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\author{David Golombek}
\title{Summaries for Readings \#2}
\date{\today}
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{\large 900 Grandmothers}

This is a classic punchline short story, but somehow the author forgot
to insert the punchline.  It feels like the author just wimped out in
his (probably impossible) self-assigned task, and just ended the story
because he had no answer.  Not much left to say, without a punchline
this story was a bomb.

{\large When I was Miss Dow}

I didn't like this story.  There isn't really a whole bunch more to
say; the characters seemed flat, the plot barely existant, and the
science part weak.  Basically there was very little in it I enjoyed,
and will forget the story as soon as class is over.

{\large Comes Now the Power}

I enjoyed the last page of this story immensely.  The rest of it (what
little there was) was neccessary buildup, but could have been done
much better I think.  The conclusion, while not absolutely original,
was powerfully written, and caused a lot of introspection on my part.
There was no reason at all for this to be science fiction (or
fantasy), it could just as easily have been a mis-addressed letter
ending up at his door, and correspondence, but the core of the plot
would have remained the same, largely.

{\large Day Million}

This story reminded me a lot of Flatland in it's final conclusion,
about how little people from the here and now would understand of
anything else.  The individual "strange things" from the future were
fairly interesting, although certainly not shocking, nor
revolutionary.  There really wasn't much of a plot here, but it was
well written, and presented enough to start off lots of other trains
of thought.

{\large We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy}

I'm still uncertain if the author intended for there to be a single
overriding plot for this story.  If there was, I've missed it.  I
enjoyed a few of the ideas presented in the story, especially the
illegality of copulation, "searing", and the computer interface
ideas.  The main characters were similarly interesting, although not
particularly nice, or ones I could emphasize with.  Without a cohesive
plot to hold them together though, these ideas and characters never
really seemed to come to a real enough conclusion.

{\large Think Like a Dinosaur}

Although this story introduced no particularly interesting new
technologies or ideas (both leftover bodies and gift-bearing aliens
have been extensively covered), I thought the story itself was well
written and had interesting characters.  The large portion of the
story devoted to the special events in the two characters lives
brought about both of my reactions (like and dislike), and overall
seemed out of place in the story.  Perhaps if this were a single
chapter of a larger book, they would have been appropriate.

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