Fitz of Distraction

---

Kersley Fitzgerald lives in Colorado Springs. This cartoon is loosely based on Evangline Denmark's experience at a writers' conference this year. (Yeah--she's that pretty in real life.)

Open Mic Saturday

Good morning all, and welcome to Open Mic Saturday. This is the place to share your news and perhaps do a little bragging. If you're writing a novel: how much progress did you make this week? If you're writing short stories: did you finish anything or submit anything this week? If you've sold or published anything recently, when is it coming out and where can we find it? In short, as a writer, what kind of progress did you make this week?

Or what else is on your mind, that you feel like sharing with the group here?

The Friday Challenge - 11/13/09

We've got five entries this week for our alien invasion / first contact challenge. Before going on to the entries, I would request people who use drop.io to post their entry either include their name in the document title or include a byline in the entry itself. It helps everyone -- me, especially -- keep the entries straight. Now, on to the entries:

torainfor - Aliens!

Practical Mystic - They

miko - Sitting on Dynamite

Lady Quill - First Contact (drop.io)

Al - Technology, Advanced (drop.io)

As always, even if you haven't submitted an entry this week—even if you never submit an entry in any week—you're invited to read, comment on, and vote for your favorite. Don't be shy about leaving feedback on the authors' sites, either. Writers thrive on knowing that someone out there is actually reading their words. The winner will be announced on Sunday.

And now for this week's challenge.

"Now That's Entertainment!"

---

Have you ever stopped to think about what causes a previously obscure sport to suddenly become a popular spectator sport? For example, volleyball has been around for over a century. Sure, during the Olympics and when the U.S. had a good team, you could find volleyball on TV, though rarely during prime time.

But what if you move volleyball from an indoor court to the beach? And what if you reduce the number of players from six to two? You end up with a sport that beach bums and surfer dudes might watch, nothing more. Guys still don't find it entertaining to tune and watch other guys play volleyball, beach or not. And everyone knows virtually no one tunes in to watch women play any team sport.

Then, inspiration! Have the women play in bikinis! Suddenly, women's beach volleyball is worth televising in prime time during the Olympics. Suddenly, men can actually name some women who play beach volleyball even though they can't name a single man who plays it.

What's all this have to do with the challenge this week? Well, in a way, it describes the challenge. What we want you to do is think of a sport. Any sport will do. Then, write how you would "improve" the sport so it becomes a popular TV spectator sport.

For example, you could change NASCAR races by requiring the cars to tow a boat and trailer, have two whiny kids in the backseat asking "Are we there yet?" and a wife in the front passenger seat asking "Why are you always turning left? We're just going in circles!"

Or how about changing fencing rules so the bouts are held in a renaissance tavern, complete with tables, chairs, beer mugs and a chandelier? Then make it a team sport with, say, four fencers per side. "One for all and all for one!"

Now that's entertainment!

Your entry can be in any form you prefer. Write a short story. Write a new set of rules. Write a simple outline about your changes. Feel free to explain how your changes will lead to good TV ratings or just leave that to our imagination. You get extra points if sports purists will be outraged by your changes.

As usual, we're playing by the loose-but-not-entirely-non-existent rules of the Friday Challenge. The winner will get to choose a prize from behind Door #3.

Ready? Set. Go!

Deadline Reminder

The deadline for the current Friday Challenge, Aliens Have Invaded Pleasantville, is tonight at midnight, Central time. For those who have to snowdog their entry (i.e. post an entry past the deadline), you'll have a few hours to get your entry in before you have to worry about snowdogging as I'll be asleep at midnight, Central time. Take advantage of that time if you need it!

Also, remember you can post to the Friday Challenge Drop if you want to enter but don't want your entry available to everyone in the world with internet access. The password is the middle word in the link I've provided to the drop.

Finally, miko, you still haven't sent me your selection from behind Door #3 for winning the previous challenge.

Ultimate Geek Fu

HEIRS OF HEINLEIN

---

Over the years, a number of writers have tried to assume the mantle Robert A. Heinlein left neatly hanging on a hook after he wrote his last juvenile novel, Podkayne of Mars (1963). [For the purist, POM wasn’t “actually” a juvenile, as it had a female protagonist with a little brother playing a minor role. Those same purists will tell you that Have Space Suit, Will Travel was the last juvenile Heinlein wrote in 1958. Purist or not, he was out of the juvie biz by 1963.]

The big question is, “Why would anyone want to assume that juvie mantle?”

The answer might be, “Only a few people, stuck in the fifties really do. We need SF written for TODAY’S teens! We need a SF Harry Potter!”

Others might reply, “Reading Heinlein was what brought me into science fiction when I was a kid! We need more books like that today, to bring teens into science fiction!”

But the really amazing consensus seems to say, “Why do we need kids to read SF? They’re all busy with their ipods and twitters and texting and crap. They don’t read anymore, so what’s the fuss?”

