I first listened to The Rookie at work while I was doing a big photography project. I wasn't quite sure if I would be interested in a story about football, even if it did have aliens in it, but I liked Scott Sigler's work (I'd just finished listening to Ancestor), and I thought I'd give The Rookie a try. And I loved it.

Then Sigler decided to publish The Rookie himself, even though he has a publishing deal with Crown Publishing, a division of Random House. His publisher wasn't interested because it didn't fit the horror/thriller genre that Sigler's other books are in. I listened to him talk about his decision on an episode of Mur Lafferty's I Should Be Writing and I was inspired by his positive view of the future of publishing. The same night that I listened to that podcast, I bought a copy of the book. I received it last week and read it in a couple of days, and I liked it just as much in print as I did in audio.

The Rookie is set in the future, after aliens have become known to Earth, and in fact after one race of aliens conquered much of the galaxy. Football is still around, and it's a very popular sport across the galaxy. In the Galactic Football League, different races hold different positions on the team, based on their physiological traits. It's rough and deadly serious--deaths on the field are a normal part of the game.

The protagonist is Quentin Barnes. He's a young and hugely talented football player from the Purist Nation. These religious humans decry the other races, calling them "sub-races" and believing them to be Satan's associates. They don't allow aliens into their space (except for the members of the ruling race, since they have no choice), and they teach their children to hate and fear the other races. These children grow up learning how to kill the other races, and Quentin Barnes is no different in his hatred of these aliens.

When his contract is sold to a GFL team, he has the chance to realize his dream, but he's faced with the reality of having to live and work with these aliens, and even with other humans who don't fit the Purist Nation standard of humanity. In the beginning of the book, Quentin is an asshole. I don't know how else to put it--I didn't like him at all. He thinks he's so wonderful that he doesn't have to listen to anyone --his coach, the starting quarterback for his new team, his other teammates. He can't recognize honest help when he sees it, and thinks that everyone is out to embarrass and humiliate him. As Quentin begins to grow into a likable, respectable person, he's faced with more challenges and has to learn to lead the rest of his football team by seeing them first as his teammates instead of as the aliens he learned to hate and fear. His character growth drives the book, and Sigler does a great job of creating a realistic character who learns from his environment and the people around him.

And it's not just Quentin--even the alien characters are very well realized. They feel real, but still alien. They're beings just as much as any of the humans in the book, and there are things that bring everyone together while not losing each of the races' unique characteristics. This is why I can love a book about football.

That said, I guess I've got to talk about the football. I don't know anything about it, or at least I knew very little when I first listened to the podcast version of this book. I'm glad that I listened to it before reading it, because while I was reading I found myself reading a little faster through the football scenes, because I don't know the difference between a lineman and a linebacker or a fullback and tailback. The great thing is that it didn't matter--the energy of the game, excitement, danger, joy, pain, tragedy, it all came through clearly in these scenes, especially in Sigler's reading, but also in the print version. I felt for these characters, I wanted them to succeed, as individuals and as a team.

The coming-of-age story, of someone learning to deal with their preconceptions and realize that the world is a lot bigger and a lot more complicated than they believed, is a timeless one. I've read this story in fantasy settings, in the modern day, and in science fiction, and it will always have a place. Sigler did an excellent job telling this story in a sci-fi setting to satisfy any sci-fi fan. I can only imagine how great this book must be for anyone who's a fan of both science fiction and football.

I think I recall hearing Sigler say that he had more to write in this universe, and I know that I will listen to or read all of it, whether it's about football or about anything else, because he's created an engaging, real universe with beings worth rooting for.