Challenge 836

Trade Peace

1. In Charles C. Cole’s Hiking With Angels, why does Arvis lure his supposed friends to their deaths? Might the story provide an abbreviated example of a “disinformation operation”?

2. In Zhanna Smith’s The Magpies and the Cuckoos, the essay cites a documented case of a disinformation operation performed by the Soviet KGB in 1983. How might a rogue hacker collective — or even a single individual — anywhere in the world do something similar today?

3. In David Whippman’s Freudian Greatness, how effectively might psychoanalysis treat megalomania?

4. In Jeffrey Greene’s This House Is Unguarded:

   1. Is the Yeti’s gift really bacteria-ridden? What might have happened if the narrator had responded in kind with a similar offering?

   2. The narrator judges his mission a failure. Is the failure his fault? Do the Yeti break their promise to send an ambassador? If the object is merely an exchange of goods rather than communication, why propose a formal meeting under such strenuous conditions?

5. In Walter Giersbach’s Secret Agent in Sky City, how does Huang know where to wait for the would-be terrorist bomber? Why can he be sure she is not carrying a nuclear weapon?

6. In Jerry Guarino’s Bullets for Dessert, why might a cinematic enactment of a shoot-out at a Tim Horton’s reflect the current state of the franchise since its acquisition by a Brazilian megacorporation? Does the filming sequence dampen or add a note of irony to Tony’s sentimental attachment to Canada?

7. In John Haymaker’s The Legend of Potter’s Field:

   1. The prison is located in “upstate New York.” The guards carry Soviet-issue AK47 rifles. How would the guards normally be armed?
   2. The prison has multiple-occupancy cells. Is the arrangement normal?
   3. Would maximum-security prisoners ever be sent into a public space on a work detail?
   4. What does Marty do — in addition to committing murder — to indicate he is a sociopath? Would a sociopath even think of his own death, let alone be fixated upon it?
   
   

   Responses welcome!

   Copyright © December 9, 2019 by Bewildering Stories
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