Challenge 240

Oh Yes It Can

In Gary Inbinder’s “Noble Lies,” how does the scene with Berenice show Consul Finn as being personally as well as politically sinister?
In Bob Brill’s “Bix’s Angel”:
1. Who is the hero of this story? Is it Bix or Duke or Richard Feynman or all three? Or is it Bix's Angel, the resourceful, shape-changing Agent Gvedn?
2. What are the main esthetic problems involved in writing a story about historical characters, even or especially if a fictional character intervenes?
The deus ex machina is a dramatic device that normally turns a tragedy into a comedy while ironically emphasizing the artificial nature of the “happy end.” In Rachel Parson’s “The Year of the Dead Rose,” Modron’s magic scroll is precisely such a device. Despite the comedy and outright farce, in what ways does the novella bring the Rhiannon stories to a profoundly pessimistic end?
What is the moral — if any — of Kevin Ahearn’s “The Suicide King”?
Does the haunted and supernatural well support or weaken the realistic action in Ezra T. Gray’s “The Grove”?
How might Carmen Ruggero’s “Operation Orange” end in a way that would justify the cabal of murderers’ attempt to recruit Alex? In what countries do illegal and extra-legal “states within a state” operate? Can it happen here?
In what way is E. S. Strout’s “The Disappeared Man” similar to Carmen Ruggero’s “Operation Orange”?
How many different interpretations can you give to the metaphor of water in Bill Bowler’s “The Hand Draws the Pen”?

Responses welcome!