This is the front cover of
Bullet Games, a 280 page novel I wrote from August 1st, 1996 to August 27th, 1996. I was around 16 at the time. The 4th of 10 handwritten books that I wrote during the years 1995-2000, this basketball thriller was heavily inspired by the novels of Tom Clancy: even the book title is a rip-off of Clancy's novel
Patriot Games. In any event,
Bullet Games follows the highs and lows of the Washington Bullets basketball team during their 94-95 season. Like all my basketball books, the team was a mix of real-life players and players that I myself had created.
The back cover of
Bullet Games.
Piston Wars was a basketball novel written by my brother Tom Champagne that same year.
Bullet Games about the author page. I think that's my tenth grade yearbook photo. Too bad I had forgotten to shave that day: also too bad that I had decided to rock an Australian Outback t-shirt.
The critics loved
Bullet Games. Most of these blurbs I just copied from Tom Clancy books, just changing the author's name.
Bullet Games copyright page. Observe that the book was "published" by Berkley Books, who was Clancy's publisher at that time. For some reason all my handwritten books had the ISBN of 9999-9999 (which isn't even close to resembling an actual ISBN).
Bullet Games table of contents page. A lot of these chapter names, again, are taken from some of Clancy's novels.
The dream cast for
Bullet Games.
A
Bullet Gamesreader's survey that I had my dad fill out after he had completed the novel.
Page 1 of
Bullet Games. Observe how the NBA draft is taking place in late July instead of late June.
Page 125 of
Bullet Games. The bucking van in this scene is based on one that my parents once owned.
Page 131 of
Bullet Games. For some reason I decided that Boston Celtics legend M.L. Carr just needed to be the book's main bad guy.
Pg. 138 of
Bullet Games. A tense scene between Utah Jazz point guard John Stockton and his wife.
Revolutionary Road, eat your heart out.
Pg. 163 of
Bullet Games.
pg. 174 of
Bullet Games. One of the Washington Bullets' female players, Non Nothma (named after
Star Wars' Mon Mothma, leader of the Rebel Alliance!) is forced to watch as her husband dies from cancer at the hands of a bunch of lunatic doctors who are clearly quacks ("We need a heart pump!")
Pg. 211 of
Bullet Games: A scene in which one of the Bullets' female players is attacked by an assassin. She kills him with the help of one of her plants, a "Strangler Fig."
Pg. 212 of
Bullet Games. I can't think of too many sports teams that have their own personal staff of psychiatrists on standby.
Pg. 225 of
Bullet Games. More implausible action nonsense.
Pg. 246 of
Bullet Games. The team's head coach, Jim Lynam, shows up for game 7 of the NBA Finals dressed as a priest. As his team takes its final shot, he recites the Lord's Prayer, and as soon as he finishes it off with "Amen" they hit the game-winning 3 pt. shot. You can't fake that kind of writing.
Pg. 249 of
Bullet Games.
The final page of
Bullet Games.
These are awesome, James!
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