Challenge 991

Anything Went

1. In Charles C. Cole’s Joe Avery Meets the Goats Gruff: What, exactly, accounts for the conflict between the Goat brothers?

2. In Gary Inbinder’s Red Rivers: Where has Max Niemand met Marshal Rivers before? What is the dramatic function of the signed picture of President Theodore Roosevelt on the marshal’s desk?

3. In Quintin Snell’s The Long Winter Time:

   1. Does part 1 or 2 supply enough context to allow the reader to decode the word “snash”?
   2. Can an effect be its own cause? If so, who existed first: Shet or Gensec?

4. In Graham J. Darling’s The Queer Kid:

   1. How does the narrator appear to feel about the kid? Is he fearful? Scornful? Annoyed?
   2. What magical physical powers does the “queer kid” have? Why doesn’t the kid practice apocalyptic eschatology, i.e. simply wish the bullies out of existence and establish his own rule?
   3. Is the story a parody or a satire? In either case, what would be the target?

5. In J. A. Heath’s A Score to Settle;

   1. Why is the game between Grax and the dragon necessarily one-sided? Why must Grax always be the one to attack?
   2. What’s the point? How might the game have begun in the first place? How does the game seem likely to end?
   3. The dragon is said to be a monster towering over trees. How big must Grax be in order to be able to come so close to capturing the dragon?
   4. How does the story’s point of view make the role of the “unreliable narrator” unusual?

6. In Jordan Zachary’s Memory’s End: The “you” character allows himself to drown. What alternatives does he have?

7. In Huina Zheng’s Sprained:

   1. What seems to be the prime cause of the family conflicts?
   2. Readers find it difficult to distinguish between the characters other than by name and family position. Is that a flaw in the story or is that the point?

8. In Lynn White’s House in the Country:

   1. In what way does the old woman in the house inadvertently hint that she may actually be a “witch”?
   2. What constitutes the near-fatal mistake in: “Surely no witch would be so kind / to children who were not lost”?
   3. In what ways does the story differ from the medieval fairytale of Hansel and Gretel?

Responses welcome!

Copyright © April 3, 2023 by Bewildering Stories
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