Challenge 816

What Time Isn’t It?

In L. S. Popovich, Echoes From Dust:
1. Why does Jodo remain with the vehicle even though his companions sorely need his talent for perceiving grotto-le auras?
2. Why do Telos and Riku not rebel when Ovid boasts of keeping secrets from them?
3. What secrets does Remera seem to be hiding from Izzalia?
In Jackson Arthur’s My Child Who Never Lived, what figurative “child” does the poem refer to? Can you suggest a different title for the poem?
In Andrew Johnston’s Halted:
1. How did societies function before clocks were invented?
2. What would happen if everyone could choose individually to have an extra hour in the day? What hour would you choose?
3. If you could have an extra day in each week, when would you have it? How much faster would you age in, say, ten years?
In Hayley Reese Chow’s Wild Demand:
1. What accounts for the scarcity of women at the speed-dating game?
2. What does the story imply about the consequences of gender imbalance in any profession?
3. What character flaws do the men have? The women?
4. The story concludes with a prediction of male-preference sex selection by bioengineered eugenics. In what countries or societies would such a thing be plausible? What would be the inevitable consequences? What would happen if men were in short supply?