A sports novel set in zero gravity

Lee, F. (2015). Zeroboxer. Woodbury, MN: Flux. Carr, 17, is a rising star in an exciting new sport of the future, the competitive world of professional zeroboxing, an intense combination of martial arts, kickboxing, and traditional boxing conducted in a gravity free cube. Carr’s skill and humble beginnings have made him a fan favorite, in spite of being Terran, or of Earth. His life is working out to be everything he’d ever dreamed and more: he’s falling in love with his brandhelm manager, a beautiful Martian woman who sees him as a person, not just a meal ticket, and a foreseeably long career ahead of him.

Of course, there is nothing interesting without a conflict and Carr discovers that his athleticism is not solely based on hard work and natural born ability. Everything he believed about himself and the people he trusted most has changed. Carr is faced with a moral dilemma that threatens to destroy the career he loves and has worked so hard for.

Fonda Lee’s science fiction drama is well-constructed and the futuristic settings are quite interesting. However, a back story to create a more authentic context for the reader. For example, Lee describes Toronto as ‘balmy’; one wonders if that explains why outposts and colonies were built in artificial atmospheres on Mars and Jupiter. The characters are unmemorable and not well-developed.But Lee’s exciting accounts of the action in “the Cube”, where the zeroboxing sport takes place, are the strengths of this novel. Those scenes are vividly written and highly detailed, with the brash announcers, zealous fans, and bone-crunching action we’ve come to expect in boxing, with the added twist of weightless opponents launching themselves at each other. This science fiction outing is suspenseful and exciting and is an excellent sports novel as well.

#sciencefiction #sportsnovel #adventure