Hmmm…Let’s leave that “kids don’t read so why do we need to entice them into SF” thread for a later time and return to the Heinlein fray…

Just because no one has collected Heinlein’s juvie mantle, doesn’t mean people haven’t tried. There is a long and prestigious list of authors who have attempted to write the “Heinlein juvenile”. This list includes Roger Macbride Allen, David Brin, Orson Scott Card, John Christopher, Sheila Finch, Alan Dean Foster, David Gerrold, Margaret Peterson Haddix, James P. Hogan, Nancy Kress, Anne McCaffrey, Paul Melko, Jerry Pournelle, Charles Sheffield, William Sleator and Scott Westerfeld. While none of them has succeeded (in my humble opinion), some have created new niches for themselves in the backpack of your average teen.

Anne McCaffrey’s books are stocked in my high school and local public libraries. I occasionally see copies floating out and about on the desk as I walk the tables during labs or tests. No one will argue that the Harper Hall books are teen lit; some might argue that the other books weren’t WRITTEN for teens, but it’s a fact that Lessa was a teen in Dragonflight – and as it turns out, exactly the kind of teen Heinlein was wont to create. Right? Perhaps yes, perhaps no.

The quintessential Heinlein teen novel is of course Orson Scott Card’s Ender's Game (and its neverending sequels). Every young male who reads SF has read EG and quite a few young ladies have read it as well. When I do Young Author’s Conferences and I ask for a show of hands of the people who have read EG, there is a virtual sea from seventh grade on up. Card clearly scored a hit, and if we had to award the mantle right now, it would go to him. Ah…but not yet, and not for sure.

A recent arrival on the scene is English young adult horror/SF/fantasy writer, Scott Westerfeld with his books, Uglies, Pretties, Specials and Extras. They clearly and grimly depict a dystopian world where everyone must conform to a mandated form of beauty. These books float off the shelves of bookstores and rarely remain in libraries for long. He’s clearly in the running to take up Heinlein’s mantle. But does he have what it takes?

Alan Dean Foster created Flinx and his minidrag Pip and while many of the books are about a teenaged Flinx, they aren’t necessarily FOR teens – though teens are invited to read them. He’s a good candidate for the Heinlein juvie mantle…maybe.

Margaret Peterson Haddix, author of the creepy, dystopian world inhabited by the Hidden – third children of families forbidden to have more than two children certainly leads the younger teen crowd into a grim future reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984. But in this world there is hope and human nature being what it is, there are many Thirds. The series details escape and eventual revolution. Another good candidate…most likely…

Last of all is John Christopher. An Englishman like Westerfeld, he created The Tripod Trilogy in 1967 and 1968 (and then added a fourth, a series prequel twenty years later). His books depict a grim world of alien domination and environmental alteration to alien needs. These are still on the shelf as well. I rarely see these books floating about, but they’re there.

As for the others, a quick check at your neighborhood chain bookstore information desk will show that virtually none of the others has books that remain available to the buying public – let alone the browsing teen. Clearly, their works didn’t take.

Which brings me to my thesis: What makes a Heinlein juvenile? After exhaustive study and remembering, behold! We find in Heinlein’s books:

1) Stories that flow naturally

2) Worlds altered but clearly recognizable to the teens of the “readers time”

3) TEENS are allowed to make hard, understandable choices

4) Teens were teens, doing the best they could in an adult world

5) Every character had a personal, recognizable struggle; i.e. they wanted friends, wanted to fit in, wanted to look good, wanted to be normal, wanted to play games/sports

6) They live in a world that has a huge background and they play out their tiny, personal story against that, not really expecting to change the adult world, but not overwhelmed by it, either

7) His characters were willing to challenge authority respectfully and repeatedly (Heinlein also managed to keep his personal bitterness out of the stories)

8) There is hope as well as unexpected futures revealed

The books that have disappeared from teen backpacks (and Heinlein’s HAVE NOT yet) violated one or more – or ALL – of the boundaries Heinlein used when writing his juvies. Perhaps the greatest violations show teens without choices and part of a huge, universe-changing story line. Teens may DREAM of taking over the world, but they don’t believe they can. Witness your average high school: if 2000 students decided to do ANYTHING – riot, walk out, not do their homework, skip class, make paper airplanes and throw them down the hallways all day long – there isn’t a thing in the world the 100 adults in the building could ACTUALLY do to stop them.

Adult control of teens in school is a fiction maintained by adolescent self-absorption.

So given all of this, on whom do I bestow Heinlein’s juvie mantle? While Card, Christopher, Foster, Haddix, McCaffrey, and Westerfeld have much to commend them (besides any teen being able to FIND their books without going “back to the geek section” of Science Fiction and Fantasy of their neighborhood megabookstore), each fails a bit here and a bit there.

