Dawn

Dawn by Octavia Butler talks about sex and adaptation between humans and aliens as if it is a metaphor for black slaves and white plantation owners. Lilith in the story has to choose if she wants to breed with these aliens called the Oankali. They lecture her about how their way of life is better because of how none violent their way of life is and put down humans as they are violent by nature. Lilith is also denied any media about her culture. Just like a white slave owner would feel that he had saved his slaves from their barbaric ways in africa.

For the aliens sex is strictly creation. There are extremes differences between the humans and aliens. Humans use sex as pleasure as well as creation and they are not expected to have too many children. For the aliens sex is all about creation and are expected to have many many children. Humans pollute their environment. Aliens use every inch of their natural resources until some are extinct. The human repulsion of having sex with the aliens because they are monstrous may touch base with social classes and also could be racial. Such as a Wealthy person having relations with a very poor person or would be considered shameful by society. Or when a new race lives along side another one relations with the both sides will probably not be accepted for a long time.  

Blood Child

1.
How could a man survive after being cut open like that?

How do grubs even get into someone?

Are they on a different planet or did these grubs invade?

If the these grubs survived before human hosts why do they need them now?

How old are these humans if they have been eating theses eggs for so long because they preserve life?

2.
How important is it to preserve the value of human life (How important is it for a species to be persevered) ? 

Is survival important if it is pretty hopeless?

Should we migrate to other places even if they have hostile environments? 


3.
Is she a feminist?

Johnny Mnemonic

A good aspect of cyberpunk is that it always has a good heroine and equal rights between sexes are shown. Molly reminds me of the mutant female with the dagger razor blade fingernails in one of the x-men movies. She most have been an inspiration.  I find it funny how all of the cyberpunk stories so far have been about hacking. Johnny's head-chip seems like a good place to hide files instead of a computer. its untraceable.

Snow Crash

Its kind of cool how the new form of secret agent, the futuristic view is a hacker. Apparently if you are a hacker in this world you have a high social status because the more access to knowledge you have the more you are respected. Not the same was wealth makes a difference in our society. However, wouldn't being a hacker in this world make you have a lot of money also? Maybe wealth and knowledge aren't that separated. But anyway, i find it interesting how the author incorporated Sumerian culture into the cyberspace/ cyberpunk culture. Its like some sort of Scientology kind of take on religion where these god-like alien-like people made this virus and changed people's speech. Also i don't know why but i was thinking about sailor moon every time the computer meta virus came up. Because in one episode there was this computer virus takes over the minds of students and makes them zombies. actually i thought a lot about sailor moon when i was reading this maybe thats just me. but like the same parallels happen in both stories where there are these god-like being's and they fight this evil energy thing and both are futuristic while having this kind of old greek/ sumerian mythology apart of the story. which i love because i love mythology. Also i think its funny how the hero of the story's name is Hiro. its obvious i think. But I like how the author writing is easier to understand and doesn't get to detailed with things. Honestly i don't like sci-fi that much and for the most part i think its because its usually too descriptive with the technologies and i will usually get lost and/ or bored.

Parable of the Sower

Honestly throughout this novel I cried, a lot, because like Lauren Olamina, I sense other people's pain. However, it's on an emotional level. That's why I tend to not read or watch movies that have a real sense of tragedy. Even though, the novel was set in the future, it still seemed real to me or that it could happen in the future. The sense of reality in the book comes from her journal entries like you are experiencing the tragedy through her eyes. Also, even though it is set in the future she talks about already existing evils like rape, murder, disaster, natural disaster (the earthquake), robbery, war... instead of advanced technologies or the dominance of them. I like how strong her character is even though she definitely has weaknesses like everyone. She sees God as reality rather than an almighty fictional character, like she says Zeus. No, her God is nature and change and I admire that and she has a way to thing logically about it. Nothing she can't see nothing she can make up its just there it's truth it's reality. Which can be hard to swallow. However, I believe that religion should be more about nature and change because its true that humans change like nature and religions like Christianity or Judaism are more fixed in their beliefs in traditional old ways set in Hebrew times. That's my opinion. Change is adaptation and adaptation is survival. Even mentally. I felt that when Lauren was traveling north with the survivors was like Moses leading the chosen people to the promise land. I find that this may symbolize that when things change people still need to have a sense of traditional values that should be kept. Which is a little indecisive of me, but i think that a balance of change with tradition should be kept. otherwise society can lead to to chaos and anarchy. No matter how much of a rebel or a hippie I may come across at times, I know that Anarchy will never function successfully, ever. People cannot be trusted. and if there is no form of government someone will take the opportunity to be a leader, and not everyone is independent therefore some people need to be followers. Also, like Lauren says in her journals people will group together no matter what and try to con core each other for power greed and other things. Governments are like these groups however organized government on a large scale is more secure. war can be avoided with communication sometimes that does not always go over successfully and someone may cast the first stone. Its all just so complicated to say the least. I think that the best thing to do in this world is to listen to what you are taught and learn to think for yourself but harm non and be kind to others.

