Forgotten Books: Pawn to Infinity

Pawn to Infinity is my favorite science fiction anthology of all time, although I don’t hear it mentioned very often. That’s why I’m putting it up as this week’s Forgotten Books Friday selection, which is the brainchild of Patty Abbott

The anthology was published in 1982 by Ace, and was edited by Fred and Joan Saberhagen. All the stories concern chess in either fantastic or science fiction settings. I bought the book when it came out. I was in graduate school at the time and was also interested in chess. I played with the University of Arkansas team and for a while half ignored my studies of psychology in order to study such esoterica as the Queen’s Gambit Declined and King’s Indian Defense. I finally realized that I didn’t have the brain power to play tournament chess and work on an advanced degree at the same time. Since I knew I’d never make a living from chess, I gave it up as a serious pursuit.

But even if the stories in Pawn to Infinity had a special meaning at the time when I first enjoyed them, most have held up wonderfully over the years and are still some of the finest stories I’ve ever read. The best story in the collection, without a doubt, is Poul Anderson’s “Immortal Game.” It’s a complete and delightful story, and yet illustrates an actual game and can be played by following along on a chess board. The game itself is called “The Immortal Game,” and was played in 1851 between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. Anderssen won after a dramatic series of sacrifices. Although there was no officially recognized world chess champion at the time, Anderssen was widely recognized as the best player in the world.

The next best story is “Unicorn Variation” by Roger Zelazny, written in his inimitable style, and also very good is Fritz Leiber’s “Midnight by the Morphy Watch,” which is a thinly veiled Bobby Fischer story, and George R. R. Martin’s “Unsound Variations.” There’s also a very fine classical short by Ambrose Bierce called “Moxon’s Master,” about a chess automaton.

If you like good SF shorts, or love chess, or both, this is a really worthwhile anthology.



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Chess in Fiction

Bobbie Fischer’s death started me thinking about the use of chess in fiction. One of my favorite anthologies of all time is Pawn to Infinity, a collection of SF tales involving chess that was edited by Fred Saberhagen. The best story in the collection was “The Immortal Game” by Poul Anderson, which was a brilliant dramatization of an actual game, called “The Immortal Game,” played in 1851 between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. Another equally famous and beautiful game is known as “The Evergreen Game,” which was played in 1852 between Anderssen and Jean Dufresne. They had no formal world chess championship in those days, but Anderssen was widely considered the best in the world at the time.

Some variation of chess appears frequently in fantasy works. The first time I remember seeing this was in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series. Martian chess was called Jetan and was played on a black and orange board of 100 squares rather than the 64 squares of Earthly chess. ERB even included the rules for the game in, appropriately enough, The Chessmen of Mars. (You can also find the rules on Wikipedia.) Alan Burt Akers (Kenneth Bulmer) created a chess variation called Jikaida for his Dray Prescot books, a sword and planet series that had some influence on my Taleran works. Jikaida has a number of forms but Bulmer gives the rules to the most common type in an appendix to A Sword for Kregen. The game has 36 pieces and, I believe, 216 total squares. a Sword for Kregen is clearly influenced by ERB’s The Chessmen of Mars.

John Norman invented a chess variation called Kaissa for his Gor books. Kaissa is played on a 100 square board of yellow and red and involves an interesting twist called the “placing of the home stone,” the home stone being the spiritual heart of Gorean cities. Norman never gave the full rules of the game in the books, and even indicated that there were many different versions, but several versions have been formalized by fans and you can find some of them at Kaissafan. The term Kaissa is a variant spelling of Caissa, who is known as the goddess of chess. She first appeared, as far as I know, in a poem by Sir William Jones. Norman’s real name is actually John Lange, and he is a philosophy professor. One might expect him to know about classic poetry, although he doesn’t seem to know much about women.

I invented a game for my fantasy stories as well. It’s called Kyrellian, although there is a simpler version called Kyrell. The central board (battle board) for Kyrellian is 100 squares, with two smaller boards (Home boards) of 40 squares each attached to either side by a narrow, one square width, bridge. The players, known as Crystal and Obsidian, start with 20 pieces each on their home board and must move their pieces into the battle section of the board across the bridge. The object is to capture the opponent’s land (the 40 square board), and this can be accomplished in several ways. Kyrell, the simpler version, begins with the pieces already placed on the battle board. There is a longer, more convoluted version, in which four players compete from four different Home boards.

I’m considering doing an article on the issue of chess-like war games in fiction, but I need to do quite a bit more research. Maybe some of you can help. Any of you know of books that have used chess as part of the plot, or that have invented some variation on the game?

Searching for Bobby Fischer

I must interrupt my regularly scheduled blogging to announce that Bobby Fischer has died at age 64 in Iceland, apparently of kidney failure, although what caused his kidney problems has not been revealed.

Bobby Fischer was widely considered a chess genius, and was the first, and still the only, American of the modern period to hold the World Chess Champion title,which he won after defeating the Russian, Boris Spassky, in 1972. He then refused to defend his title and was stripped of it. Many have claimed that Fischer was the greatest chess player of all time, although there is no way of proving such a claim.

There was a time when Fischer was something of a hero to me. I came to chess late but played it a lot in college and played competitively for my first two years in graduate school. I never achieved Masters status but I took the study of the game seriously and did pretty well in local tournaments. I flirted with the idea of pursuing it at a professional level but realized three things, 1) the amount of effort required would be enormous and I didn't have the strength for chess and graduate school both, 2) because of getting a late start in chess, I'd probably never be as good as I wanted to be, and 3) I lack the killer instinct needed to play at the top level.

It was reading works by and about Bobby Fischer that first really brought me to an interest in chess. I played and replayed his games as a learning experience, and they were often things of beauty. At times he created virtual works of art on the board.

Later, I found that Fischer was not a particularly admirable character on a personal level and I lost any sense of hero worship for the man. But, on the chessboard, he achieved greatness, and I cannot help but feel a touch of sadness for the passing of such a talent.