I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to find out how none of them completely “pass” the Heinlein test, but suffice it to say that the cabal of writers who are creating teen-oriented SF today are the ones who are sculpting that most nebulous thing: the REAL New Wave of science fiction readers and writers.

Let the arguments begin!

---

Guy Stewart has sold fiction to Analog, as well as to Christian and youth-oriented magazines. He blogs about Christianity, Faith, Science Fiction, and Writing at faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com.

---

ULTIMAGE GEEK FU runs every Wednesday. Have a question that's just bugging the heck out of you about Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Battlestar Gallactica, Farscape, Firefly, Fringe, Heroes, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Smallville, The X-Files, X-Men, The Man From Atlantis, or pretty much any other SF-flavored media property? Send it to slushpile@thefridaychallenge.com with the subject line, "Geek Fu," and we'll stuff it in the queue.

Ruminations of an Old Goat

Even before our son was able to understand what we saying, my wife and I would hold him in our laps and read books to him. An early favorite was Goodnight Moon. I had never heard of it until friends gave us a copy, but it turns out to have been around at least 10 years longer than I have.

By the time the Boy was two, his favorite books were Stop Train, Stop, a Thomas the Tank Engine story (though not one of the original stories) and an electronic Star Wars book that made all sorts of sounds and even played the music the Cantina Band was playing in the original movie. The Boy called them the "doot band." (If you don't understand why, trying singing the cantina music entirely with the word "doot.")

By the time the Boy was three, he had decided to make it tough to get him to go to sleep. We'd read books, turn out the light and leave. He would follow within 15 seconds. When we made him stay in his room, he would stay awake singing or talking to himself. He would do this even if my wife and I were already in bed. We decided we would turn out the lights before reading to him, making him lay down while we read from a book illuminated with one of those book lights you see at bookstores. That helped, though the light worked against us.

By the time the Boy was four, I decided that we weren't even going to use the book light. That meant I either had to memorize the books we'd been reading and retell them exactly as written (any parent can tell that children will notice if you get just one word wrong) or I had to make up stories to tell. I chose to make up new stories.

Those early stories would feature the Boy as the main character, though I added a four foot-tall dragon named Roger as his regular companion in the stories. These adventures featured such things as the Great Broom Race, rescuing a princess from a giant, saving Dreamland and even going up against space pirates. The Boy got to redirect the plots and suggest ways to solve problems. Thus the giant was convinced to release the princess by giving him books and the space pirates were defeated in a particularly nasty bout of thumb-wrestling.

Along with the stories featuring the Boy, I also managed to work in a few stories featuring other children. Of those stories, I consider half a dozen or so to be good enough to try to sell to a children's magazine or picture book publisher. Among those stories, my favorite is called "I'm in Charge!" It's about a ten year-old prince who gets to be in charge of the kingdom while his parents are away. Letting the power go to his, the prince throws people in the dungeon -- starting with the Royal Tutor when the tutor wouldn't cancel the prince's lessons -- until he ends up with everyone in the dungeon except himself. In the end, the prince learns he needs other people to make the kingdom run smoothly. Fortunately, that one was also a favorite with the Boy.

Skip forward to when the Boy was seven and starting second grade. At "meet the teacher night" we parents could sign up to come into the class one Friday afternoons and read books to the kids. I love doing this kind of thing (and really miss it now the Boy and the Foster Boy are in the eighth grade and parents are no longer invited into the classroom). Unfortunately, the earliest date available by the time I got to the sign up sheet was December 5. I signed up for it and prepared to wait impatiently for the months to pass.

December finally arrived and, as fate would have it, my wife and I had a conference with the teach on December 3. After discussing the Boy, his grades and his behavior, I asked the teacher a question about my reading date two days later.

Looking surprised that I was asking about reading, the teacher said, "I'm so proud of you for remembering! All the other fathers have to be reminded by their wives."

My wife said, "You don't understand. He's been looking forward to this since school started."

I discussed with the Boy what books take to class. He agreed to let me bring The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish by Neil Gaiman with art by Dave McKean. He liked the story well enough but it was my favorite of all of his picture books. (Also check out Wolves in the Walls by the same team.) I asked what book the Boy wanted me to take. Instead of a book, he asked me to tell "I'm in Charge!"

December 5 finally arrived. Armed with the book and snacks (something else we parents were supposed to bring), I arrived at the classroom. The children gathered around and the Boy got to come up and sit next to me. I read the book, having some success at keeping the attention of the children. Still, there was just enough restlessness for me to know that, like the Boy, they didn't enjoy the story as much as I did.

Putting the book aside, I said, "This is a story I made up to tell to my son. He wanted me to tell it to you."

With that, I launched into "I'm in Charge!," doing different voices for the characters (I did that when reading the book, too) and acting out some of the simpler character actions. Here's the thing -- the children kept their attention riveted on me. There was no fiddling, no interrupting to ask if they could have another juice box, no whispered comments. In fact, the children were so quiet they got the attention of the teacher. She stopped doing paperwork and listened and watched as well. Even better, and totally unbeknownst to me, the Boy, sitting beside me, was mimicking my every action.

