And the winner is...

Oog, that was ghastly. Did I say I could move ten million Vikings chokers? I meant twenty million.

But with the game safely out of my misery, it's time now to turn to this week's entries. As you no doubt remember, the challenge this time around was to write a brief character sketch, starting from nothing more than a name. I'm really pleased to see that we got seven entries this time, including entries from a lot of people who haven't given it a try in a while. Tackling the list in no particular order:

Athor Pel: your robotic Mendacious Smith is obviously a storyteller, although not in quite the same way that Henry is a storyteller. We like that he uses his ability to lie—in fact, his programmed compulsion to lie—to good effect and without hurting others, but on the other hand, we seem to remember that there is an old Asimov story that follows much the same line. A robot with an overly strong First Law bias becomes a pathological liar, in order to avoid ever hurting anyone's feelings, and the... Well, it's an Asimov story, so you can guess. Anyway, this is a good idea, but not strong enough to be a winner this week.

Ben-El: we like the physical descriptions and the idea of the character having a nemesis who is his mirror image, and the woman they both pine for makes us snicker. But overall your character sketch was just too sketchy. We feel certain there's a fun idea lurking in there and waiting to be told, we just don't get enough information to know what it is.

Snowdog: Not content to write simply a character sketch, you've given us an entire short-short story, or as Guy might call it, flash fiction. It's an interesting idea that the character creates living creatures by describing them. Henry wants to know if he can bend causality to the extent of making events happen as well, and thinks it would be pretty cool to be the scriptwriter for your own life, while I vaguely recall an old Twilight Zone episode in which a character with similar abilities turned his life into a hellish horror. This was fun to read, and very well done, but in the final analysis what you wrote was also way above and beyond the scope of this challenge.

Torainfor: Not the approach we expected, living down his father's reputation, but it was interesting and exceptionally well-written, as usual. However, we felt that Junior could have been named just about anything, as the name really applies more to his father. We suspect that Mendacious, Jr. would have tried to live down his father's reputation even if his name was "Bob."

Watkinson: We got a really great feeling for your character in just a few short paragraphs and we like how you spun it. Henry pointed out a run-on sentence or two, but they weren't horrible and in any case this was simply a character sketch, so grammar and spelling don't matter. We liked your approach quite a bit and feel that the story this character has to tell has quite a lot of strong potential.

Miko: We find it interesting that you alone chose to give us physical details about his appearance. Ben-El came close, with a few words about how he dresses, but everyone else concentrated on his interior life, his history, and his psychological makeup. Yours is a nice interpretation. We already feel strong sympathy for the lad in just two paragraphs. Henry points out that you also have a run-on sentence in there, but as we said above, that's not a big deal in a character sketch. Good job.

Passinthrough: You and Miko seem to have hit on similar ideas for the reason behind your character's name. Henry envisions him becoming a writer, while I thought he was a natural for going into politics. In either case, they're obvious professional choices for someone who has trouble telling the truth, and we'd like to see you develop this further. Very nice!


Therefore, after having read and re-read all of the entries, and after taking into account all of the reader comments—we don't feel bound by them, but we do take them into account—it is considered opinion of the judges that the winner this week is Watkinson, with Honorable Mention going to Passinthrough. So Watkinson and Passinthrough, contact us to claim your prizes.

And to everyone else: thanks for participating, and don't forget, the next Friday Challenge, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," is already in progress, and the deadline is Thursday.