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.