The Friday Challenge: 4/4/08
Update: The links should work now.
First up, here are the entries received or posted for last week's Friday Challenge, which as you'll remember was to sketch out a CSI plot revolving around the capabilities, real or imagined, of the PistolCam. We've got fewer entries than usual this week, but they all seem really well-developed. In the order they were received, the contestants are:
SnowDog
Sean
Mike
WaterBoy
We're trying something new this week, in that I'm posting links to the entries now, and you have until Sunday afternoon to read, comment on, and vote for your favorites, with the winner to be announced Sunday evening.
Now, as for this week's Friday Challenge: I know this is treading perilously close to my "no politics" rule, but I just couldn't resist. As only a hermit in a cave could have missed, Hillary Clinton has been the butt of much cruel humor lately, for having claimed that while as First Lady and on a junket to Kosovo, she had to run from the plane, "dodging sniper fire."
Okay. So it's an exaggeration. Everybody I know who's ever been in an even mildly slightly remotely dangerous situation always amps up the danger level when they retell the story, except for those guys I've interviewed who've actually seen the elephant, and they either downplay it or refuse to talk about it at all. So she told a stretcher. Big deal. The tall tale is an American tradition.
But that got me thinking: tall tale? A fiction-writing contest? The "Mighty Warrior Woman" trope, which is a staple of fantasy, vs. the "Immortal Warrior Battling Through Time" trope, which has been a staple of SF since at least Edgar Rice Burroughs? And then the title hit me...
Hillary Clinton
Immortal Mighty Warrior Woman
Battling Through Time
And that is what we're looking for this week: your best tall-tale about the adventures of the immortal warrior/goddess Hillary, as she fights her never-ending battle against... whatever the heck it is she's battling against. Tell us about the time she led the charge of the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill! Tell us about how held the pass at Thermopylae after Leonidas fell! Tell us about how she single-handedly personned a Browning M2 to cover the retreat of the Marines from Chosin Reservoir, and then when President Truman tried to give her the Medal of Honor she turned it down, saying, "Aw, shucks, I was only doing my duty, sir."
Oh, all right. If you really object to the subject of this challenge, you can switch the protagonist's gender and substitute George W. Bush instead.
As always, we're playing by the ever-evolving rules of the Friday Challenge and playing for what's behind Door #2. The deadline for entries is midnight central time, Thursday, April 10, with all submissions to be posted for review on Friday, 4/11, and the winner to be announced on the evening of Sunday, 4/13.
Any more questions? Then... begin!
First up, here are the entries received or posted for last week's Friday Challenge, which as you'll remember was to sketch out a CSI plot revolving around the capabilities, real or imagined, of the PistolCam. We've got fewer entries than usual this week, but they all seem really well-developed. In the order they were received, the contestants are:
SnowDog
Sean
Mike
WaterBoy
We're trying something new this week, in that I'm posting links to the entries now, and you have until Sunday afternoon to read, comment on, and vote for your favorites, with the winner to be announced Sunday evening.
Now, as for this week's Friday Challenge: I know this is treading perilously close to my "no politics" rule, but I just couldn't resist. As only a hermit in a cave could have missed, Hillary Clinton has been the butt of much cruel humor lately, for having claimed that while as First Lady and on a junket to Kosovo, she had to run from the plane, "dodging sniper fire."
Okay. So it's an exaggeration. Everybody I know who's ever been in an even mildly slightly remotely dangerous situation always amps up the danger level when they retell the story, except for those guys I've interviewed who've actually seen the elephant, and they either downplay it or refuse to talk about it at all. So she told a stretcher. Big deal. The tall tale is an American tradition.
But that got me thinking: tall tale? A fiction-writing contest? The "Mighty Warrior Woman" trope, which is a staple of fantasy, vs. the "Immortal Warrior Battling Through Time" trope, which has been a staple of SF since at least Edgar Rice Burroughs? And then the title hit me...
Immortal Mighty Warrior Woman
Battling Through Time
And that is what we're looking for this week: your best tall-tale about the adventures of the immortal warrior/goddess Hillary, as she fights her never-ending battle against... whatever the heck it is she's battling against. Tell us about the time she led the charge of the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill! Tell us about how held the pass at Thermopylae after Leonidas fell! Tell us about how she single-handedly personned a Browning M2 to cover the retreat of the Marines from Chosin Reservoir, and then when President Truman tried to give her the Medal of Honor she turned it down, saying, "Aw, shucks, I was only doing my duty, sir."
Oh, all right. If you really object to the subject of this challenge, you can switch the protagonist's gender and substitute George W. Bush instead.
As always, we're playing by the ever-evolving rules of the Friday Challenge and playing for what's behind Door #2. The deadline for entries is midnight central time, Thursday, April 10, with all submissions to be posted for review on Friday, 4/11, and the winner to be announced on the evening of Sunday, 4/13.
Any more questions? Then... begin!
posted by ~brb at 8:26 AM
