After a Season of Scandal, Some Good News for the NFL
The new sci-fi novel, ULTRA BOWL, casts an NFL team as time-traveling heroes, and sheds light on why football has such a powerful hold on us.
NEW YORK, March 31, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The early retirement of NFL rookie Chris Borland due to health concerns highlights the crisis facing football: the game is dangerous and playing is risky business. In this time of reckoning for the NFL and soul-searching for its fans, comes something to cheer about: a time-traveling adventure about a heroic NFL team that saves the world.
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A cautionary tale about the dangers of our Digital Age, ULTRA BOWL by I. J. Weinstock, tells the tale of an NFL team that's "time-napped" and transported 100 years into a future when robots instead of humans play football. Fulfilling Silicon Valley's prediction that robotics will drive the economy of the future, nations field robot football teams to compete for tech supremacy, market share and global power.
By pitting humans against robots, ULTRA BOWL offers some surprising insights into why, despite the health risks to its players, football has such a powerful hold on its fans.
The author, a former high school football player, writes on his blog, "As we increasingly live our lives in a virtual world of screens, software and apps, we may have greater need for the communal spectacle of humans battling against one another in violent competition. We may even crave the guilty pleasure of football's violence as a protest against living inside technology's glass cage. The paradox of football's violence is that it both attracts and repels us. It's the game's secret sauce."
The "time-napped" NFL players, disguised as the U.S. robot team, are forced to play against China in the Ultra Bowl. Before taking the field, where they face certain defeat and likely death, these 21st century football players are addressed by one of the architects of this 22nd century "Robotopia": "You've shown me what makes humans great—their heart, their capacity to love and be loved, their willingness to sacrifice themselves for those they love, to risk their lives and die for what they love. No machine, no robot, no matter how intelligent or indestructible, can risk. No machine, no robot can achieve such glory."
Weinstock believes that the epic contest of civilization is no longer Man vs. Nature, but rather Man vs. Machine. "Our increasing reliance on technology is a factor in football's enormous popularity," he writes. "With over 120 million people viewing this year's Super Bowl, football is our greatest communal event. Perhaps that's because the risk and danger of playing football celebrates our humanity in a way no other sport does. NFL players are our heroes not only because of their athletic skills, but because they risk themselves on the field. In our increasingly virtual and machine-enabled world, every time a football player suits up and steps onto the field, he's demonstrating what only a mortal human can. Courage! No Risk, No Glory! And that's something no machine can do."
ULTRA BOWL (DreaMaster Books) is available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com.
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DreaMaster Books
Lilly Julien
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SOURCE DreaMaster Books
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