Justin’s Comments (group member since Mar 13, 2016)

Justin’s comments from the Science Fiction Microstory Contest group.

Science Fiction Microstory Contest (June 2016)
** STORIES ONLY **
The theme for the month follows this note from the competition's Creator/Director, Jot Russell:

To help polish our skills and present a flavour of our art to other members in the group, I am continuing this friendly contest for those who would like to participate. There is no money involved, but there is also no telling what a little recognition and respect might generate. The rules are simple:

1) The story needs to be your own work and should be posted on the Good Reads Discussion board, which is a public group. You maintain responsibility and ownership of your work to do with as you please. You may withdraw your story at any time.

2) The stories must be 750 words or less.

3) The stories have to be science fiction, follow a specific theme and potentially include reference to items as requested by the prior month's contest winner. The theme for this month is posted below.

4) You have until midnight EST on the 22nd day of the month to post your story to the Good Reads Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion. One story per author per month.

5) After, anyone from the LI Sci-Fi group or the GR Science Fiction Microstory Discussion group has until midnight EST of the 25th day of the month to cast a single private vote to Jot Russell () for a story other than their own. This vote will be made public once voting is closed. Voting is required. If you do not vote, your story will be disqualified from the contest. You don't need a qualifying story to cast a vote, but must offer the reason for your vote if you don’t have an entry.

6) To win, a story needs at least half of the votes, or be the only one left after excluding those with the fewest votes. Runoffs will be run each day until a winner is declared. Stories with vote totals that add up to at least half, discarding those with the fewest votes, will be carried forward to the next runoff election. Prior votes will be carried forward to support runoff stories. If you voted for a story that did not make it into the runoff, you need to vote again before midnight EST of that day. Only people who voted in the initial round may vote in the runoffs.

7) Please have all posts abide by the rules of Good Reads and the LI Sci-Fi group.

8) Professional comments and constructive criticisms are appreciated by any member in either group and should be posted to the separate thread that will be posted at the end of the month and all voting is complete to avoid any influence on the voting. Feel free to describe elements that you do and don't like, as these help us gain a better perspective of our potential readers. Remarks deemed inflammatory or derogatory will be flagged and/ or removed by the moderator.

9) The winner has THREE days after the start of the new month to make a copy of these rules and post a new contest thread using the theme/items of their choosing. Otherwise, the originator of the contest, Jot Russell, will post a new contest thread.
______________________________

*Theme for the June 2016 contest:

Theme: Alternate history (From any time period you prefer on Earth, excluding time machines, time travel or alien intervention)

Required Elements: A discrete historical figure (Abraham Lincoln, Cleopatra, Frank Sinatra, whomever – but it must be a real person), a thunderstorm (literal or figurative), and terror/panic

What a pleasant surprise! Thank you all very much. I really appreciate it! The quality of everyone's stories this month was absolutely incredible. I feel lucky to be in such great company!

Heather, I don't know if I could pull off a sequel! But I could see this as a video short on YouTube or something like that. It would be fun to produce.

Thank you all for your vote of confidence. To quote Sally Field, "You like me. You really like me!" LOL!

Now I have to come up with something worthy of all the great scribes assembled here. I will endeavor to make it challenging and worthwhile.

Best to all,

Justin

Stories about people waking up in an ice bath and a note that says "Call 911, your kidneys have been removed." Ranks right up there with giant alligators in the sewers...and that's an old trope for sure!

Greg, I liked your Robot Uprising story. A very interesting way to deal with domestic violence. Made me think of the urban legends of people waking up in ice baths missing organs. (Shudder) Nicely done!

Jon, hilarious! Ahead warp factor 2!

I can see it now:

TERMINATOR 5: Rise of the Check-Out Machines

Scanned to death by the red bar code reader...oh the humanity!

"Unexpected trope in the bagging area. Please remove this trope..."

Not sure which decision is harder: presidential ballot or Brexit. Both with significant fallout afterwards. I'll keep reading about Churchill and wishing we had politicians of that caliber today.

Good one Andy. Political relevance for today, chilling robotic implications for the future...

No betting on primaries here. I had to write in a name on my primary ballot in Washington, which I'm sure will disqualify it. But I could not in good conscience just toss it in the trash. I put my US flag stamp upside down to mail it in.

Paula, your story has a very lyrical quality to it. I also felt like I was reading some ancient text written in a higher tongue while I tried to comprehend it with a lesser one - barely succeeding.

Heather, I appreciate the way you dive so deeply into thought and interpretation throughout the discussion threads! I feel like I have entered a house and only enjoyed the front sitting room, while you are opening doors to rooms throughout an entire mansion of thought.

Jeremy, I also like the archaic nomenclature. I felt like I was reading a sci-fi story from the 40's or 50's (Saturn V rocket notwithstanding).

The story was Sierra Hotel in my mind.

Just to be clear, from a military history perspective, the phonetic alphabet used by the US Army during WWII used Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, etc. This is different from the current military phonetic alphabet, which would be alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, echo, etc.

I think what I liked about Jeremy's story, among other things, is that the artist could be anyone. Frankly, I envisioned Elvis. Thank you, thank you very much.

In my opinion the experiment worked.

Jeremy,

Loved Able, Baker, Charlie. Great story. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot!

Thanks Davon, much appreciated!

Hello all,

I realize this conversation trail is for the microstories, but I just received a new review for my most current sci-fi novella. If you're interested, just see the blog on my author page. I hope you'll check it out. Thanks for letting me share.

I also cannot wait to vote on this month's batch of stories, and I'm really looking forward to the next challenge!

Best to you all.

And here I thought it was just LSD-inspired. Seriously though, I'm glad you're feeling better Heather!

It feels very stream-of-consciousness to me, which is very hard to effect in writing (in my opinion), especially a dream-like sequence. I think you pulled it off smashingly.

Heather, from where I sit, you are working on a whole other level. Nicely done!

Hi John,

If you're asking about my title: "Emit fo tuO", I was trying to be clever and cheeky by writing it backwards. Read it from right to left. Perhaps that is a trope in and of itself. But I laughed at it when I first thought of it, so that's what I decided on.

Dorthe, that is AWESOME! LOL!