What's with the ankh as a symbol of the apocolypse? I mean if you're talking holy war, I think the Catholic Christian Crusaders did it best.
~
There is absolutely no correlation or causation amongst intelligence, power, talent and wealth.
Kha-Nyou

1. ()

I thought it was very zen. Western pseudo-zen, that is.
--
I needed a new sig. And now I have one.

in the process of making the poll front-page, i seem to have detached it from the story. Will try to fix; meanwhile please to vote on the diary page or the front page.

Can you introspect out loud? --CRwM

----
20 days left ...

Not having a hard drive's really buggered up my leisure time use. Ah, well. Next time, even though I had an excellent concept.

I hope CRwM and theantix don't mind my tacking on my query to this story, but last time around there was some talk of making a real-life book of this stuff (seeing as WFC1 was pitched as a hypothetical anthology). I was gonna play with creating such a thing, but it occurs to me that some of the participants might not like their work to be included since it wasn't part of the deal up front. So would anyone who submitted to WFC1 mind dropping me a PM to let me know if it's OK to use your work? If you wrote a post-mortem, please let me know if you'd like that to be included as well (in a separate section from the stories, I'm thinking).

Of course, I would like to include everyone if at all possible, but I think opt-out is evil, so I'll assume if I don't hear from you that it's not OK.

At the very least this will be available as a free PDF, or I'll look into actual printing. I don't expect this'll be a money-making operation either way.

Note WFC2 is not included in the query at this time since I don't want to know who-all wrote the entries, yet :)

--
"later" meant either "when you walk around the corner" or "oatmeal."

Minireviews I wrote while trying to decide who to vote for last night. Last minute entries don't get reviewed (though I read them):

()

Zen

Walking

Is there a reason this is in HTML? I refuse to review it in protest.

A Cat Named Neutron

Um. Okay mns.

The Eighth Wonder

I suspect you've either been reading or writing a lot of 256's diaries lately. You're lucky I dig them. Gets one of my votes, despite the dubious usage of html.

The Idea

Bonus points for trying something different. Minus points for it not really fitting the medium. The fact that some of the narration in some of the panels is either unillustratable ("She worries that she's no longer the youngest woman at the Herald."), or you'd need a damn good artist to do ("Her legs are still shapely, but she isn't young any more and the entire posture, while still being physically arousing, immediately reminds the reader that she's too old to pretend to this naïve sensuality.")  is distracting at times. Bonus points just barely outweigh the minus points, and it gets my vote.

And You Never Ask Directions, Either

I don't get it.

Come Again

You're not Joyce. You're not Palahniuk. Use quotation marks.

The Wedding Guest

I think I missed an allusion in the title. And the angst at the end is a little opaque. Unless maybe that sentence near the end is supposed to read: Ironically the one place they say you're safe is out on the sea? Nonetheless, I like. Gets my vote.

Death of the Worlds

Zomg! An actual reason to use HTML for something that can't be done in plain text! I liked the original style (Unless you consider Bram Stoker prior art.) But the motivation for removing the single-cell organisms isn't really clear. Were they trying to wipe out humanity? Then why are they surprised at the effects? Were they trying to use humanity for something else? Then why did they invade in the first place?

It's Not Somebody Who's Seen The Light

I like it. I voted for it. There's something constructive I meant to complain about when I first read it, but I can't remember what, skimming it now.

The Colony

I can't help but feel there's something wrong with the science in this, though I'm not entirely sure what. But I can mostly write it off as the narrator not understanding it since it's in the first person. I like the twist.

Voices

Not a fan of the religious overtones, though without them it'd just be story number 1. Well written enough to get a vote from me despite that and the dubious usage of html (and worse, MS Word).

Salient Point

Like the title. The story's a little long for one where absolutely nothing really happens until the last couple paragraphs.

Europa, Signing Off

Surely they have local proxies to reduce latency?

My predictions:

Voices, It's Not Somebody Who's Seen the Light, and Eighth Wonder for win, place and show, though I'd prefer the first two swapped. The Wedding Guest gets 4th.

Cover art: I liked persimmons. I voted for it.
--
I needed a new sig. And now I have one.

I voted for "The Eighth Wonder." A low key and thoughtful approach. Really great work. Whoever wrote that, you did a damn fine job.

The Eighth Wonder - Fabulous. Very much a story about people, rather than what happened too them. Many of the stories made the mistake (IMHO) of being about the event, rather than the aftermath. This story doesn't make that mistake. It's also really engaging. A joy to read.

And You Never Ask Directions, Either - Heh. I liked this. Did the old guy really cause the death of the world, or is his wife just used to blaming him for everything :)

The Colony - Vampires in space? Maybe I'm just slow, but it took me a few readings to get this. Was he the only one there, or the only one left. Did the woman he was going to dine (on?) come from the supply ship. I think I'm just too slow to understand this story.

Right. Home time. I'll post some more later.
--
smart, pretty, sane. pick two - georgeha

Walking. Nice sketch. Are there no rabbits left?

Neutron. I miss Neutron too, Billy. We all do.

The Eigth Wonder. Great read. This is one of the most civilised apocalypsi ever; I for one approve.

The Idea. Pomotastic, yet still readable. I know it's not the point, but I'd rather read it as a comic ...

Directions. Nono, that button orders grapefruit juice.

