Challenge 185

Valentine’s Day Presents

In the first three installments of Jack Alcott’s Grim Legion, how many allusions can you find to Edgar Allan Poe’s stories and poems?
In Kenneth Nichols’ “Love-Line,” doesn’t the computerized crystal ball presumably show worst-case scenarios? If the read-out showed not a couple throwing crockery but one of them holding a smoking gun while the other lies dead on the floor, how would you advise your clients, if you were operating the machine?
What do you make of the ending of Rachel Parsons’ “As I See the Snow Melting”? Rhiannon calls after Rosalyn, who is sashaying off with Kilydd presumably to kiss and make up. How might Rhiannon’s part in that scene be played in a film? Is she scolding Rosalyn? No, Rhiannon’s speech is comic. But there is something else in it, too...
How do you portray a character who fools himself? The Readers’ Guide contains the Challenge to Norman A. Rubin’s “Pardon My Murder”: why does Homer Twistle really kill his wife? The officer’s shaking his head at dime-store jewelry reduces the problem to the absurd. What problem do you imagine Homer and his wife have?
In Thomas R. Willits’ “Splashes,” we understand why Lake Shiriki swallowed the soldiers who were pursuing the Pawnees. But why does the lake’s curse — if that’s what it is — persist to later days, even to the point of claiming Paul? If there is no obvious moralistic cause and effect, what might the story conclude about the power of the coyote spirit and, perhaps, about nature itself?
What do the poems in this issue have in common with any of the short stories, including “Love-Line” and Slawomir Rapala’s “Atlantis, Atlantis!”?
Might Vishal Thapar’s “Corridor on the 6th Floor” have better been written in conventional prose style? How does the form of verse help the story?
At what point might one guess the true nature of the narrator in “Corridor on the 6th Floor”? What details does the author include to prevent our guessing it?

Responses welcome!