Neuromancer in Tokyo

Wow! Very interesting to say the least. I can definitely see the inspiration for "The Matrix" coming from this book. Although it is interesting how a hacker can access the "network" or the internet by being mentally physically there I hope that never happens to us as a society in real life. I feel that if that happens people will lose all physical connection with real life and become delusional to what is real and what is illusion. It like case of one of those online game addicts when that is all they do and even when they aren't playing the game they feel like they are still apart of it. I support some technology and its advances if it benefits humans sparingly and healthfully. if that is a word. I'm a very naturalistic kind of guy and i believe people should respect nature and make it apart of their lives. I feel that technology and nature should flow and balance each other. For example hydroelectric cars clean and efficient and very "GREEN". Another example here in sarasota there used to be a landfill close by. but the city changed it into a field of rolling hills with the trash underneath it that will decompose over thousands of years. And another thing it doesn't even smell! Technology should benefit us and also benefit nature which in turn will benefit us. I think some people forget that we are animals ourselves we aren't robots. we need nature as much as the animals do. Even in the future if we are slightly bionic with artificial parts we still have a soul that needs sunshine not smog. That's why introducing a game system that connects to your brain is unhealthy for us. It would be like introducing a new drug. Speaking of drugs I found that the artificial pancreas was so interesting. wouldn't that be great in the future if we could give addicts artificial parts to help eliminate their addictions to harmful substances. although it would probably be way to expensive for people not living in or above higher middle class. Or if we could give cancer patients artificial parts such as lungs for smokers. maybe in the future things will be less stressful with its advances but then again it might make everyone really lazy. that would be kind of bad. I think its funny how every story seems to have a romance in it. even in sci-fi genres. Cause when i think of sci-fi i think of robots and space, not human emotions like love. i like how in this story the romance between molly and case just ends. after all the things they when through all hot and heavy and on this epic adventure. at the end case goes back to hacking and finds a new girlfriends and molly millions just peaces out. like what? this book has everything a stereotypical movie has today drugs, love, sex, crime, action, tragedy, the works. The world gibson created is very corrupt and thats the way the world turn out if we let technology dominate our lives not work with our lives.
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'neuro'

stands for nerves and artificial intelligence

'mancer'

stands for a (white) magician and romance. It also stands for Case as a computer "hacker" who disrupts the social order (much like an evil magician) by throwing virus programs into society, thus causing chaos in the world.

The word is also a pun from the word "Necromancer": magician dealing in evil spirits and death. 

pretty cool! 


found in blogspot of iggyo...

http://iggyo.blogspot.com/2011/01/living-in-gibsons-future-mostly.html

Warbreaker

I enjoy how this book represents how important color is to our lives and how different colors can represent or invoke different emotions. Siri's hair in the novel changes with her emotions red when she is angry, darker brown when she is sad, light blond when she is happy and white when she is afraid. Just like in cartoons when someone sees a ghost in fright their hair turns white. An example of color emotion; most divorced couples have had yellow kitchens. This is because most people spend a lot of time in their kitchens and the color yellow in abundance evokes an angry or hostile attitude thus creating a lot of fighting. Its funny how yellow is thought to be a universally happy color.