Come again. 'The oft-overlooked “beneath the cart” zone' :) ... I like the urgency, but I'm unsure if this story is skirting the edge of the theme, or making the point that a panicked mob is quite enough for a DIY apocalyse.

Wedding guest. Corker of an ending. The Rime of The Zombie Mariner: what rhymes with arrgh I wonder?

Death of the worlds. Nice riffing homage. The chances of anything returning from Mars / Are a million to one they said.

Not somebody who's seen the light. Creepy. Apocalypse as city-dweller apathy.

Colony. Good pulpy read. Had to think about it to get the ending, but intergalactic vampirism ++good.

Voices. God was wrong! </James Mason>

Europa. A CheesburgerBrownian mix of slow-reveal violence and whimsy. It's good, of course, but I'm not sure if it quite ... balances, or something.

Reception. Reminds me of p-m-agapow's description of the works of Ursula Le Guin: A not entirely unpleasant beating about the head with a sociology textbook.

The Color of Rain. Damnit, this is good, but my deep burrowed cynicism is taking issue with a rainbow ending.

To be established. I can completely sympathise with an equation of dinner parties and apocalypse. What what. Runcible spoon.

Happy Anniversary. I like that, by coincidence, the ending of this also makes a good ending for the collection.


_{The Political Science Department of the University of Woolloomooloo}

The Eighth Wonder
The Idea Double-Sized Annual Spectacular
Happy Anniversary

in no particular order.

great work all
---
_{I don't think anyone's ever really died from smoking. --ni}

is really impressive this time around. Thanks to our WFC2 triumvirate CRwMtix256 (hmm, I'll have to remember that for the next time I need a futuristic product name) for making this excellent challenge possible. As I was reading the entries, I thought about half of them had a good chance of winning. I don't even remember which ones I voted for, it was so hard to narrow it down.

Because the week following the WFC deadline always seems so long, here are some thoughts on the stories for those obsessive reloaders out there:

• Walking Nice vignette. Feel like it could have stood on its own without the fancy formatting.
• A Cat Named Neutron My reaction to this was something like sasquatchan's feeling about The Curious Incident ...
• The Eighth Wonder Almost makes me wish the apocalypse were already here. Spare and elegant.
• The Idea Double-Sized Annual Spectacular Had one of the best versions (visions?) of the apocalypse. Self-conscious but not annoyingly so.
• And You Never Ask Directions, Either Can't exactly say why, but it made me wish I'd done a story set in the Six-String Samurai world.
• Come Again I'm with Scrymarch. Well told, but the subject's a bit too realistic/ordinary to stand out.
• The Wedding Guest Liked the tone, a subdued sort of creepy. I'm a sucker for Coleridge references.
• Death of the Worlds Interesting cause of apocalypse combined with unusual (but effective) storytelling technique. Surprised this one's not more popular.
• It's Not Somebody Who's Seen the Light Had trouble parsing the title, but the concept is good. Nice ending.
• The Colony I like the approach of viewing the apocalypse from afar. This edges out "Europa" for me for two reasons: its brevity/simplicity, and the fact that I think every WFC should have a story that ends with a neck bite, and no, I did not write this one. I think the narrator is not a vampire as such, but just drinking people's blood, to which, 1) ew, and 2) so much cooler than a traditional vampire.
• Voices Moody and atmospheric. Liked the narrator's voice (no pun intended), except for the gratuitous caps.
• Europa, Signing Off See above. Also, I found it a bit hard to follow the jump to the last scene.
• Salient Point Nice mood piece. Ending is a bit ... abrupt.
• Reception I think this wins for best depiction of a post-apocalyptic society. This one grew on me as I read it.
• The Color of Rain Dunno if the ending bothers me on this one, but something does. Maybe its total lack of simplicity.
• To Be Established Too meta for my taste.
• Happy Anniversary Love the language on this one -- so tight and well built. Seems a bit tangential to the theme at first, but nails it at the end.

--
"later" meant either "when you walk around the corner" or "oatmeal."

I read them in the order they're posted on this page. I was surprised when the first one, Walking, blew me away. Maybe it's just me, or maybe everyone else is insane, but I thought that out of all the entries its voice was most different - enough to actually make me step outside of this reality and into the story's. Which is, I think, something key to a post-apocalypse story. Maybe it was just a ramble, a stream of consciousness piece, or meticulously designed, or parts of all 3, but I couldn't really tell. So it worked for me.

As I read the others, I found I most enjoyed The Eighth Wonder and Happy Anniversary, which was a close contender for being the most immersive and alien. Anniversary gets extra points for style, somehow making it impossible to stop reading its long paragraphs with lots of commas. In the end though I still give the nod to Walking. It most made me want to find out more about its characters and setting.

I didn't have the slightest clue who did Walking when I read it. I have a guess as to who wrote Eighth and Anniversary, and their usernames would start with a C and a f, respectively, but it wouldn't surprise me if I'm way off.

Re: formatting - I prefer HTML because of how browsers display .txt files but I'd recommend just going with a h2 for the title, body and p tags for the rest. My problem with Walking was that if you bump up the font size with ctrl-+, one box obscured the other.

THE GRAPH LOOKS LIKE THE CISCO LOGO TURNT SIDEWAYS.

Irony: ammo says it's time. Tom is blocked.