The Space Olympics

by A.M. Lightner

Intergalactic athletic competition had just begun, and Ty Vann didn't even know about it when fast-talking trader Barnum Winkle found him herding sheep on the high-gravity planet Permai. But :Wink" knew Ty would make a discus thrower--maybe the best in the galaxy.

Once aboard Wink's ship the Clust Queen, Ty is on the way to high adventure among the stars--on the water-covered planet Oceanos, where the strange underwater life offers stranger perils, and on the planet Arcadia, site of the Olympics, where Ty must compete not only with the other athletes--but with mortal danger.

Genres: Science Fiction, Sports

181 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

A.M. Hopf, or Alice Martha Lightner Hopf, is the author of more than nineteen books for young readers, among them science fiction novels. Her books include The Day of the Drones, Doctor to the Galaxy, and The Rock of Three Planets. She also had a strong interest in natural history and entomology and has written several non-fiction children's books on the subject (published under the name Alice Lightner Hopf).

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was a kid, one of my favorite comic book series, when I found old issues at various local bookstores, was Strange Sports Stories. When I saw this at a used bookstore, i had to pick it up.

A lad in a high gravity world can really throw a discus. A promoter see him, and recruits him and some others to go to the Space Olympics. The kid meets a girl from a water world and sparks fly.

Juvenile, but entertaining.

[Julie Eastlick · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 to 4 stars for me. The book read like a youth/ young adult book from the 1970s, which is what it is. It was a fun simple story.