Welcome.You are hereby invited to compete in a tournament of Life Game Bridge ("Li Ga Bridge"). Li Ga 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 Li Ga 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, Li Ga 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 all the more 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.
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