Sanem Ozdural's LiGaTM was published by Elsewhen Press as an e-book in July 2012. The paperback edition will be published in December 2012.
Here's information about the author:
Sanem Ozdural was born in Ankara, Turkey in the 70s, and spent her childhood from age seven onwards in England. Happy days at a quintessentially British boarding school in Surrey helped forge her character and tastes, not to mention lasting friendships. Making her way to the U.S. she studied economics at Princeton University. After graduating from Boston University School of Law, she moved to New Orleans where she practiced as a prosecutor and civil litigator, and spent seven wonderful years living in the French Quarter.
In 2004 she migrated from New Orleans via Washington, D.C., reaching New York City in 2006, where she still lives and practices law. Sanem was an avid bridge player until the tenth round of revisions to her debut novel. She is now thoroughly enjoying an indefinite bridge sabbatical, and imagining all sorts of stories that feature absolutely no bridge or chess.
Here's a description of LiGaTM:
Welcome.
You are hereby invited to compete in a tournament of LifeGame™ Bridge ("LiGa™ Bridge").
LiGa™ Bridge is a tournament of duplicate individual bridge in which eight players gamble with, and for, a portion of their lives.
Yes, it is possible to gamble with life! We have the technology. Life-gambling is enabled by a process we call "hand imprinting". The physical manifestation of this is a network of cranberry-hued lines on the palms of the players' left hands. These lines track the natural print of the palm and the effect is akin to a fortune-teller's hand map. For further information on LiGa™ technology, please review Appendix I.
You will be gambling with a portion of your remaining life to win a portion of the other players’ lives. To be precise, each player will wager one third of his/her remaining life per game, as measured by Life Points, to win one quarter of the total Life Points deposited by the losing four players. The losers' remaining lives will be shortened by one third.
The tournament ends when one – or more – of the players reaches 100 Life Points. This is the point at which the age-related degeneration of the human body ceases completely, irreversibly, and indefinitely. A somewhat misleading term that is applied to this state is 'immortality'. Reaching 100 Life Points does not mean you cannot be killed, only that you will not age. In other words, immortal does not mean invincible.
During the tournament – after the first transfer of Life Points has taken place – your body will be in a constant state of flux as it adjusts to markedly increased or decreased rates of degeneration on a weekly basis. For detailed information on the impact of life-absorption on your body, please see Appendix II.
If you wish to enter the tournament you must submit a non-refundable entrance fee of $10,000,000.00.
Xavier Redd (Imm.)
Have YOU had your invitation yet?
Literary science fiction, LiGa™ tells of a game in which the players are, literally, gambling with their lives. Sanem Ozdural's debut novel is set in a near-future where a secretive organisation has developed technology to transfer the regenerative power of a body's cells from one person to another, conferring extended or even indefinite life expectancy. As a means of controlling who benefits from the technology, access is obtained by winning a tournament of chess or bridge to which only a select few are invited. At its core, the game is a test of a person's integrity, ability and resilience.
The fantastic nature of the game's technology is made credible by the familiarity of the contemporary setting, giving the story a definite slipstream feel. Sanem's novel provides a fascinating insight into the motivation both of those characters who win and thus have the possibility of virtual immortality and of those who will effectively lose some of their life expectancy.
A REVIEW OF SANEM OZDURAL'S LIGATM
Before I write anything else, I'll mention that LiGaTM can be categorized as literal science fiction and also as literal speculative fiction. In my opinion the best way to caterogize LiGaTM is to say that it's literal science fiction, because the events take place in the near future.
Sanem Ozdural's LiGaTM is an interesting book, because it demonstrates that it's possible to write an entertaining book about a game of bridge. Of course in this case, the bridge game is totally different from a normal bridge game, because the players play with their lives and losing is fatal.
I never would've thought that anybody could write a book like this about a popular card game, but Sanem Ozdural has done it and she has succeeded in it beyond all expectations. If somebody thinks that a book about a card game is boring, they should read LiGaTM, because it's a thought-provoking book about immortality and gambling with your life.
As many readers may know, bridge is considered to be one of the finest card games ever and mastering it and its rules takes lots of practice. Knowledge about bridge isn't required to understand what happens in this book, but it may clarify and explain certain things. I've personally played bridge a few times and I enjoyed it, but I have to confess that I don't remember much about the rules of the game, so reading about bridge was interesting to me.
Here's information about this book:
LiGaTM is a shortened name of LifeGameTM Bridge. LiGaTM has become very popular and people are interested in it, although they know that losing can be deadly and dangerous. In other words, LiGaTMLiGaTM has become a sensation. All the players deposit an amount of their life force to Life Bank before the game and during the game the winners get their life points. Winners become immortal, because their bodies stop aging.
Sanem Ozdural explorers life, death, immortality, feelings and even relationships in this book and she does it well. LiGaTM is a surprisingly complex book about a game of bridge which can change one's life totally.
It was nice to read about the issues concerning immortality, because gaining enough life points to become immortal didn't mean that one could be invincible. A person who would become immortal, would still be able to die. For example, viruses could kill an immortal person.
Reading about losing and gaining life points was fascinating, because the losers lost part of their life force and it had a rough effect on their bodies. The winners gained more life from the losers and felt more energetic and livelier than before.
Here's a bit of information about the characters:
There are eight players who participate in the LiGaTM contest. These players are interesting characters, because they're different from each other and have made different choices in their lives. I enjoyed reading about Father Griffith, Judge Other and Storm Drake, because they were perfectly created characters. Writing about a priest, judge and F1 driver gives the author quite a lot of room to explore different issues from religion to car racing.
I thought it was interesting how well the author wrote about the feelings of the characters, because each of them had a different view about immortality and what it would mean to them. I also enjoyed reading about how other people reacted, when they heard that the main characters were going to participate in the LiGaTM tournament (their feelings were interesting, because they began to think how they lives would change if their partners would be immortal).
I liked it very much that the author explored human weaknesses and strengths philopsophically and made the reader think about what it would be like to live forever and never age. Perhaps the most important question that this book raises is: What would you do with your life if you had a chance to live forever? This book also raises another question: Could you live with a person who is immortal and would never age?
It was great that the author wrote about a transparent rose in this book. I've always been interested in botany, nature, gardening and plants, so it was nice to read about a transparent rose and its hybridization. What made this rose especially interesting was that it meant a lot to one of the characters, because the hybridizer of the rose was proud of the achievement.
I enjoyed LiGaTM very much, because it was an entertaining and well written book (the prose in this book is accessible, so several readers will be able to enjoy the story). Sanem Ozdural is an author to watch, because she shows talent for writing literary and thought-provoking science fiction. LiGaTM is a great book, which can be recommended to all science fiction readers (and especially to readers who enjoy reading literal and philosophical science fiction).