As I finished the story, the children just sat there for about fifteen seconds before exploding with comments and even applause. Before I left, the teacher told me she had never seen the children so rapt and quiet, including when she was teaching.

Telling "I'm in Charge!" to the Boy's second grade class was the first time I felt like a storyteller. Fortunately, it wasn't the last.

And the winner is...

I wasn't sure how well this challenge would go over with everyone. Writing children's stories is an interest of mine but many authors, even those with children, have little interest in the field. Six entries from four writers is a better turn out than I had hoped for.

As usual, we have a wide range of entries. This week the range seems wider than usual, encompassing true stories, picture books for very young children and stories for older children.

torainfor - "Nasosi's Story" definitely stands on its own. The traditional folk tale plot appeals to the storyteller in me. I particularly like how none from the land were able to speak to the brother who was a fish. I do wonder what happened to the mother of the bird-fish-girl, who we never hear about after she has delivered the story's heroine, but that happens in folk tales from time to time, as well. The shark's "Wanna bet" line was jarring, as it seemed a more modern turn of phrase than the rest of the story. Otherwise, everything flowed extremely well!

miko - At first I thought I'd be cute and write my critique in rhyme. But I have neither than talent nor time. And that's all the rhyming you get from me. Miko, on the other hand, channeled his inner Dr. Seuss in a wonderful rhyming story. With a bit of polishing, I could see this being run in Ladybug (a magazine for ages 3 - 6, the link is to their submissions guidelines). Great stuff!

Tom - How cool must it have been for your daughters to be able to read picture books created for them by their dad and starring themselves? There wasn't any real plot, but that wasn't the object of the books. I hope you save the books so your grandchildren, when they come along, can also read those books granddad created for mommy. Wonderful work.

passinthrough - "The House That Dad Built" is, once again, a story from a place, time and life very different from my own (and, I suspect, that of most of us here at the Friday Challenge). Despite having trailers and televisions and all the normal trappings of modern life, the story is like those many of us read in history books about barn raisings and people pitching in to help simply because that's what neighbors do. (Not that our neighbors didn't pitch in to help each other when I was growing up, but it it was for things like putting up a basketball goal rather than walls to a house.) "Deer Hunting" is another great slice of life story. You write as casually about hopping on a horse and riding into the nearby wilderness as I would about stopping at the gas station to fill my car with gas. And reading about the ranch dinner made me hungry, even though I've just finished eating. Again, you've given all of us a look into an every-day world far different from our own.

Judging this week was tough. First of all, I liked all of the entries; torainfor for the great folk tale feel of her story, miko for the rhyming and critters leading the boy astray and then home again, Tom for the love and care that went into creating those books for his daughter and passinthrough for allowing us, however briefly, to enter her world. And I'll note that you voters didn't help any by all voting for different entries!

I liked all of the entries but there can only be one winner this week. In end, I have to go with miko and his neat little rhyming story. So, miko, come on down and select your prize from behind Door #3!

Great job, everyone! I only hope next week's challenge is as hard to judge as this one was.

Family Matters

 
Things

---

I'm on a road trip this weekend, to Colorado, to finish cleaning out Emily's apartment and deal with her things. Good gosh, she's got a lot of things.

Had. Sorry, I'm still thinking of her in the present tense. I'm at the point now where it seems as if—oh, that she's just on a somewhat longer than usual vacation, and any minute now she'll walk through that door, or call my cellphone. And then I remember: no, she won't.

Which leaves us out in Colorado, sorting through her things. Even in a short life, she collected an enormous volume of things; mostly stuff that would mean nothing to anyone else, but everything to us. Look, here's the dress she wore on that special occasion. There's the little knickknack you bought her that one time in Fort Collins. And oh, look, here's her favorite Little Golden book. How many times did she sit in my lap while we read it? "No desserts ever unless puppies never did holes under this fence again!"

There are books. A lot of books. Oh my goodness, are there the books. Okay, she was a bookworm; it's a family trait. But beyond genetically, it's more directly my fault. For the last few years, we were separated by timezones and lifetime zones. She simply lived in later hours than I do, so this made it hard for us to connect in real-time on the phone.

No, there's more to it than that. I simply am not a good phone person. Some people can call and talk for half an hour about nothing in particular. I can't. I get impatient; fidgety. If you have something you urgently need to say to me, call me and say it. If you just want to think out-loud, write a letter or send an email. I can relax and talk aimlessly for an hour if we're together; over coffee, or a beer, or while taking a walk. But for reasons unknown, I simply cannot do it by phone.

Emily was from a different generation, obviously, and umbilically attached to her cell phone. She could call and talk for half an hour without taking a breath. But it always seemed to be at a bad time for me when she called, or at a bad time for her when I called, and so our phone calls grew further apart. To compensate, I sent her things.

