Challenge 90

Please read the rest of this issue before embarking upon the Challenge.

Cover the Waterfront

The Challenge title is a colloquial phrase meaning to explore everything, to leave no stone unturned, to offer a “grab bag.” Challenge 90 has something for everybody. Our list follows the index; here’s a table of anchors for your navigating convenience:

1. The Prophet of Dreams : Julian Lawler has asked for feedback. Well, how about it, readers? We had some questions for you back in Challenge 88; they ask to what extent it is a novel. Here’s what I consider the most important question:

   With occasional bright moments, Julian Lawler’s characters seem to go from one gory and disheartening defeat to the next at the hands of a somewhat vague and magical enemy. Without having seen the Epilogue, which is scheduled for issue 91, do you think the characters and the City have earned a tragic fate? If not, how would you change them or the enemy to justify one?

2. Gaia : Chapter 1 (in issues 89 and 90) makes a radical transition from the Prologue (in issue 88). Does either the Prologue or chapter 1 need to justify to some extent the eco-catastrophe that Dar witnesses? Or is it something that the reader can take for granted?


3. Made It Way Up (begun in issue 89): What do you think Bernard and Lane are building? What is the relationship of Kelly and Essa to either of them or each other?


4. “Friday Night” (begun in issue 89): Fran Jacobs’ Alexander (“The Cat,” in issue 87) and Megan are caught up in similar predicaments. Are the two characters alike, or are they fundamentally different in some ways?


5. “The Night Jaunt of F. P. Willenby”: In some classical quests, a talisman confers power, and that power carries the peril of corruption. Do you think Dr. Willenby might be given such a talisman, if only to create tension within the character? In what ways is he like or unlike heroes of other quest epics?


6. “Strange Encounters in the East”: As we always say, there is no story so bewildering as reality. Can you suggest some science fiction stories that deal with cultural disparities like the ones Deep Bora describes?


7. “Marie’s Blue Escape”: Can you think of other science fiction or fantasy stories in which characters shift from one Earth to another in ways similar to those described by Thomas R. and Clifford D. Simak? Does the use of machinery (e.g. the transporter in Star Trek and Deep Space 9) as opposed to more mystical means of teleportation (e.g. “Blue Escape” and “Night Jaunt”) have anything to do with the story, or is it arbitrary?


8. News: Can you suggest a way to solve Bewildering Stories’ “big problem”?

Return to top

Copyright © 2004 by Bewildering Stories

Please share your ideas with us!