Gearheads

In the early nineties, a visionary special-effects guru named Marc Thorpe conjured a field of dreams different from any the world had seen before: It would be framed by unbreakable plastic instead of cornstalks; populated not by ghostly ballplayers but by remote-controlled robots, armed to the steely teeth, fighting in a booby-trapped ring. If you built it, they'd come all right.... In Gearheads, Newsweek technology correspondent Brad Stone examines the history of robotic sports, from their cultish early years at universities and sci-fi conventions to today's televised extravaganzas -- and the turmoil that threatened the whole enterprise almost from the beginning. By turns a lively historical narrative, a legal thriller, and an exploration of a cultural and technological phenomenon, Gearheads is a funny and fascinating look at the sport of the future today.

Brad Stone joined Newsweek's writing staff in 1995 and became the magazine's Silicon Valley correspondent in 1998. Stone has covered a wide variety of stories, including the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run race, the Napster trial, the Microsoft antitrust suit, and the Timothy McVeigh trial. A graduate of Columbia University, Stone lives in San Francisco and is developing an unhealthy passion for robot combat, having recently bought a robotics invention kit.