Seth's question for discussion: (spoiler?!)

Why does she cry?

Short Story Selection #3

"The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck.  It's a part of his collection: The Long Valley. It shouldn't be to hard to find, he read it in a 'modern short story collection'.

Enjoy!

Guess who gets to pick next!

I have a collection of names to draw from..if you’d like a chance to pick the story or essay for the coming week, say ‘hi’ in the introduction section, it’s the easiest way for me to decide who has the time to check often and choose!

       This week, I let Yarrow draw the name, and she picked Seth. So here you go, honey, pick something good!

 

 

 

A response - From Charlie to "All In"

(Thanks Charlie! For getting the discussion started! I moved it to it's own page to make it more visible. I'm about to lose battery, so I'll have to wait to actually comment, but I think you make some great points. Welcome to the discussion!)


This is Gerard's friend Charlie here, and I thought I'd break the ice on this one. I have to say that it took me a while to really get a hang on what was happening in this piece. The prose was very detailed and evoked a nice scene for me, but the back story (the world) is very important in science fiction, and it took me most of my time reading to really get a sense for what was going on.

As I still think I might be mistaken, let me throw my thoughts out there. Effectively, the main character is mortgaging his own life by stepping into this game. As in, if he loses, he'll be one of the people that they use to incubate this miracle cure (like the guy who is taken into the back room). Is that what everyone else got?

Since it took me almost my entire time reading to piece this all together, I guess the poker scene lacked a bit of the urgency that it acquired once I gained more of an understanding of the situation. Maybe that is intentional (I'd have to say it is, given the way the piece is structured). As it stood while reading, I thought it was a very accurate account of a high-stake poker game, which was fun to read. I just wonder if some of the tension in the piece is buried in the initial obscurity of the world's backstory, because we don't realize what's at stake until the hand has been played.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear what everyone else thought, and thanks for letting me participate in these discussions.

Short Story #2

Christie’s selection -  A story called "All In" by Peter Atwood you can find it at,   http://weirdtalesmagazine.com/2009/03/20/all-in/.

I hope everyone gets a chance to check it out!

Another note, don't feel like you have to abandon any discussion just because the new story is posted, they can go on and on if there is still something to say, so Charles, post you historical information, I've been looking forward to reading it, and you slackers who haven't said anything yet, introduce yourselves! Some of you (and you know who you are) were the ones who came up with this whole idea, so come on over! :)

For next week..

Christie, I drew your name to pick our next essay or short story. If you don’t have the time, or are just way too undecided, feel free to let me know and I’ll draw again, if not, send me an e-mail or comment here with your selection, and I’ll sort of ‘officially’ post it on Monday.

And, by the way, everyone, Christie has a writing prompt set up on her blog, this month's goes through the fourth Friday of October. I think anyone here would enjoy it, so skip on by and check it out.