I really enjoyed bother stories. I have to admit that i liked The Road is Very Unfair more but that had to do more with the material and context than the writing itself. These were really in depth pieces where the authors immersed themselves, in truck driving in africa or in the soviet at the height of perestroika, and then selectively chose scenes from their trip that brought up important issues about life. In Conover's story what really stood out for me what the contrast between his standards of morality and risk assessment and the people who work in these caravans.
Each scene was easily accessible and engaging because it was chosen to say something about the truck drivers or soviet life. I think that each story was improved by the fact that each author seemed to already be familiar with the geographical circumstances that they were in.
As far as ethics in writing, after reading Writing Short Stories, i can see that it is important to stick to what is there, and build from that, and not just invent facts. It is impossible to be perfectly objective, and in fact i think that such a story would be boring. It is up to the integrity of the writer to make boundaries between describing something from a certain angle and injecting emotions or thoughts. In both these stories i thought there were instances were i could question whether the author really knew what he knew about how the characters were, but i trust that they did because it i didnt i could not read the story and enjoy it. I guess it is a test of trust between writers and readers.
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