Challenge 1078

Anybody You Know?

In Gary Clifton’s All the Fine Tombstones:
1. Does Hugo lose any ransom money in the course of the fake kidnapping?
2. Did Kratzert have a plausible reason for letting the alleged kidnappers “come so close so easily”?
In Matthew Hughes’ Bearing Up: What practical life lessons does the story hold for young adult readers? Is the story likely to make them less afraid of real bears than they might normally be?
In C. F. Pierce’s Hotel Venice and the Bohemian Blue: For the purposes of the story, could the narrator have been a medical professional other than a cardiac surgeon?
In J. M. Williams’ A Daydreamer Family: What accounts for the coincidence that brings Xavier into a kind of crosstime contact with Norma?
In Robert B. Marcus, Jr.’s The Secret of the Ultimate Truth: Since Theodore Sturgeon’s Law states that ninety percent of everything is crap, what ten percent of Sturgeon’s Law is not crap?
In Brenda Mox’s Absurd Devices: What real, historical, fictional or legendary person might the poem describe?