She was gracious enough, of course, and once in a while I hit on a thing that pleased or amused her, and so I'd overkill it. You enjoyed that book by Author X that I sent you last week? Great, here's six more by her!

Now, here I am: up to my armpits in her books, and desperately craving her human contact instead.

That's all she ever wanted from me, really; some of my time. I realize that now. All those phone conversations that went nowhere; she didn't care what I said, she just wanted to hear my voice. It's almost as if she knew we were living on borrowed time, and that too soon, the clock was going to run out for one or the other of us. So she was trying to bank good memories, against the days ahead.

Those days are no longer ahead; they're here. And I'm in Colorado, sorting through a mountain of her things, wishing we'd had more time. That is the most valuable gift you have to give anyone: your time.

Because in the end, things are only given value by the memories you attach to them, and everything else is just junk.

Let's talk.

---

FAMILY MATTERS posts at 7 a.m. each Sunday and is dedicated to serious discussions of marriage, family, children, human sexuality, and all the other things that writers ignore when they cocoon in their offices and try to create fiction. This series will run until we either run out of things to talk about, solve all the problems in the world, or you tell me to shut up and go get some professional therapy. If you have a question you'd like to ask or a topic you'd like to expound upon, send it to slushpile@thefridaychallenge.com and we'll work it into the queue.

Fitz of Distraction

---

Have an anecdote for Fitz of Distraction? Email it to kersley.fitz at yahoo dot com. And, yes, calendars are still available!

Open Mic Saturday

Good morning all, and welcome to Open Mic Saturday. This is the place to share your news and perhaps do a little bragging. If you're writing a novel: how much progress did you make this week? If you're writing short stories: did you finish anything or submit anything this week? If you've sold or published anything recently, when is it coming out and where can we find it? In short, as a writer, what kind of progress did you make this week?

Or what else is on your mind, that you feel like sharing with the group here?

The Friday Challenge - 11/6/2009

After the fifteen entries we had last week, it's not surprising that there is a much lower turn out this week. Still, we have a quite respectable six entries. My story is not an entry. I put it up in hopes of getting some feedback.

Now, on to this week's entries!

torainfor - Nasosi's Story

miko - Where Is My Home?

Tom - Hannah Cat Ham & Book (drop.io - both illustrated!)

passinthrough - The House That Dad Built & Deer Hunting

Henry - Will's Dragon (drop.io)

As always, even if you haven't submitted an entry this week—even if you never submit an entry in any week—you're invited to read, comment on, and vote for your favorite. Don't be shy about leaving feedback on the authors' sites, either. Writers thrive on knowing that someone out there is actually reading their words. The winner will be announced on Sunday.

As children's stories cover a very wide range of possibilities, I ask that everyone judge each story based on the intended age of the reader. That doesn't mean to go "easier" on stories for very young children, just don't grade down a story for being simple if simple is appropriate for the audience.

And now for this week's challenge.

"Aliens Have Invaded Pleasantville!"

---

With the remake of V having just debuted, the release of the movies The Fourth Kind and Planet 51 (kids' movie where a human lands on an alien planet) coming up, it seems like aliens are on all the screens -- both small and silver -- right now. All of these examples revolve around first contact with aliens; pretend-peaceful in V, abductions in The Fourth Kind and humorous-peaceful in Planet 51. Guess what the challenge will be for this week?

If you guess "the role of the Federal Reserve in the the current recession," you're off by just a tad. Yes, this week's challenge is to write a story about first contact with aliens.

If advanced aliens find us first, what will happen? Are they here to eat us? To take all of our precious resources? To enslave us or convert us to their religion? Or even to have slimy, tentacled alien sex with our women (or men, depending on your point of view)?

If it's advanced humans who find the aliens first, well, I guess the same list above applies to humans, too, except for the bit about tentacles. It's also possible the humans are just looking for a new market for fast food franchises.

Whether your story is action-packed, horrifying, funny or dramatic is entirely up to you. As usual, we're playing for what's behind Door #3.

You've got your assignment; ready, set, go!

Deadline Reminder

The deadline for the current Friday Challenge, Releasing Your Inner Child, is tonight at midnight, Central time. For those who have to snowdog their entry (i.e. post an entry past the deadline), you'll have a few hours to get your entry in before you have to worry about snowdogging as I'll be asleep at midnight, Central time. Take advantage of that time if you need it! And remember, this challenge is for the Friday Challenge cash prize (plus all the fame and glory that comes with winning the challenge each week)!

Also, remember you can post to the Friday Challenge Drop if you want to enter but don't want your entry available to everyone in the world with internet access. The password is the middle word in the link I've provided to the drop.

On the topic of drop.io, how do all of you think that is working out?

