Challenge 254

Now Where Did That Come From?

In a battle story, what happens when the main character — whom you can’t kill off without losing the story — is too exposed to danger? On the other hand, what happens when he’s too protected? How does Resha Caner’s “I Look to the Future” strike a balance?

What elements in Jargos point to an allegory of the Indian Wars in the 19th-century U.S.?
Would anyone like to write us an essay comparing the role of androids in Scott Barnes’ “The Last Job,” Gary Inbinder’s Noble Lies, Bertil Falk’s “Requiem for an Android” and Bill Bowler’s android stories?
In Jean-Michel Calvez’ “Snow, Sweet Snow,” what does Davy’s and, presumably, Lyra’s experience represent? Is the story an existential irony on death? Does it symbolize adolescent wish-fullfilment and alienation? Something else, perhaps?
Bertil Falk’s “An Ongoing Modern Miracle” makes a crucial point about history, even history of which we might be unaware. What other modern dramas can you think of that have earlier precedents? For example, the television medical drama series House might have been lifted directly from Molière’s Le Misanthrope — plot, characters and all.
What does S. M. Murdock’s “The Oracle of Benthi” depict? Mental illness? An allegory of pollution? What is water trying to tell the scientist?
Did you get the joke about the names in Edward A. Rodosek’s “The Common-Sense Consensus”?