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Grand Central Arena: Difference between revisions
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[[File:gca_ja_mosaic_cover_5086.jpg|frame]]
A [[George Lucas Throwback]] [[Space Opera]] novel by [[Ryk E. Spoor]].
The Sandrisson Drive promises to give humanity [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]] of the distances-are-shorter-in-hyperspace variety. But when the ''Holy Grail'', the first manned FTL ship, transitions into Kanzaki-Locke space, it finds itself not in a featureless void, but contained within an enormous sphere encompassing the volume equivalent to the solar system. Outside the sphere is the Arena, where thousands of alien races interact and compete according to the rules laid down by the [[Precursors]] who built it. And if Captain Ariane Austin and her crew are ever to get the Drive running again and get home, they'll have to face the wonders and dangers of the Arena and stake out a place for humanity in a universe stranger than they ever imagined.
A sequel has been announced as in progress{{when}}, with the working title of ''Spheres of Influence''.
{{tropelist}}
* [[Absolute Xenophobe]]: The Molothos. The Arena system forces them to interact non-destructively with other sentients, and they are ''not'' happy about it.
* [[Absurdly High Stakes Game]]: This is the core and essence of life in the Arena; if the name "The Arena" didn't clue you in, the fact that the "Challenges" can cost you entire
* [[Air Whale]]
* [[Artificial Gravity]]: Check. Double check. Lift off a Sphere and you still haven't escaped it.
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* [[Enlightenment Superpowers]]: The Faith's approach to training.
* [[Famous, Famous, Fictional]]:
** A list of fictional creations that have become bywords for rogue-AI fears: [[Frankenstein (
** Ariane compares the Faith's ceremonial music to [[Beethoven]]'s Ninth Symphony and Satterli's "Jovian Themes".
* [[Floating Water]]: Check!
* [[George Lucas Throwback]]: To the pulp space opera of [[
* [[Gone Horribly Right]]: The Hyperion Project.
* [[Gone Horribly Wrong]]: The way the Hyperion Project came apart was a complete disaster.
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* [[Hollow World]]: The Spheres.
* [[Humans Are Special]]: Humans are {{spoiler|more willing to take risks.}}
** And on top of that, [[Word of God]] says that humans have a special ability that they've never noticed because they've only been competing against each other.
* [[I Know Mortal Kombat]]: Most of the humans with regard to hand weapons. Of course, in the Solar System of GCA, the "simulators" are just as good as the real world (or can be: some people prefer to play with the realism dialed down).
* [[Labcoat of Science and Medicine]]: Invoked by Dr. Sandrisson, whose preferred outfit is a white suit of which the coat is tailored to resemble a lab coat.
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** {{spoiler|Ariane Austin}} has a contact-weapon biomod derived from electric eel biology.
* Good Old Fashioned [[Space Opera]]: What the author was shooting for.
* [[Shout-Out]]: Lots, notably ''[[Lensman]]''/
** Several in-universe shout-outs to [[
** The Hyperion Project also provides in-universe shout-outs to the ''[[Skylark Series]]'', as well as ''[[Doc Savage]], [[Sherlock Holmes]]'', and ''[[Journey to
** The Tayler scale used for rating artificial intelligences is named after the author of ''[[
** Also a lot of other SF and Anime material. If you look closely at Orphan's description, you'll realize he looks like [[Dragonball Z|Perfect Cell]].
* [[Sliding Scale of Realistic Versus Fantastic]]: ''Unusual''.
* [[Subspace or Hyperspace]]: They thought they'd invented your standard jump-into-hyperspace-to-shorten-distance drive. Then they found someone else got there — ''an entire universe of “there”'' — first.
* [[Training
* [[Translator Microbes]]: The Arena provides.
* [[Unobtainium]]: Indestructible matter made of quarks, without bothering with atoms along the way.
* [[Why Am I Ticking?]]: Room-temperature-superconductor loops built into your armor are [[Achilles' Heel|no longer energy storage devices]] when [[Captain Obvious|they're above room temperature.]]
* [[World in
* [[World of Cardboard Speech]]: {{spoiler|1=Marc DuQuesne}}. "Your mistake, you pea-brained overbearing pompous crayfish, is that you think you have any idea of what you're dealing with."
* [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair]]: Ariane has blue hair, which she was born with as a legacy of genetic tinkering in one of her ancestors.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Science Fiction Literature]]
[[Category:Grand Central Arena]]▼
[[Category:Literature]]
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