Arena by Fredric Brown

Arena Reviews

• 
  Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽

  4.5 stars - my favorite of the 1944 stories nominated for Retro Hugo awards! You can read "Arena" free online
  here or
  here. Review first posted on
  Fantasy Literature, together with reviews for ALL of the current Retro Hugo novelette and short story nominees. Seriously, this FanLit column took me HOURS to put together, even though I didn't write all of the reviews in it, so please scoot over there and take a quick look and let me know if my efforts paid off. Feel free to add a comment to the thread there. :)
  
  So, "Arena":
  
  Two huge space fleets near Pluto are about to engage in a battle to the death: Humans and the aliens they call the Outsiders. Bob Carson, a young human in an individual scout ship, is about to engage with his Outsider counterpart in another scouter when he suddenly blacks out, only to awaken under a dome on a planet in another dimension. Across from him is a large red ball with retractable tentacles that turns out to be the Outsider scout, and the two are separated by an invisible barrier.
  
  A disembodied voice informs Carson that if the space battle ensues, one side will be wholly exterminated, but that “winner” will be so damaged that it will “retrogress and never fulfill its destiny, but decay and return to mindless dust.” So this powerful entity has plucked Carson and the Outsider out of the two fleets to fight a one-on-one duel to the death. This being will destroy the entire spacefleet of the loser, allowing the winning species to continue to progress. But given the invisible barrier between the two, it will be a battle of brains as much as physical strength.
  
  I first came across "Arena" at about age 13 in
  The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964, a book that was instrumental in shaping my love and tastes for SF. "Arena" was one of the most compelling and memorable stories in the collection, and rereading it now, a few decades later, I’m impressed with how well this novelette has withstood the test of time. Compared to some of the other Retro Hugo nominees from this year, it’s an outstanding piece of storytelling, and there’s a nice note of irony to the ending.
  
  "Arena" was used at least partially as inspiration for a famous Star Trek episode in 1967 (also called Arena), which has a quite different ending. Many prefer the Star Trek ending, and I can't really argue with that, but considering that this was written during WWII, when the mood for righteous war was at its peak, it’s impressive that Brown actually took the time to show that Carson does attempt to make peace with the Outsider, which responds with a wave of hatred so strong that it physically weakens him.
  
  "Arena" may be somewhat lacking in depth and nuance, but as a suspenseful, well-told SF action tale from this era, it’s hard to beat.
• 
  Jen

  Wow. Powerful. My heart is pounding, that was intense! I’m going to go with 5 stars. Man tried peace first, woot! Review for Arena by Fredric Brown
• 
  Tristram Shandy

  Pitted Against Each Other …
  
  … are not only two civilizations, the one of Terra and that of the Outsiders, who have started to infringe on Terran space, so much so that an Armageddon of a space battle is pending – but also two individuals, namely Carson and the anonymous, mysterious Red Roller who (or which?) is a representative of the Outsiders.
  
  These two individuals find themselves, all of a sudden, in a nightmarish arena where they have to fight to the death – not only the death of their opponent but also the death of the civilization their opponent stands for. This was settled by a powerful Entity who watched the encounter of the two vying civilizations with interest but decided that an epic battle between these two is to be avoided as it will not only wipe one of them off the face of the universe – a result the Entity is not too worried about – but prove a Pyrrhic victory for the other civilization, which would find itself utterly devastated and unable to carry on its, undoubtedly valuable, civilizational mission. Now, the Entity won’t have that: Progress does mean survival of the fittest, and the survivor must not languish under such a severe penalty. There is, by the way, a similar Star Trek episode but here Kirk and his reptile antagonist are made to fight because they brought warfare into an otherwise peaceful sphere of the universe, whose inhabitants meant to teach them a lesson.
  
  Frederic Brown’s short story Arena was first published in 1944, when the U.S. fought the Second World War against Nazi Germany, and perhaps this circumstance may account for the rather warlike, unconciliatory keynote of the tale that might make it dubious in the eyes of many a modern reader. In fact, Carson, “our man”, at first tries to establish contact with his opponent and to convince him to bury the hatchet, but he is met with such a wave of nauseating hatred that he soon discovers that this is a war that must be fought to the end, and there is nothing at all likeable about the alien life form, which even takes cold delight in ripping the legs off a harmless lizard and then tossing it at Carson. The limitation to Carson’s perspective and the concentration on the protagonist’s effort to overcome the challenges of his new environment and get the better of his devilish opponent make this a very suspenseful story but also keep it very simple and void of surprise or insight. In short, this is not what I usually connect with the style of Fredric Brown but then, as I said, this may be explained by the historical background of the time it was written in. After all, there are conflicts in which compromise is impossible and in which good is pitted against evil – the only problem is that they usually don’t make very interesting stories.
  
• 
  Alice

  5*
  
  So this dude Carson is in an alien space battle when something weird happens and he falls into a planet which is the "Arena". A magical voice enters his mind and pits him to a fight to the death with a member of the alien species he was fighting in space. The alien is a red sphere with tentacles. See it's on the cover. I have no idea what the other thing is though. That creature is not in the book.
  
