Challenge 1070

Narrative Device

In Gary Inbinder’s Boss Mahoney: What connection does Mahoney have with Bugs Battaglia?
In Duel at Dawn: Max Niemand is known to be familiar with various kinds of firearms. Where might the reader have learned that he is also skilled in hand-to-hand combat?
In Kris Faatz’ Ranger: The small dragon shows he can actually burn things with his dragon breath, and Helen’s parents might see him unless he hides. How does Ranger’s alternating unreality and reality define the literary genre of the story? What is its genre?
In Pravan Omprakash’s The Collector of Time:
1. Why does Pramod’s disbelief provoke Sancharan Baba into undertaking the theft of the unfinished Mona Lisa?
2. What may have happened to prevent the guru’s returning from the theft of the artwork project in the past?
3. How does the theory of time travel in this story differ from that in “Don’t Get Noticed”? Which story respects the “grandfather paradox” of time travel?
In Michael Strickland’s No More Sparrows: How would the story be affected if the genders of the adult characters were reversed? Would the warning message be believed? Would it even be sent?
In Jack Powers’ Where Science Ends:
1. The interplanetary teleporter is depicted as a real device. What kind of device is it in the television series Star Trek and in the succeeding series derived from it?
2. Why do some Star Trek characters occasionally claim to suffer from “transporter psychosis”? Does the same cause apply in “Where Science Ends”?
3. A stream of white appears in the lower right corner of the viewscreen. What is it said to look like? How might it make Kevin feel?
In Richard Ong’s A Lovecraft Paradise: Explain the title. What work or works of Lovecraft might have inspired the image?

Responses welcome!