★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended
(SF Horror) A young college student participates in an academic survey to earn some extra cash. The whole setup is a little weird, particularly the armed guard, but it’s a lot of money just to answer some questions. (5,050 words; Time: 16m)
Recommended By: 👍STomaino+1 (Q&A)
"Survey," by Adam-Troy Castro [bio] (edited by C.C. Finlay), appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction issue 01-02|19, published on December 27, 2018 by Spilogale Inc.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Review: 2019.038 (A Word for Authors)
Pro: It highlights a fact of college life: the weird research projects where you play some game or answer some questions about a video or text in exchange for a few bucks.
Con: I couldn’t find any way to interpret this that I could suspend disbelief for. If it’s a real experiment, then everything is made up (i.e. no one really dies), but then I’d expect her to be skeptical about it too. If it’s real, then the examiner talks way, way too much.
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Adam-Troy Castro Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
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Pro: It highlights a fact of college life: the weird research projects where you play some game or answer some questions about a video or text in exchange for a few bucks.
Con: I couldn’t find any way to interpret this that I could suspend disbelief for. If it’s a real experiment, then everything is made up (i.e. no one really dies), but then I’d expect her to be skeptical about it too. If it’s real, then the examiner talks way, way too much.
Other Reviews: Search Web
Adam-Troy Castro Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
Typical of Adam-Troy Castro's stories where he takes a premise and exaggerates it, but usually he does it in a humorous way.
ReplyDeleteHe does a lot of experimental work. Some of it is very cool, but sometimes the experiment doesn't work.
DeleteBut, yeah, there's always at least one good laugh in them. :-)
I enjoyed his short story Example published in 2019 Nightmare Magazine quite a lot.
ReplyDeleteFree online here - http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/example/