Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions (ebook)

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Earth’s two-party politics is about to get an alien interloper

By Larry Hodges
Science Fiction
Release Date: March 8, 2016

Ebook
124,000 words
Also available as a trade paperback

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Description

Praise
The year is 2100, and the world has adopted the American two-party electoral system. When it comes to the election for president of Earth, the father-daughter team of Toby and Lara Platt are the cutthroat campaign directors who get candidates elected by any means necessary—including the current president, Corbin Dubois of France. But when an alien lands outside the United Nations, claiming to be an ambassador from Tau Ceti, Dubois orders her attacked. Toby resigns.
 
The alien survives—and so, it seems, might Dubois’s corrupt reelection campaign, now run by Lara. But Toby vows to put his daughter out of a job. He challenges the two major parties—one conservative, one liberal—and runs for president himself with a third-party moderate challenge. He's a long-shot, but he's determined to fix the problems he created in getting Dubois elected.
 
Amid rising tensions and chants of “Alien go home!” the campaign crisscrosses every continent as father and daughter battle for electoral votes and clash over the ideas and issues facing the world of 2100 in this bare-knuckle, fight-to-the-finish political campaign. The world is watching. And so is the alien.

Book Trailer

Excerpt

The spaceship landed shortly after 9:00 A.M. in front of the United Nations Building in East Manhattan, exactly four weeks before the start of the worldwide election for president.

The large black sphere, 20 feet in diameter, had plummeted out of the sky at a meteor's speed, then slowed in seconds until it came to a stop, floating five feet above the ground. No Earth vehicle could match that performance. There was no visible means of levitation underneath the ship, just a smooth, black surface. In most places on Earth there would have been panic. However, this was New York City, Earth's capital, where "alien" was just a matter of degree.
Crowds gathered, many broadcasting the images worldwide with their thought computers. A child threw a veggie dog against the black sphere, leaving dripping mustard on its side. Several other children dashed under the black sphere until stern parents pulled them back.

Within minutes, delegations of police arrived. They cordoned off the area around the black sphere to hold the crowds back, then sauntered about, not sure what to do about this strange ship that had fallen in their midst.
The chief of police stepped past the cordoning. There was no obvious door on the ship, whose shiny black surface was marred only by the dripping mustard. He rapped on the ship with his stick. "Anyone there?"
“Larry Hodges is an insightful political commentator and a kick-ass science-fiction writer. A dynamite novel full of twists and turns; this futuristic House of Cards is both entertaining and thought-provoking.”
— Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Quantum Night

"A tense, taut political thriller that rings much truer than you would suspect, given that it won't be happening for another 8 decades."
—Mike Resnick, 5-time Hugo winner and editor of Galaxy's Edge magazine

"It’s a marvellous book. Easy reading, fast-paced, lots of surprise plot twists, likeable heroes, a loveable alien and a gripping climax that takes the election right to the wire. Highly recommended."
—Eamonn Murphy, SFCrowsNest

“In this amusing satire, the American two-party electoral system is now used to elect a World President...Larry Hodges is a master of irony and slips in enough humor that it’s a great ride.”
--Abyss & Apex

Author Bio

Picture
Larry Hodges, from Germantown, MD, was going to be a math professor (bachelor's in math), but science fiction writing and table tennis (yes, ping-pong) sidetracked him, and now he writes (and coaches the latter) for a living. He is an active member of Science Fiction Writers of America with over 70 short story sales. Campaign 2100: Game of Scorpions is his third novel, and combines three of his favorite things: science fiction, politics, and table tennis. He's a graduate of the six-week 2006 Odyssey Writers Workshop and the 2008 Taos Toolbox Writers Workshop, and is a member of Codexwriters.com. His story "The Awakening" was the unanimous grand prize winner at the 2010 Garden State Horror Writers Short Story Competition. He's a full-time writer with ten books and over 1600 published articles in over 140 different publications. He also writes about and coaches the Olympic Sport of Table Tennis, is a member of the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame (Google it!), and once beat someone using an ice cube as a racket. Visit him at larryhodges.org.