Harry Potter Plays Chess In the Hunger Games!

I am huge fan of Harry Potter books, but equally, am fascinated with the Hunger Games / Divergent dystopian films, so this inspired my new fantasy novel, Michael Sceptre and the Deathful Chess Games.

It is FREE on kindle for about 4 days or so and would appreciate your support in downloading it, reading it and hopefully enjoying it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I wrote the book to try showing the world the magic of chess and its importance.

The harry potter similarity comes from the book (or series) having a young prodigy in Michael Sceptre. Plus the fact that I live 5 minutes drive from Warner Bros Studios, and always see the harry potter tour buses on my daily commute, I was bound to be inspired by the popular book series.

Being a chess player myself (do not let my chess.com rating fool you lol, I was once 3rd best junior chess champion in my home country!) - so I wanted to make sure the book sticks to the rules of chess. 

However, I wanted to strike a balance between it being an introduction to chess and being an interesting story at the same time,  otherwise it might as well be a non-fiction book.

So as you read your free copy, you will come across chapters titled, "Chess Letters Part I and Part II". In those chapters, the protagonist, Michael, learns chess from his uncle Darius. In the letters you learn about chess pieces, but more importantly, the philosophy and life lessons from chess. Something similar to what Garry Kasparov did with his book How Life Imitates Chess.

Usually chess is associated with war and battles, but I personally see it as a representation of society albeit instead of having the monarchy we now have the republic. So in the book, similar to Hunger Games or Divergent, the districts or factions are replaced by chess piece names.

For example, Pawns are the lowest faction. They are the scum of Eurikka (the fantasy continent), and have to wear facemasks to cover their shame. Rooks, are the rich folks in Eurikka. 

Where possible I have tried to differentiate the characteristics within factions by the concept of black and white squares in chess. By this I mean, a white Pawn, is a good pawn, hardworking and following the rules. on the other hand, a black Pawn flaunts the rules, is lazy etc. By no way is it about race. Within Rooks, you have the cROOKed folks, always looking to scam the Pawns and not pay taxes etc, all the while the good folks pay taxes and care for the welfare of their employees.

I use the book to explore other important topics in life such as death, suicide, witchcraft, betrayal and even love (I have a chapter titled, "Love in the Midst of a Chess Game" - during the middle game of an important match, I take you into the love life of the players).

The biggest challenge was near the end of the book, when, Michael is shocked to discover the true meaning of the chess games, hence the subtitle - ...the Deathful Chess Games.

My hope is that you enjoy the book, and that the chess community will get behind the book and hopefully see the book turned into film to help raise awareness of the great game.

But why get more people interested in chess? 

Besides the countless benefits of chess e.g. good for brain development, develops critical thinking skills, applies well to business strategy etc.

I genuinely enjoy playing chess because it is fun. I find it fun to be creative on the chess board and mentally compete with someone, and I want to sell the fun part of chess.

On a deeper level, I want people to take part in chess to promote independence of thought. There is far too much reliance on media, celebrities, politicians to do the thinking for us - when we should embrace ability to think for ourselves, and accept consequences of our actions rather than blame others.

The ebook is free on Amazon Kindle and you can download and read it here.

Hurry because it is Free until Thursday 16th March 2017!

Thanks for sharing!

That's an awesome idea, 1kings3. I tried writing a few books and posted them on authonomy and all that. My stories weren't that great. Good luck to you  

@slow_pawn like your chess.com nickname. Thanks for the well wishes.