It is also funny how color can be seen as a negative thing in the world the author has created. Each person is born with one single breath, however one can gain more breath over time if someone willingly gives you it. People with many breaths are more vibrant in appearance and have an outstanding aurora. People who have a lot of breaths are known as Awakeners and are sometimes feared because they are very powerful. they can animated inanimate objects even choke someone with the clothes they are wearing. They can even wake people from the dead.

The two kingdoms set up in the book are at peace only because one princess is to marry the neighboring kingdom who is ruled by a God-king. The princess Vivenna is to marry this king. Her kingdom is very drab the people fear color and only wear browns. However the other kingdom is proud of its bright colors. Siri, Vivenna's sister, is a rebel. Which I'm fond of. She loves color and not being important to the kingdom, because Vivenna has all of the responsibility, so Siri can just drift through life unnoticed and carefree thats the way she liked it. She spent most of her time escaping to the fields and picking flowers. She gaves some flowers to the children in town who awed at them, but was frowned upon by the villagers but wasnt scolded because she was a princess after all.

The Magicians

First of all I would like to point out that this book is way easier to read than the harry potter novels. I also like how the book touches upon sex and drugs. This novel truly is Harry Potter for college students. I like how magic is specified as a craft in the book and how it is extremely hard to do and only a select few can do it. It is more than just waving a wand and saying a bunch of words. I feel that the college in the book mirror's Ringling for me, because like magic (in the book), not everyone can make art and it takes a lot of patience and is hard to do sometimes. Also Ringling is in sunny Florida where I can escape the cold of the northern states. Which, is like the magic dome where it is forever summer at the magic college.

The Hobbit

Tolkien bases races of middle earth on mortality. Such as Dwarfs mine and like gold, hobbits are fat humble and happy introverts, goblins are stupid things, goblins and dragons are evil. There are no exceptions. Except for Bilbo and maybe even Gollum who doesn't seem to have a race. With the help of Gandalf, Bilbo is able to test the boundries of his own race and become more of a daring and adventures person. Something that other Hobbits would frown upon. Tolkien tries to explain that in society we shouldn't always stick to the statues quo because we may not know what other great things we could accomplish. As Tolkien writes the Lord of the Rings Trilogy there is more distinction with moral choices in racial groups. Elves are purest and Orches are evil elves that converted. Evil kings are turned into evil spirits, their is Gandalf the good wizard and Saruman the evil wizard. Their is no grey area except for the trees until they decided to help defend middle earth from Sauron. Although, the humans who live by the lake in the Hobbit are on more of the grey scale but generly dipicted, by Tolkien to be good. They will not help Bilbo's party with the dragon for they fear it to be an invincable evil, but even so they still try to defeat it when it tries to destroy their village.

In the riddle scene with Bilbo and Gollum. Bilbo outsmarts Gollum by asking "What is in my pocket?" which is not a riddle at all but Gollum is too ignorant to know this. Eventually Bilbo outsmarts Gollum again by tricking Gollum to showing him the way out. This part of the book shows that heroes are not always measured by the strength of their body, but the strength of their wit. Another time when Bilbo uses his wit it when tricking the Dragon into showing him his hard underbelly and exposing a soft batch to his heart. This information leads to the defeat of the dragon. Bilbo also grows more heroic and leadership traits through out the novel. When Bilbo kills the spiders in the the next chapters he feels more that of leader. Killing his first enemy in combat gives him confidence and developes his heroic character.

A Wild Sheep Chase

Painfully boring. This maybe a cultural difference, however I do not understand how this novel is categorized under horror, I believe it is more of a mystery novel. The book seemed to go nowhere honestly the over all feeling was stale and mundane. The book was also very bizarre like the part with the woman with the very attractive ears. Again a culture thing but I don't get how someone can have sexy ears. I cannot seem to write that much on this book because I am very confused by it. I'm not sure what was going on.

Interview with a Vampire

Both Louis and Claudia are interesting characters to me. Louis for his resistance to his vampire self and his perservation of his human soul. Even though Claudia is eternally a child on the outside she matures in the mind and becomes an assertive intellegent woman. When Claudia is turned she is quickly adaptable to the ways of a vampire. Since she is only about 5 at the time the only things she knows is gaining intellegence and feeding off humans. This does not supprise me though, children are very easily influence and able to adpat very well, Anne Rice probably knows this. For example, there are many instinaces when matured people cannot figure out new technologies, where as children can learn how to use things like a new computer or a television in as little as a few hours. I think this is because children are always in a learning mind set and Claudia is always in this mind set. Maybe this is because as we grow older I think we loose some thirst for knowledge because subconsiously we may think we know everything.

