Challenge 750
Prime Origins
In Gary Clifton’s “Playing the Fool,” why is Emily right to feign reluctance in considering Ralph’s assignment to spy on Consolidated?
Is Michael Murry’s poem “Twelve Sets of Footprints on the Moon” merely nostalgic and sentimental or does it have a larger meaning? Hint: Consider the date.
In Irena Pasvinter’s “Socks,” is the narrator a dog or other animal or is it a person with a weird fetish?
In Alison McBain’s review of Paula Volsky’s Illusion:
- Is the novel set in history, alternate history, on a fantasy Earth, or on another planet?
- The reviewer links the novel’s plot to the history of the French Revolution of 1789. Might a prospective reader expect the novel to evoke other revolutions as well?
In John Grey’s “The New Woman”:
- In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein does not create a monster. What makes the story a tragedy?
- Is “The New Woman” tragic, comic or ironic?
- For what purpose does the “professor” create this new woman?
- The new woman is the first person to meet her creator. When she learns that fact, what question might she logically ask?
In Ásgrímur Hartmannsson’s Attack on an Evil God:
- Fannar appears previously in chapters 13, 14, and 16. What makes him Hansi’s enemy?
- Do we know that the “evil god” has actually done anything evil, or does it merely look funny?
- Does Maggi have any function other than as a disengaged observer?
- What was Dora’s conference supposed to do?
- The chants have a couple of words in Icelandic. Is the rest nonsense or does it mean something?
- All told, how many people are killed in the story? Include the inhabitants of the strange city. Estimate the number of robots destroyed. Omit the “evil god” since it is a stationary target.
- Does the ending imply that the story is self-recursive, i.e. a story about itself?
date Copyright © February 19, 2018 by Bewildering Stories
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