Earthman tem super-força em um mundo alienígena e vence torneios de liderança

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Há uma antiga história curta de um homem que descobre que os humanos têm super-força em um mundo alienígena no espaço exterior ainda em exploração. A cada sete anos, eles tinham torneios para ver quem governaria o planeta. O vencedor também escolheu sete esposas e todos neste planeta eram muito atraentes.

No final, acontece que ele é um

psychiatrist and this is all just an elaborate story some guy tells to quacks who end up paying him to learn the planets location only to find it's a scam. He finally realises when he bumps into another psychiatrist out in the middle of nowhere.

Alguém sabe a que história estou me referindo?

    
por Valorum 14.06.2016 / 21:54

1 resposta

It's "Second Game" by Katherine MacLean and Charles V. De Vet, referencing the spy who is found out because he's very smart and consistently beats people in their local strategy game (which is complex enough it makes chess look simple).

He plays each opponent, letting them win. Then, in the second game, he beats them. In this manner, he beats two of the world's best players (unknowingly) - this is a big thing, because the alien race chooses leadership based in part on playing ability.

The leader (the only one to beat him in the second game, IIRC) later comments to the spy that he has, indeed, beaten the species in 'the second game' - by diluting the alien species genes as you mentioned.

It's a short story I've seen in at least two compilations, but I can't find the author at the moment.

edit:

I emailed the fine folks at MIT's SF library ([email protected]) and this is the response I got (describing the work pretty much as I did above):

The story you described could be either the original novelette, "Second Game" by Charles V. De Vet and Katherine MacLean, which appeared in the March 1958 issue of 'Astounding' magazine, or one of the expansions. The first expansion was entitled "Cosmic Checkmate" and follows a similar storyline but is about twice the length of the original. I don't know when it originally came out, but there is a Kindle edition (ebook version) which is available for less than five bucks.

The second expansion came out in 1981, and was retitled to "Second Game," presumably to match the original more closely. It has a romantic subplot, which given your description makes me think that you read one of the first two stories rather than the third one.

The book review at http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton/aced14.htm has more information.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely, - Susan Shepherd

Esta é uma citação de uma pergunta diferente, que parece bastante semelhante.

    
21.06.2016 / 00:17