Critical Thinking: Kipling III

Before I get into the meat of the discussion, I would like to note that the argument between aircraft and airship appears to still have some life in it. High altitude airships are being studied for use as both surveillance/communications and as a more economical platform for lower-gravity research.

Kipling for Fun

As I mentioned previously, I've only found two Kipling stories that I would quantify as science fiction, but others come close, and he certainly was a master of fantasy. Here is an unresearched, unscientific list of some of my favorite stories.

The Eye of Allah: Poignant, scary look at the church's influence over science.

Wireless: A lover dying of consumption channels the poetry of Keats while, in the next room, one of the first wireless messages streams through the air.

The Maltese Cat: A polo pony personifies Kipling's most deeply-held spiritual belief: the holiness of work.

The Brushwood Boy: A sweet little romance. Reminds me a bit of Narnia-meets-"Room with a View" and a lot of a song you've never heard of from Big Wednesday called "Lorelei's Dance."

The Ship Who Found Herself: A classic example of Kipling's personification (and love) of the mechanical. Brings to mind some of the conversations held in the Thomas the Tank Engine's round house.

The Tomb of His Ancestors: Another classic example, this of both Kipling's reverence for the military and his parochial, yet demeaning, view of the locals.

William the Conqueror: A classic quote speaks of Scott ("If all goes well I shall work him hard." This was Jim Hawkins's notion of the highest compliment one human being could pay another.) but the story proves when it comes to the sanctity of work, women are no more exempt than men or polo ponies or elephants.

A Matter of Fact: What do you do if the truth will get you in trouble? Change the names and call it fiction.

There are dozens more stories, but these are some of my favorites. And I haven't even touched the novels.

Ultimate Geek Fu

 
V for...

---

Vapid? Vacuous? Vomit-inducing? Or possibly, just maybe...

Okay, let's have a show of hands, and this is for science, so please be honest. Who here watched the premiere of the remake of V last night?

And what's your verdict? Good? Bad? Ugly? Or perhaps, possibly, could this show be interpreted as evidence that every once in a while, purely by accident, a major television network might get science fiction right?

Personally, I kinda liked it. Evil collectivists from space, here to bring us universal health care, building their base of support by pressuring "hardball" reporters to play along and subverting and indoctrinating America's youth, right down to the quasi-military blue shirts? If they'd just claimed they were also here to save us from global warming, it would have been perfect. The only thing that bugged us about the show, and it's a very minor quibble, is that for about half the episode we kept asking each other, "Who is that guy?"—until finally we realized it was Alan Tudyk, who played Wash in Firefly.

Anyway, that was our initial reaction. What did you think?

Let the arguments begin.

---

ULTIMAGE GEEK FU runs every Wednesday. Have a question that's just bugging the heck out of you about Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Battlestar Gallactica, Farscape, Firefly, Fringe, Heroes, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Smallville, The X-Files, X-Men, The Man From Atlantis, or pretty much any other SF-flavored media property? Send it to slushpile@thefridaychallenge.com with the subject line, "Geek Fu," and we'll stuff it in the queue.

And the winnner is...

We actually had very little trouble picking a clear winner in this year's Halloween Story Contest, but a lot of trouble getting around to writing up this announcement. For starters, we had a much larger than usual number of entries to contend with, and many of these entries were significant works of authorship—which is to say, long. Along with this, we felt the seriousness of the high stakes necessitated getting the entire Rampant Loon editorial staff together to watch the Vikings beat the Packers like baby seals read and discuss the entries before formulating any opinions, and by the time we'd reached some preliminary conclusions, the whole cross-geo nature of the operation was stacked solidly against us.

Which is to say, Henry had gotten tired of waiting for us to check in and had gone to sleep.

Today, however, we have completed the arduous task of reconciling, collimating, concatenating, calibrating, and conjugalizing our many various opinions, and we are now prepared to present our findings. Bruce will speak for the Rampant Loon staff.


Jamison Scott, "Halloween Newspaper Item."

Henry: So, was this imaginary comeuppance for all the over-the-top scary yards you’ve seen in your life? We’ve got a few people who go beyond typical decorating at times, but their yards are usually fun rather than truly frightening. The idea of dying in front of a bunch of people who think you’re acting because, well, that’s what you’ve always done in the past, makes for a nice little horror story all its own, though. Nice.

Bruce: This one was funny and clever and made us laugh. Unfortunately, you've committed one of the most horrible and yet unavoidable mistakes a writer can make, in that you've written a story that wasn't fantastic enough, as evidenced by this article in last week's L.A. Times:

Dead man slumped on balcony mistaken for Halloween decoration
A 75-year-old dead man sat decomposing on his Marina del Rey balcony for days because neighbors thought the body was part of a Halloween display and didn’t call police...

