar with DDSF, or at least the films based on them: Death Race 2000 and Rollerball. By far, two of the greatest dystopian, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist (anti-megacorp?) films of all time. Blood, guts, violence galore. A natural culmination of America’s love of sports and violence rolled into one, complete with froth-flecked popcorn crowds, screaming their favorite team’s name and ready make the ultimate sacrifice.
Killerbowl is probably a mystery to most. And even after I tell you that it was written by Gary K. Wolf, author of Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, the basis of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, you’ll still be left shrugging.
“It’s thirty years in the future. In the Boston Minutemen locker room, Street Football League quarterback T.K. Mann prepares himself for the biggest, riskiest, most dangerous game of his life. At the age of thirty-four, T.K. is the oldest player in the ultraviolent sport of Professional Street Football, a phenomenally popular twenty-four-hour-long athletic event combining pro football with mixed martial arts and armed combat.
The league’s championship game is being played this year In Boston, on a six block by eight block section of the downtown city. Everybody who lives there has been temporarily relocated. The two teams come out onto the eerily silent street. The Minutemen, with T.K. at the helm, and their opponents, the Harv Matision-led Prospectors, line up at the intersection of Myrtle and Garden. At the stroke of twelve midnight, the Minutemen kick off.
The season’s championship game begins; the game known by street football fans around the country simply and accurately as……Killerbowl!” — Amazon description
Again, blood, guts, evil broadcast corporations... the whole nine 100 yards of tense “sports” action with guns and garrotes on the gridiron. I blasted through the book in no time at all. It’s available via Kindle, and for those of you with a penchant for paper, there appear to be physical copies as well. Pick it up, you won’t be disappointed.
Which brings me to the Mindweb versions of both the original short stories (I think there are PDFs out there too if you prefer those). Gorgeous audio productions with a creepy vibe from the days of radio. Both at 30 minutes or under, they are the perfect sleepy weekend afternoon fare.
We never meet without parting
“The Racer.” “Roller Ball Murder.” Killerbowl.
What else is out there? You tell me. Hit me with links or titles and let’s start a collection together of these brilliant gems. Again, that’s dystopian death sports fiction of any length, in any media format. I would love to be able to purchase books for everything, but I’ll take a well-done audio format or PDF if they are no longer available. I don’t want to steal any thing, but some magazines (like OMNI, which printed a lot of great scifi work) just aren’t around anymore.
Next issue... Mars Express.
Until then!
Made in DNA
Obvious ones: The Long Walk (the first book Stephen King wrote, as opposed to published)
The Running Man
Less obvious: a book that made an outsized impression on me as a kid -- the novel tie-in to the Sega game "Road Rash", given away free with Sega Power magazine.
I have never encountered these before and I must admit the concept either.
Hmm. Wait I seem to recall a movie now, would The Running Man qualify for this? Maybe. Maze Runner seems to also be. And the small scene in the Korean film Peninsula might qualify as such.
This has never occurred to me until now. Thanks for the thought.