Challenge 381

Generation Bored

1. In Bill Bowler’s “HIgh School Honey”:

   1. Flea and Floater are bored and irresponsible adolescents. What inspiration might they derive from their adult role models?
   2. How does Floater typically take evasive action when confronted by an authority?

2. Phillip Donnelly’s “The Mission” satirizes the apathy induced by vicarious as opposed to real experience. But take the setting literally: how might isolation affect the inhabitants’ state of mind in, for example, an Antarctic or Martian colony, or on an interstellar generation ship?

   Challenge 94 bonus question: What does Mark Koerner’s “A Neglected Issue for Generation Ships” imply for “spaceship Earth,” particularly in the discussion of such latter-day topics as deistic religions and the search for life on other planets?

3. In Harry Lang’s “Walking Wounded,” what might the “horrible mistake” be? What might account for “wounded” in the line “Some, though wounded, walk on”?

4. What is the social or political symbolism in Thomas Lee Joseph Smith’s “The Orange Professor”?

5. In Ásgrímur Hartmannsson’s “Lost Patrol”:

   1. What are the premises of the comedy?
   2. What other ending might the story have and remain a comedy?
   3. Can the story be considered a confirmation or a response to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot?

6. What might “it” refer to in Arnold Hollander’s “In Hiding”?

7. What other endings can you imagine for Crystalwizard’s “All Through the Night”?

8. Introduce a third character into Michael D. Brooks’ “Space Stuff”: how might that character intervene in the conversation?

Responses welcome!

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