STADIUM BEYOND THE STARS [Hardcover]

Milton Lesser (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Holt Rinehart & Winston 1960 2nd Printing (1964)
• ASIN: B000GABBO8
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #508,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Intergalactic Games, December 20, 2007

By 

Paul Camp (Chattanooga, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Boy, how I used to enjoy some of the juveniles of Lee Correy and Milton Lesser when I was a kid! And they do have some virtues that may still appeal to young readers-- the gee-whiz scientific enthusiasm of Correy and the slam-bang action of Lesser. Some of the values that these authors champion-- individualism, courage, honesty, and sportsmanship-- are appropriate for youngsters even today.

But Correy and Lesser were writers whose novels had thin plots, cardboard characters, and a rough style of writing. And when the authors chose to do so, they had their characters sing "songs" that were some of the worst science fiction poems ever committed to paper. There is one such song in _Stadium Beyond the Stars_ (1960):

"_Oh, Sirius is far away, far away, far away!
We've journeyed to the Milky Way, Milky Way, Milky Way..._"

The basic idea behind _Stadium Beyond the Stars_ is actually a good one. What would happen if you held some Intergalactic Olympic Games on a planet near the center of the galaxy? And what would happen if some athletic ships made first contact with a nonhuman life form on the way to those games? Lesser has developed one futuristic sport in detail-- spacesuit racing. But all other sports mentioned are old ones such as swimming, wrestling, or the shot put. What other futuristic sports might there be? Space polo? Four-D chess? Free-fall soccer? What would an Olympic stadium of the future be like? How would conditions on other worlds such as different gravity or atmosphere have to be dealt with? What sort of rules and regulations must athletes of the future follow? We are never told. I wish that Lesser had fleshed out his background a bit more.

If you can, I recommend that you get the Winston hardback edition with the original, spectacular cover by Mel Hunter.

_Addendum_: Since writing the above review, I stumbled across a similar novel, A.M. Lightner's _The Space Olympics_ (1967). It is also a juvenile, with a similar plot in which the hero eventually uses his athletic skills to save the lives of others. Like Lesser's novel, the athletic events are essentially the same as those of today. A more imaginative treatment of future athletics may be found in Piers Anthony's Appretice Adept series of novels.