Challenge 909

Thunderclouds

1. In David Barber’s Prisoner of the Rings:

   1. Does it matter who is telling the truth about whom? Do the gaolers need to believe or disbelieve anything about Joseph Kay, Manfred, Twelve or any of the prisoners in order to increase a prisoner’s quota?
   2. What does increasing an ice-mining quota encourage a prisoner to do?
   3. In what way do the setting and premise of the story — mining water ice in outer space — support the thesis of Space Colonies: the Dark Side?

2. In Ronald Schulte’s The Problem With Expansion Packs:

   1. In what way does the premise of the story reflect Raymond Kurzweil’s idea of the “singularity”? Does the story support or question the feasibility of an artificial preservation of consciousness?
   2. If life in the Cloud is considered to be Heaven, what does the story imply that the Other Place is like? Might it be a Cloud that is governed by bugs and infested by angels?

3. In Gary Clifton’s And the Rockets’ Red Glare:

   1. At what point in the story might one infer that the explorers are space aliens?
   2. Given the conditions of interstellar travel, how soon can the explorers expect to contact or return to their homeworld?
   3. Are the explorers morally better or worse than human beings? What image do they fit in Space Aliens as Metaphor?

4. In Marion J. May’s The Story of Grace MacFarlane:

   1. Why does the poem not conform to prescribed forms of rhyme and scansion?
   2. What is the “voice” of the narrator? Who might be speaking?

Responses welcome!

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