For Thursday: Best
American Science Fiction Writing 2015
Stories: Russell, “The Bad Graft” (34-53)
Castro, “The Thing About Shapes to Come” (168-180)
Answer TWO of the
following:
Q1: On page 178, Castro
writes, “For all of us, meaning arrives in installments. It might be actual and
it might be wishful thinking. We can only report the facts and hope that they
provide closure.” What do you think Monica learns about the shapes, or her own
child, by the end of the story? What ‘closure’ does she receive as a mother?
Q2: In most science
fiction stories, aliens are from other worlds, out to conquer the world or blow
it into smithereens. How does “The Bad Graft” offer a twist on the typical
alien invasion story? Why is it ‘invading’ in the first place?
Q3: In “The Bad Graft,”
Russell writes, “One of the extraordinary adaptive powers of our species is its
ability to transmute a stray encounter into a first chapter” (52). What do you
think this means, and how does it relate to the qualities that make us human?
How do these qualities ultimately defeat the plant (or do they)?
Q4: How might the story
“The Thing About Shapes to Come” be a metaphor for what it means to be normal,
and human, in our society? Though we don’t have to deal with triangles and
trapezoids in our nurseries, what ‘shapes’ challenge our understanding of humanity
in the 21st century?
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