It always sucks when your fantastic, wiggy, crazy, really out-there story is trumped by reality, but I've been there, and there's nothing you can do about it. Sorry.


passinthrough, "Ghost Story"

Henry: Your stories are always a change of pace from everything else because what you write comes directly from your life. From the comments, I see that this is another true story, giving another glimpse into a world both familiar and unfamiliar to a guy like me. The story doesn’t have a sense of the “dramatic” but is surprisingly similar in tone and pace to most of the stories in true ghost story collections. Very nice!

Bruce: We agree with Henry's assessment. This isn't precisely a story—it's more like a sketch or a concept statement for a story—but in that, it's very much like the sort of true ghost story/folk tales our old friend, Michael Norman, collected for his books, Haunted Heartland, Haunted America, and so on. Nicely done.


Arisia, "S&M Vampire Girls"

Henry: Best Halloween story title ever! Good job turning the real horror of having a movie shoot in your house into a horror story featuring, we assume a real vampire acting as a vampire. It was well written and nicely paced, enjoyable even though I was positive Lynn was going to turn out to be a real vampire. Good stuff.

Bruce: Again, we found ourselves agreeing with Henry's judgment. Lynn's turning out to be a real vampire was telegraphed well in advance, and yet it remained a well-written and fun read right up to the last line. Of all the entries in this contest, this is the one that simply begs to be made into at least a treatment, if not a full script.


Letteren, "Specters of my Past and Future"

Henry: You’re only 17 and you write like this? I don’t even know you and I already hate you! That’s a compliment, by the way. You did an excellent job of building tension and allowing us to get inside your character’s head as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him. After a build up like that, I don’t know what kind of payoff could have met our expectations, so leaving situation unresolved may have been the best approach. That said, I feel somewhat let down because we didn’t get a payoff at the end. Still, a very good, very spooky story with lots of atmosphere.

Bruce: We're going to have to disagree with Henry. The story has gobs of claustrophobic atmosphere, but as a story, it goes nowhere and ends in the air. This is not to say we have a clue how it should end, but the inconclusive non-ending definitely was a letdown. One of us also objected to the narrative voice, protesting that it doesn't read like the voice of a teenager. The fact that this story was written by a 17-year-old completely undercuts that argument, but still...

Finally, I personally had some problem with the depiction of the mysterious stranger. The narrator is being haunted by the ghost of Humphrey Bogart? Interesting and strange, but I found it not the menacing in the least. Still, for a story written by high school student, this is fantastic stuff. Keep at it.


Topher, "Last Hallow's Eve"

Henry: Nice change of pace with the zombie plague, including swinging by the morgue to pick up brains-to-go for the family to eat for dinner. The protagonist didn’t seem to have much reaction to the plague, though. There were some brief mentions of horror—being consoled by the corpses of those you’re grieving for was quite a good idea—but all we had was the mention of it then moved on. I think you could have wrapped the whole story around the horror of having your dead loved ones, flesh rotting off their bones, trying to console you concerning their own deaths. In the end, it seems like you tried to put too much into the story so ended up skimping on the stuff that would have been truly horrific.

Bruce: The narrator's emotional distance from the story left us, pardon the expression, cold. It was decently funny and entertaining, in a blackly humorous way, but it seemed to us that you went for glib humor at the expense of emotional impact. The guy has just (unintentionally) killed off his entire family and all of his friends, for cripe's sake!

The idea behind this one is good and clever, but the execution is too deadpan. We think you'd benefit from having a look at the original Richard Matheson version of "I am Legend," in which the zombies retain their memories and the ability to speak; therefore, it's in the mail.


Miko, "All Hallow's Eve"

Henry: You wrote a lovely and haunting reminder that All Hallows Eve is just the beginning of the celebration. I particularly liked the reminder for All Souls Day, a day so many completely forget. You’ve given us a well written reminder of what Halloween truly represents.

Bruce: It's a nice story, but not at all scary. This one strikes us as the sort of meditation that might go well in a Christian market magazine, but then again, this opinion may only indicate our ignorance of the Christian market.


Thinker Van Chan, "Martuin's Fall"

Henry: Interesting approach. I was certainly curious what was going on. Having it turn out to be a highly imaginative kid in a haunted house took me by surprise and explained the randomness of the earlier encounters. Nicely done.

Bruce: This one lost us in the third paragraph. Dreamscape stories are very hard to pull off; once you've established the hallucinatory nature of the narrative, anything becomes possible, and therefore nothing is meaningful. It's foregone that the story is leading up to some variation on the hoary, "And then he woke up, and it was all a dream," ending, and it becomes very difficult to keep the reader along for the ride.

Still, a nice try, and we look forward to seeing more from you.


The Aardvark, "Life...Don't Talk to Me About Life"

Henry: You should have been here for the super-hero power challenge a few months back. This entry would have been a perfect fit. As it is, it does evoke a kind of horror as we try to imagine what it would be like to die over and over again, always doomed to remember all the pain and suffering up to the point of actual death. I suspect most of us would go crazy. Good stuff. Wish you'd enter more often!

