DISCUSSION THREAD -- APRIL 2021 75-WORD WRITING CHALLENGE

[Pyan]

Thanks for the listing, Dan!

 

[Hugh]

I voted for @Perpetual Man : good story, enjoyable flowing prose.

Runner-up @Ursa major

Shortlist
@Valtharius
@mosaix

others that caught my eye:
@Luiglin
@sule
@M. Robert Gibson
@Parson
@Starbeast
@BT Jones

special mention to @Sinergio for getting me to use my google translator.

 

[Ursa major]

Thanks for making me your runner up, Hugh.

 

[johnnyjet]

My Long List, Short List, and *** Favorite ***:

The Connoisseur - Victoria Silverwolf
Voice From the Past - paranoid marvin
An Age Old Problem – nixie
Urban Perfection - Perpetual Man
Epitaph – sule
Amendment X - BT Jones
New Chicago - Wayne Mack
A Mother's Love and a City in the Clouds – Parson
Quercus perit… - pyan
*** A Tale of Cities 2.0 - M. Robert Gibson ***
Check the Scale on That Map – chopper
Urban Diaspora – chrispenycate
SIM Cities – mosaix
It's Recreational Hour! – Eickerlyc
The City and the City - Ursa major

 

[Pyan]

Thanks for the listing, @johnnyjet!

 

[chrispenycate]

Ouch. All right, I've managed to trim down the list to mansgeable - BT Jones, Amendment X, Parson, A Mother’s Love and a City in the Clouds, reddishbird , Transfiguration and sule, Epitaph. I finally went for reddishbird.

Thanks for the mentions, BT Jones, Dan Jones, johnnyjet, Paranoid Marvin and Parson; continued gratitude to Parson and Victoriafor their continued reviews. (I couldn't do it. I tried, once).

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Short list:
A Tale of Two Cities. - @Peter V
Abroad - @Daysman
It's Up To You... - @Dan Jones
Urban diaspora - @chrispenycate

Runners-up:
An Age Old Problem. - @nixie
Amendment X - @BT Jones

and the winner is...
SIM Cities. - @mosaix

with a special mention for @Sinergio for increasing the traffic of Spanish to English translation websites (My preference: SpanishDict Translator)

 

[Phyrebrat]

I voted for johnnyjet’s sadly real narrative but other favourites were:

BT Jones
Peter V
Dan

 

[Sinergio]

Short list:
A Tale of Two Cities. - @Peter V
Abroad - @Daysman
It's Up To You... - @Dan Jones
Urban diaspora - @chrispenycate

Runners-up:
An Age Old Problem. - @nixie
Amendment X - @BT Jones

and the winner is...
SIM Cities. - @mosaix

with a special mention for @Sinergio for increasing the traffic of Spanish to English translation websites (My preference: SpanishDict Translator)

Try DeepL and you will be surprised. Anyway, I solved the problem and my texts will be in English from now in the future.

I voted for @Perpetual Man : good story, enjoyable flowing prose.

Runner-up @Ursa major

Shortlist
@Valtharius
@mosaix

others that caught my eye:
@Luiglin
@sule
@M. Robert Gibson
@Parson
@Starbeast
@BT Jones

special mention to @Sinergio for getting me to use my google translator.

Thanks for the effort to read me with the translator. Anyway, I solved the problem and my texts will be in English from now on. You know DeepL?

It was great to be back in the Challenges for the first time in daaaaay. Good to see the old gang and a few new faces as well.
Here are my top ten stories for this month:

@paranoid marvin - you can take the boy out of the Earth, but you can't take Earth out of the boy.
@Perpetual Man - An organic, living twist on the Dark City-style city that comes alive at the witching hour
@Peter V - despite their wealth, the Elois know that the Morlocks will not be cowed forever, and every now and then... one of them will strike.
@BT Jones - the distance between the banality of centralised control and the havoc it wreaks upon the life of the man on the Clapham Hoverbus does nothing to lessen its horror
@pyan - we're always capable of convincing ourselves that our actions are just. I wonder if the banquet tasted ever so slightly bitter that evening?
@johnnyjet - even with a population of millions, when disaster strikes, a city can be a place of crushing isolation
@chrispenycate - a clanking, whirring system of imagery that brings to mind Howl's Moving Castle and the Sand People from Star Wars.
@Hugh - a stranger may find himself in a strange land, but some are more welcoming than others, especially on Valentine's Day.
@Sinergio - tal vez nuestro futuro es en la libre de la mar.
@Ursa major - one can have the most wonderful dreams, but only too late do we realise they were nightmares.

Well now! What a fine decembirate of diarists. After much deliberating and general faffing abaaht, I decide to give my vote to Peter V. Zehr gut!

Thanks for the effort to read my story...

 

[Parson]

Thanks for the Shortlisting @johnnyjet and @chrispenycate

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

I found this topic particularly difficult to get my head round. So much so I failed to contribute.

This months efforts produced a good many excelent stories, but to me quite a few didn't meet the topic requirement of "Cities".

Hey, just my opinion.

Anyway the ones that worked for me are listed below.

Hugh got the tick. Mainly because the ending was pure fiction with fiction: if you get my drift.


@Astro Pen : No more than humans deserve. It hit me while I wondered what was going on.
@Marvin : Oh yes, you humans will never learn.
@Peter V : Nice, and again the ending twist caught me out.
@Hugh : If only, but that isn't how it will go.
@mosaix : An interesting interpretation of the topic.

 

[Elckerlyc]

Long list, short list and vote:

@Sinergio
@BT Jones
@johnnyjet
@chopper
@sule
@pyan

 

[Peter V]

Will add a listing later, work allowing but I have gone for mosaix tale. There were some fine dystopian and AI offerings but I liked his completely original take on the theme.

 

[Valtharius]

I voted for @G.T. 's Ozymandias. A story about exploring the far past from the perspective of the far future...a fascinating idea that deserves further fleshing out.
And thank you for shortlisting me @Hugh

 

[chopper]

I'm a sucker for all things ozymandias.

 

[Pyan]

Thanks for the vote, @Elckerlyc ! Glad you liked the story.

 

[G.T.]

@Valtharius, @chopper, thanks for the votes. It's my first two votes ever. I won't let that go to my head.

Maybe it's a worthwhile strategy to think of good story titles as much as the actual content...

 

[Hugh]

Many thanks indeed for your vote @TheEndIsNigh . Much appreciated. And fully agree re "if only..."

And many many thanks @Daysman and @Dan Jones for the listings.

 

[Hugh]

Maybe you'll have started a trend @Sinergio .

I look forward to stories in many and varied languages in the coming months.

 

[mosaix]

You wait for a vote, then two come along together. Thank you @M. Robert Gibson and @Peter V.