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Photograph by the Hubble telescope

We received ten entries for LitWit Challenge 4.1: An extraterrestrial lands in Manila. Here are the Yucch-meter’s findings.

#1 Benedict Taft

– “lends discretion over my distinguishing feature”???
– The extraterrestrial narrator laughs at the humans for consuming water and wheat and utilizing wheels but does not state what the “advanced” alternatives are.
– If the extraterrestrial is so intelligent it would know that “species” is singular and plural and never “specie”.
– Time warp is not a verb but a noun.

#2 stellalehua

– The piece is entertaining and well-written but takes the assignment too literally.
– The Rolex bit is funny until you think about it. Gold or platinum, which occur naturally, can be the waste products of some process. Rolexes are fairly complex manufactured goods and cannot be waste products. There goes the punchline.
– This story is too safe, like homework designed to please the teacher.

#3 Cacs

– Describing a space voyage: Good.
– Taking the Filipino diaspora interstellar: Very good.
– Explaining the Filipino aspiration to work abroad: Brilliant.

#4 2Qt2BSTR8

– “Doldrums” is a plural noun referring to “low spirits”. It is not a musical instrument.
– Corporate ennui leading to possible nervous breakdown: Interesting.
– Miss Universe punchline: Limits story’s audience to Pinoys aware of our beauty pageant fixation. This is a common issue in contemporary Philippine literature: We talk amongst ourselves and do not feel compelled to address the world at large.

#6 oberstein

– You have style and wit but this is too much effort for a dick joke.

#7 kindler

– Like #2, an overly literal interpretation of the assignment.
– Clever use of current events and hot topics.
– The Soylent Green plot is a hoot.
– We could see the punchline coming from the Cat’s Eye Nebula.

#8 samutsari

– At last, a story about aliens that does not mention outer space, advanced technology, or aliens outright.
– Finds weirdness in the most mundane things. This is more interesting to us than weird for weird’s sake.
– Brings up the possibility that our extraterrestrial neighbors have not revealed themselves because we are too bizarre and immature.

#9 Cacs

– Aba, poetic Tagalog.
– Very clever. Perhaps we need to designate a senior division in the next series of LitWits.
– We did not see that punchline coming. Hah!
– We think of it as Arthur C. Clarke’s The Star, as told by the star.
Read The Star here.

#10 dibee

– An attempt at an interstellar romance.
– The story itself has time dilation problems. This may be intentional but it does not make the story more readable. The search for the sister is said to take years, but all that time is taken up by the search and the relationship is not developed. (It’s not enough to say “What had been a childish fascination turned to a womanly desire” (Yucch); demonstrate it.) And then the wait takes decades but is dispensed with in a couple of paragraphs.
– We like the melancholy tone of the piece.
– The last sentence is cheating. If you feel the need to explain then you do not have complete confidence in your story.

#11 angus

– We are not convinced that this is a story about an extraterrestrial. We think it’s how you spent your weekend. Kidding.

The winner of LitWit Challenge 4.1: An extraterrestrial lands in Manila iiiiiiiiisssssssss. . .

Cacs, for both the interstellar diaspora and the meteorite.

Congratulations, Cacs! Pick up your prize any day starting Tuesday December 28 at the Customer Service counter, National Bookstore, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.