Challenge 414

The Young Dope Peddler

In Danielle L. Parker’s “Death King,” what sensory factors other than sight characterize the atmosphere and the characters’ experiences?
In Ron Van Sweringen’s “Wet Forever After”:
1. Same question as for “Death King”: what senses does the author invoke other than that of sight?
2. How do both Bud and the Mermaid contrast with their physical and social surroundings? What might Bud learn from Gloria’s fate and the social experiment he says he’s undertaken?
In Tom Mahony’s “Release,” the narrator thinks: “Yes, yes. Scale the canyon walls and keep running: from this rapid, this responsibility, this life.”
1. One is responsible to someone for something. To whom and for what is the narrator responsible?
2. What is the narrator afraid of?
In Ásgrímur Hartmannsson’s “Error,” Jonas observes everyday sights in his world. What do his reflections about them have in common? What do they communicate?

God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world.
Nature is a place of wondrous beauty.
The whole is less than the sum of its parts.
The nightmare in Chapter 1 was a wake-up call.
In Jessica Knauss’s “Unpredictable Factors...”:
1. Does the story imply a political or cultural statement? If so, what is it?
2. Even if Emily Mattheson weren’t a schoolteacher, she ought to know better than to do what she does. How is she characterized?
  
  As a hardened criminal?
  As a sociopath?
  As a terrorist?
  As an opportunist?
  As a naive and careless incompetent?
3. What other endings might the story have?
4. Why might the author choose to avoid having the story associated in any way with her business plans?
In Eric J. Kregel’s “She Shall Live On”:
1. How are Thandie’s and Breton’s fathers contrasted?
2. How many recordings has Thandie’s mother made? What mental health issues does she seem to have? Is Tandie’s father loyal to a fault or does he feel the need to act as an “enabler” for reasons of his own?
3. Does Thandie display much ambivalence about her mother’s legacy of video recordings? What is the real focus of her concern?
4. Does the supernatural ending strengthen or weaken the story? If all problems are resolved in an afterlife, what’s the point of life in this world?
5. How might the story end without breaking with the realistic mode it maintains up to the visitation of Thandie’s mother? In light of Breton’s father’s occupation and world view, does the ending imply a theological or religious statement?
In Bertil Falk’s “Time Paradoxes...” the lecturer cites and summarizes a number of works from 19th-century Swedish science fiction:
1. What comic themes do the works seem to prefer?
2. What kind of social protest is advocated?
3. Are the time paradoxes taken seriously or as comedy? How do they compare to the paradox-avoidance strategy discussed in “Time Travel, part 2”?

Responses welcome!