Challenge 762

Borrowed Dreams

In Stephen Ellams’ I Don’t Believe in Ghosts, what imagery might the narrator have used if the play had been something other than Amadeus, say, A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Othello?
In Kirsten Kaschock’s Culture Bound, Fitch’s and the narrator’s experiment is reported to be a failure. What do the two eat while they’re on what appears to be a kind of starvation diet? Why can food not be sent to the spaceship in distress?
In Roy Dorman’s Take Me With You:
1. The narration refers self-recursively to Jill’s mission being one “speculated about in a number of science fiction stories over the years.” And it discusses the forms such stories normally take. Can you cite other stories of one-way space exploration? In what way(s) does “Take Me With You” deviate from them?
2. Why might Jill have refused to land on the “humanoids’” planet, Grendal?
3. How does Jill seem to feel about Edward before she leaves Earth? After they’re reincarnated on Grendal?
In Myra Litton’s The Human Zoo:
1. Can the poem be considered a kind of sequel to Denny Marshall’s “Mousetrap”?
2. What human weaknesses does each poem portray?
3. In what way do the two poems’ themes resemble and differ from that of the Twilight Zone episode “People Are Alike All Over” (1960)?
In Trevor Almy’s First Tape:
1. Does the plot overstep BwS’ guideline about “dream stories”? What incidents does Bernie Grimmel cite that might indicate it does?
2. If “First Tape” is a dream story, does Bernie Grimmel ever wake from the dream? And whose dream is it? If it isn’t his, is it The Mother’s? One generated by the videotapes themselves?
3. Or is “First Tape” only partially a dream story? If so, which parts are dream and which are real?
4. What might have been recorded on the “first tape”? Why might The Mother never have played it?

Responses welcome!