  Carson and The Sphere are separated by a barrier in the arena so they both have to find out how to kill each other with this wall of separation between them. The sphere only having tentacles puts it at a huge disadvantage in my opinion. The strategies used were very cool. Really entertaining story.
  
  So in the beginning Carson thinks he might be in hell, but everything in the Arena is blue so he's like I can't be in hell everything's blue... Then he notices the enemy RED sphere in the distance... XD
  
  "CARSON OPENED HIS EYES, and found himself looking upwards into a flickering blue dimness.
  
  It was hot, and he was lying on sand, and a rock embedded in the sand was hurting his back. He rolled over to his side, off the rock, and then pushed himself up to a sitting position.
  
  ‘I’m crazy,’ he thought. ‘Crazy -- or dead -- or something.’ the sand was blue, bright blue. And there wasn’t any such thing as bright blue sand on Earth or any of the planets. Blue sand under a blue dome that wasn’t the sky nor yet a room, but a circumscribed area -- somehow he knew it was circumscribed and infinite even though he couldn’t see to the top of it."
  
  Short story from 1944, 27 pages officially
  Full story:
  http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~jjl5766...
• 
  Devero

  Adattato più volte in più media, questo racconto di Brown si lascia leggere, o ascoltare come nel mio caso, decisamente bene. Ricordo ancora la prima volta che ne sentii parlare, nei titoli di coda della serie originale di Star Trek, nella puntata dallo stesso titolo (in italiano). Che è, in buona misura, una fedele trasposizione del racconto.
  Certo, l'idea dello scontro tra alieni deciso da due campioni, o come in questo caso, da due individui presi a caso, affonda le sue radici nell'antichità umana. Ricordo il rito dell'ordalia altomedievale, o anche certi aspetti del gioco della palla tra i maya e gli aztechi, la stessa Iliade e per certi versi persino l'incontro-scontro tra Gilgamesh ed Enkidu.
  Ovviamente oggi non possiamo fare a meno di notare un certo sciovinismo in questo racconto, ma l'autore lo ribalterà comunque nel suo La Sentinella
  La sentinella e altri racconti di fantascienza dove in una singola, memorabile pagina, scriverà il più incisivo racconto breve di SF.
  4 stelle. Sarebbero 3, ma l'influenza multimediale di questo racconto non va sottovalutata.
• 
  Adam

  -Read in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One-
  
  Well written, tense, action packed story of man’s conflict with an alien species. Humanity has encountered another lifeform of equal power in space. They have an insatiable lust for power and control of the universe, just like us! A mysterious arbiter must step in to settle the dispute, as otherwise both forces would be destroyed in the ensuing conflict: enter story title. I did find the writing of the others as nearly pure evil to be convenient and a bit weak, but an enjoyable story nonetheless.
• 
  Jamie

  High stakes, mano e mano, human vs alien combat to the death! I can see how this inspired the well known Arena episode of Star Trek TOS, but there's a lot of awesome, creative elements here that do not appear in the episode. Short, action packed and well worth a read!
• 
  David Lutkins

  This story was adapted as an episode of Star Trek TOS. That episode was pretty good, but this story is much better. The writing is first rate and the plot is interesting. The Star Trek episode would have been much better had they kept the story's original ending instead of changing it completely.
• 
  Peter Tillman

  Online copy (may be temporary, for a class I think):
  
  http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~jjl5766...
  
  Background:
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_(...
• 
  Jen

  Expanded review by myself & cohosts on the
  Sanctum Secorum podcast, episode #42.
  
• 
  Tim Pendry

  
  A solid 1944 space opera, published in Astounding Science Fiction, by a competent writer. It has one big idea - that the destiny of the universe will be decided by a creature-to-creature fight between an alien invader and a human space pilot arranged by a somewhat cruel god-like arbiter.
  
  It works well within its frame of reference and is well written but, like so much science fiction, it has necessarily become dated. One twist that no human will ever know of this (other than the pilot) when it is all over might remind you of Ligotti's theme in the very much later 'The Mystics of Meulenberg'.
• 
  Harmony

  So, I picked this story up because it was an assigned reading for my class. I went in with low expectations and I was gladly surprised. I haven't read a story this well put together since, Angelfall by Susan Ee(I LOVE this book!). The writing is incredibly vivid and perfectly paced. As for the plot, it was fantastic! The plot held me in suspence and I read the entire story in one sitting. I can continue to speak highly of this story, but I'll let you read this story for yourself and experience how great it is.
  
  I Highly reccommend Arena to everyone, especially if you're in a reading slump.
• 
  Scott Doherty

  ‘You and your opponent are here pitted against one another, naked and unarmed, under conditions equally unfamiliar to you both, equally unpleasant to you both."
  