Bruce: Ditto what Henry said, plus add that that is one great opening line. Still, in the end this is a backgrounder for a superhero, and not much of a scary Halloween story. Well-written, though. Again, we'll second the thought that you should enter more often.


Torainfor, "The Monsters and the Infected"

Henry: Another imaginative approach to horror, coming from the point of view of what I assume are dogs. I'm not at all clear as to what the "infection" that causes wild dogs to suddenly become tame and docile. Some of the terms used, particularly "flyer," aren't clear from the story. That's not bad, as it helps maintain the alienness of the culture, just something I thought I'd note. Very evocotive.

Bruce: Much as it pains us, we're going to have to disagree with Henry on this one. It's wonderfully written, as always, and as we've come to expect from you. But very early on it became obvious to us that this was yet another story in which the "monsters" were humans and the point-of-view characters were some other non-human creatures, and from then on it just became a matter of waiting and guessing until the true nature of Grey was revealed. (We were betting on squirrels, or perhaps cats. The "flyers" were a puzzling misdirection.) It's a well-paced and well-written story, but the basic concept has been used and reused many times before, and it left us thinking of Erin Hunter's Warriors series rather than about the story itself.

Here's a thought: since trying to keep the true nature of Grey and the others a surprise doesn't work, why not make it clear at the outset and see where that takes you?


Ben-El, "Eye of the Storm"

Henry: Good build up with William at first arrogant then slowly becoming more needy as the cold takes over his body. We don't get a feel for why this is happening nor what Lou gets out of it. I'm still not clear whether it's Lou or the crone who does this to him.

Bruce: Here's another one where we're going to have to disagree with the group's comments. We felt this one was really strong, in an Old World Grimm's fairy tales kind of way. It's not at all clear what's happening to William, but then it doesn't need to be, as long as the ending is suitably ghastly.

This one has its flaws; for one thing, we were unable to develop a strong sense of when the story takes place. If it's centuries ago, there are some jarring anachronisms. If it's contemporary, there are other things that should provoke a more modern reaction from William. But on the whole, we found this one to be a strong and compelling story, and we'd like to see you develop it further.

Henry (again): I see I didn't do a very good job conveying my opinion of Ben-El's story. I felt it was quite strong and considered it one of the finalists on my list. Just wanted to clarify.


Al, "Vidad's Brain," "Creel's Halloween," "Spore"

Henry: Vidad's Brain - Wacky fun. Frightening only in the oh-my-God-he's-eating-socks kind of way.

Creele's Halloween - Good build up to a truly frightening end. The unsympathetic main character may detract a bit.

Spore - Jack the Ripper crossed with Alien crossed with those old, Victorian monster stories. Nicely done.

Bruce: "Vidad's Brain" was an amusing little inside joke, but not much more. We'll have to disagree slightly with Henry on "Creele's Halloween:" this was the sort of rotten-s.o.b.-gets-his-unearthly-comeuppance ending that fueled years of E.C. comics, Twilight Zone episodes, and especially, Tales from The Crypt, and we enjoyed it a hell of a lot. "Spore" also had some interesting potential, although there were a few things that really bothered us about it. For one thing, Detective Guinness's accent was a baffling hodge-podge, and for another, you apparently have no idea how difficult it is for anyone without government or mob connections to get hold of a handgun in modern England. If you wanted to develop this one further, it would be worth your while to put some effort into learning the conventions of the police procedural and the peculiarities of the London policing system.

But with all that said, we feel the real problem here is that you tried to do too much, too fast. Either "Creele's Halloween" or "Spore" could be developed into a terrific story, and in time, both could, but concentrate on one first!


Vidad, "The Window" and "Tonsil"

Henry: The Window - Excellent four year-old point of view. Great atmosphere. Truly scary.

Tonsil - Glad my tonsils removed when I was four. Logical part of me says go to doctor, get tonsils x-rayed, teeth show up, get emergency tonsillectomy. But it was off-the-wall fun.

Bruce: "Tonsil" was great, icky, weird fun. We'll have to go along with most of the commenters; it seemed very reminiscent of a young Stephen King. Yeah, it's over the top and off the wall, but Gaaah!, it's nasty and good.

There's little we can add to all the other comments on "The Window." This one really, truly, creeped us out and gave us chills. It is a superb piece of writing, that sets up and delivers a punch to the gut with a remarkably economy. Therefore, by the powers invested in us by—well, us—we declare "The Window" to be the winner of this year's Friday Challenge Halloween Story Contest.

Assuming, of course, that Henry concurs. Henry? Over to you...

Henry: Thanks, Bruce. First, I concur wholeheartedly with the decision. "The Window" was just great. Vidad may not like horror, but he does a great job writing it!

I had a great time reading all the entries and hope some of you who rarely enter -- or have entered for the first time -- submit entries again soon!