Lestat is an annoyance to me because of his needyness and his ability to manupulate people. I dislike this character because i dislike people like this in my own life. The relationship between Lestat and Louis is like a homosexual relationship to me, with Claudia as there adopted daughter. Lestat has a fear of being left alone. He is the kind of person in a relationship that clings to another and with all their might no the other leave, even if the other no longer wants to stay. Claudia is needy as well but in the different sense like the need of a parental figure in her life. This could be due to loosing her family to the plague or the fact that she is a child forever. Lestat and Louis are an example of opposites attract. Lestat is immoral, needy, and manipulative. While Louis has morality, is a loner, and has compassion.

I've seen the movie long before I read some of the book, but I've notice no HUGE differences from the book to the movie. Some minor characters and minor details are switched around. I believe Anne Rice had done this when writing the script so that the story would make more cinematic sense to someone who hasn't read the book.

Monster Island

It's interesting how the author mentions HIV many times in this story. I believe that it is an excellent comparison to the "Zombie" virus. Prior to more advanced research and breakthroughs on HIV, most infected people with the disease probably felt like the undead living their daily lives, because they had a death sentence on their minds, if not already dying. In the past people felt  perhaps completely hopeless to the disease, maybe the same way that humans in the story feel hopeless against the zombies. You can kill some zombies, but there are so many in the world that your chance of survival is slim to none. Zombies are like the HIV virus, humans are the like the T cells, and the soldiers are like medicine or the immune system. I wonder if later in the story the HIV medications will contribute a cure to the zombie epidemic or stop the effects of the dead coming back to life? 

This story is a lot about survival and adaptation, both are animal instincts. The scientist or doctor in this story changes himself to become the undead to survive, while other people idea of survival is to fight and kill. The doctors way is more con-formative while others are more rebellious. Which is similar to government and control. When a new government takes power the people with in it either conform to it or rebel against it. Some of it is choice. It is interesting to see the scientist go through this adaption to his new body trying to accept his dead body and forgetting about some of his being when he was alive. He learns from this. For example he is hungry he tries to eat snacks and doesn't work, so he tries raw meat and it helps. Adaption and survival are almost entirely the same thing. 

Another form of adaption is the Women's Republic in Somalia, which is a group of very empowered women fight for survival against the aliments, warlords, and the undead! It is interesting to read about how a culture where women maybe oppressed or maybe have no power in their lives, rise up to be forceful, to change into more of a masculine form, to have all the power they want, in times of desperation and change. It ties into gender issues, what is feminine and what is masculine? Is masculinity and femininity just an illusion? Are male and female just assignments given at birth; just different body types and no more? or are there duties that we have to follow/ or can one be the other, or both at the same time? 

So far it's been a great read, can't wait to finish it!

Response to Frankenstein

Conventional Things About Horror

Horror stories usually involve dreary dark settings, such as grave yards, tombs, old spooky houses, cob-webs, and thunder storms. These setting are suppose to set the mood of fear. There are also superstitious qualities involved such as black cats, ghosts, and jack-o-lanterns. Some horror stories involve the reanimation of death such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and Zombies, but most or perhaps all horror stories have to do with death. Monsters are always a big theme in horror, some creature that is very abnormal looking. Sometimes horror is about serial killers, and bloody scary weapons such as knifes or chain saws. Chase scenes are popular as well as high pitched screams. Some fear in horror comes from sounds such as drips in the sink, moans, creaky doors, and the scraping sound of tree branches. The element of surprise is always there. A popular scenes are when a woman opens the medicine cabinet and closes it and the killer is in the mirror, or someone opens the shower curtain quickly or someone turns around an bumps into a friend instead of the killer. A lot of scary situations happen in the bathroom. Demonic possession and the occult/ witches usually really scare people because the subject matter cannot be seen but it can still hurt you, and you are powerless against it. Children's horror consists more of monsters hiding in closets and living under beds.