  Amid escalating conflict between Earth and mysterious alien Outsiders, massive armadas from both sides are set to meet in what looks to be an evenly matched battle. Bob Carson, the pilot of a small one-man scout ship blacks out while engaging with an Outsider counterpart. When he awakens, he finds himself naked in a small enclosed, circular area with his alien counterpart. A voice identifying itself as a supreme intelligence tells the two that upcoming war between their two civilisations would end in mutual destruction and so it has intervened by placing one individual from each species to fight in single combat. The loser will doom its kind to instant extinction. Carson tries to communicate with his alien counterpart to see if a compromise is possible, but receives only a message of unremitting hatred. With only an invisible barrier between the two that only inanimate object can cross the two battle it out for the survival of their respected worlds.
  
  Published in 1944 this short story is a classic troupe that’s seen in many science fiction stories, the battle to the death with an alien entity where all one must use all wits and cunning to survive. It was interesting to read, we read from the perspective of the human and how he through trial and error creates new and inventive ways to murder his opponent, all the while knowing the alien is doing the same. It definitely keeps you hooked and the tension on, awakening naked alone and unarmed facing of against your mortal enemy who is hell bent on killing you with the added pressure of if you die your whole race dies with you. I can see the connotations with the building conflict in WW2 that it was unlike any war fought before and that your whole way of life was in the balance. It is a enjoyable little read!
  
• 
  Vadie

  For someone else, I’m sure this would have been an interesting science fiction story. Sadly, it just was not that for me. In the least. I could not have cared less about anything that was going on and even though an alien battle between a single human and the enemy, with the winner determining the survival of their respective race, sounds riveting, the execution of it was anything but. Rather than a fascinating look into these two mortal enemies combat and perhaps understanding of one another, or possibly even an action packed battle to the death, we readers get very little of this. Instead, we witness a sad man’s mental degradation due to being thrown into this maddening situation, him doing his best to stave off his opponent, and him having a mild breakdown due to a talking lizard. Which, personally, I found less than intriguing.
  
  Overall, an interesting concept I feel could have been done better. Also, poor lizard. I wish I had not read that part.
• 
  Laur-Marian Mertea

  First of all I want to say that I don't know if I was subjected in my early reading years to a story similar to this one (I used to read A LOT when I was a kid!) or to a movie/cartoon/something inspired by this short story, but I felt the embrace of familiarity from the first sentences I've read.
  I won't spoil the story too much: it's robust, concise, "painted" in sharp, bold lines. There's a clear line between good and bad and overall the writing style "feels" like the stories written and published in the '50s.
  Overall, I'd definitely put this on a list of must-read classics.
  
  3.8/5
• 
  ᴛʜᴇᴏᴅᴏʀᴇ

  This story is credited as the basis for the Star Trek Original Series episode
  Arena; so I read it with that in mind and only learned later that the episode was intended as original and they sought adaption rights after a producer noticed the similarity of the stories. So I was very impressed with the divergences of this from the story of the episode (although it did lack a lizard man in a shiny miniskirt)
• 
  Kirk Carver

  Written in 1944, this short story holds up well with a only a few spots of overly dramatic phasing, flat characterization, and scientific errors due to ignorance at that time. It was the seed for the Star Trek Original Series episode of the same name. The short story sees a more militant protagonist than Capt Kirk and a plot less redeeming than the television show — possibly because of the Roddenberry filter placed on the series.
• 
  Alejandro Sierra

  Original historia de un duelo a muerte entre dos formas de vida muy diferentes, en una arena muy peculiar. No digo especies porque no tienen el mismo origen biológico, uno es humano y la otra es una extraña forma de vida extraterrestre, esférica con tentáculos retráctiles. Al final vence el ingenio de una de ellas sobre la otra. No precisamente basado en ciencia dura, pero una idea muy interesante.
• 
  Karen K - Ohio

  A mysterious encounter with “The Outsiders” alien armada is intercepted by a more powerful entity who creates a new battlefield. This could have been a dull and predictable story but instead it’s very compelling and intense.
• 
  Morgan Enix

  This is one of the most satisfying short sci-fi pieces I have read. I would highly recommend this. It makes it so much better if you think of the context in which it was written: WWII.
• 
  Michael

  A story published in 1944 in the magazine Astounding. A typical Campbell story of the time emphasising humanity’s superiority over aliens. Not politically correct these days!
• 
  Ardent

  Chcel som napísať že 50s sci-fi, ale pravdou je, že je z 44ho :)
  Celkom príjemná záležitosť o pár stranách.
  Muž proti emzákovi, ide o všetko. Ľudstvo aj...emzáctvo.
• 
  Jason

  Old school sci-fi battle of champions
• 
  Sergii

  I enjoyed it. Maybe it's simplied..but I guess it's on purpose
• 
  Fiorinda Autieri

  Questi audioracconti stanno diventando una dipendenza, sono fondamentali quando non posso stare seduta a leggere. Ho sempre più desiderio di scoprire questi autori e generi.
• 
  Clyde

  A classic Fredric Brown story.
  Still good on a decades later re-read.