It might be 70s, might be 80s. The Earth is devastated after a nuclear war. Most of the survivors are mutated and sterile. An alien comes to Earth and impregnates a local. The resulting boy-child is gorgeous and perfect. Flash forward 20 years or so. The boy-child is taken to some alien planet where he is made a (literal) pawn in a chess-like game to decide who will rule some galactic empire or another. He was supposed to, back on Earth, have been implanted with this device that would make him mess up the game by, when he had the chance to promote from pawn to another piece, convert to the wrong piece to allow the bad guys to win but he ended up not getting implanted and won the game for the good guys.
Sorry Otto, I have no clue but I’ll be checking back for the title. Sounds interesting to me.
It wasn’t. Trust me.
::: bump :::
Anyone?
Do I have this right?
A gorgeous, perfect boy raised by a single mother is the subject of a nefarious plot to influence him to become a bishop so he won’t become a queen?
That’s not science fiction. That’s seminary school.
I read hundreds of SF books in the 70s, and I am so glad I don’t know this one.
The opening scenario sounded like Triple Detente by Piers Anthony to me, but the rest of it didn’t… not that I’ve read it since it came out…
No, not Triple Detente.
Otto, how old were you when you read this book? Please don’t be offended by this, but there have been many threads where someone wanted a book, movie, or TV show identified and after numerous fruitless attempts to figure out what it was, we finally decided that it was the plots of several books, movies, or TV shows combined into one. This becomes more common the younger you were when you read or saw this item. Can you tell us any external facts about this book? Was it hardback or paperback? What did the cover illustration look like? Did you own the book, borrow it from a friend, or check it out of the library? Did you buy it at a bookstore or order it from a book club? Is there anything else you can tell us about the book?
This was a paperback, probably bought in a drugstore out of one of those spinning racks. I know it’s just the one book.
Additional details…let’s see, the reason that the perfect specimen didn’t get implanted was because the deformed Earth doctor who was raising him on behalf of the bad guy aliens thought the implant would benefit him but it killed him instead. The implant went to the back of the neck. The leader of the good guy aliens was a beautiful young princess who of course fell in love with the beautiful Earth-boy. The last chapter of the book was a description of the “chess” game, which consisted largely of the Earth-boy being advanced across the board as the bad guy cleared the way in anticipation of the Earth-boy being turned into a king so he could be captured. The piece he converted to was a “prince.”
I’m almost completely sure that the signature colors of the good guys were gold and green, but I could be wrong.