Diverse Position Science Fiction

This week I read Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood. This novel’s main story element was
based around freedom. This theme is first seen when the book opens and the only perspective
given to the reader is that of Lilith, who is being held captive. She has moments when she
appears to almost, or perhaps does, loose her sanity because of the cage she has been put in.
She has very little freedom while in the cage. The rest of Lilith's story focuses on the freedoms
that the people do not have now that they are being controlled by the Oankali. Lilith, and the
other Humans, do feel a great deal of pleasure when they are with the aliens but this pleasure
seemingly makes the Humans lose control and they do not like that feeling either. The Humans
feel that they are given no choice in the matter.

I found the alien concept interesting. The main character, Lilith Iyapo, awakens to find that
most of the Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war, and the surviving humans have been kept
in suspended animation by an alien race called the Oankali. The Oankali are driven to travel the
universe in search of other intelligent species to breed with in order to share their genetic code,
altering both species. This story also touches with real life situations such as Lilith dealing
with cancer after losing her family to the same situation.

Cyberpunk and Steampunk

This week I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Snow Crash contained many of the upper class American values such as religion, rules and order, and visions of America. Neal Stephenson shows us a version of America where issues that are currently corrupted and how it has impacted our society. There are sections that shows how Immigration goes rabid on the Raft and how racism becomes institutionalized in skin-color segregated Burbclaves. Sacrifice Zones are cordoned off as parts of the land that are too contaminated to ever be reclaimed for use. Not all of the characters in Snow Crash are religious as others, and the non-believer characters get to have a say in how to interpret and implement religious ideas, too. We see a range of religious believers and the underlying message is that religion is complex. Just like humanity. In the Snow Crash, having money or the right connections will get you pretty far, which is how our society works as well. Snow Crash digs deep into its impact, exploring notions of linguistic infrastructure, glossolalia (speaking in tongues), and neurolinguistic programming. The main point is that language is a tool: In the hands of the right people, it's constructive and lets folks communicate, while in the hands of the wrong people, it can be destructive beyond measure.

Blood Child

1. What was your reaction to what you just read?

I found Bloodchild interesting. I am obsessed with aliens and their infereiations with male pregnancies in different stories. In fact, my senior thesis is about a stoner who gets abducted and pregnant by aliens which is how I connected to this story. There is a strong connection between Gan and his mother's situation. In the story, the mother cannot bear children, but her son is carrying a child.

2. What connections did I get from the story?

Other than my thesis film Probaphobe, which relates to this story, I really connected with how weird the story was. I love reading unusual stories with weird concepts.

3. What changes would I make to this story? What media would you choose?

If I were to change this story, I would adapt it into am action comic book series. This is an interesting story with a strong concept. I feel like it would play well in comic books due to more illustration freeform creativity. It would be cool to see the different concept art for the aliens.

The Fiction of Ideas

This week, I read the female man which hit a lot of controversial points and
carried strong subtexts such as masculinity, gender/sexual orientation, and sexual identity.
This novel came out in the mid 70’s just right before we hit the big gay area where more people
were coming out of the closet.

The Female Man talks a lot about what proper girls and women are supposed to feel and
do. Topping the list are activities like being attractive, being pleasant, and being attentive.
Things that don't make the cut include being ambitious, wanting fulfillment outside of marriage
and motherhood, and being intellectually and/or sexually attracted to other women. Femininity
in this novel is a web of social expectations that make women easy prey for power-hungry men.
Only in Whileaway, where men no longer exist, can women experiment and explore without being
told that their actions aren't properly "womanly."

Masculinity in The Female Man goes hand-in-hand with patriarchal power. The most
conventionally masculine men in this novel are also the most dangerous, and the book suggests
that that's not a coincidence. As you encounter one no-good, dirty, rotten scoundrel after another,
it may seem as though The Female Man is all about hating on the mens. While Joanna Russ is certainly
free with her anger, sarcasm, and satire, it could be said that the real antagonists of the novel aren't men
themselves, but the social conventions that teach young males to be aggressive, domineering, and
violent toward women.

It can be difficult to separate questions concerning sexuality and sexuality identity from the act of sex itself in The Female Man, because so often the characters' sexual encounters are staged to tell us something about their societies more generally. For instance, Joanna and Laura have to overcome powerful anxieties before they accept that they want to be with women, and the novel suggests that those anxieties are products of the patriarchal world they're stuck in. Janet, who comes from a world where patriarchy no longer exists, has none of the same concerns. On Whileaway, no one thinks of herself as "lesbian"—women's sexual relationships with other women are so natural, there's no need to have a specific word for them.

Space Opera

After reading The Martian by Andy Weir, I was fascinated by the elements Weir
portrayed in the novel such as isolation, sacrifice, and man vs the world. The main character,
Mark Watney, gets stuck on Mars for almost two years. Two years. Over the course of that time,
Mark becomes acquainted with the red planet on a level that no one ever has before.

In The Martian, Mark is stranded on Mars, separated from everyone and everything he holds dear.
It's a life filled with danger, disaster, and panic, yet the thing that stings the most are his feelings of
loneliness. Sometimes they make him feel a little crazy. Sometimes they just make him feel hopeless.
As we see him adapt and fight back against these dark feelings, however, we learn a lot about the
powerful effects isolation can have on even the strongest minds.

The novel is filled with instances of people sacrificing something important to them for the sake of others, whether we're talking about NASA's massive budgetary sacrifices or the very personal ones of the Hermes crew. There might be some parallel universe out there where Mark gets stuck on Mars and everyone is too occupied to notice, but we can guarantee that's not happening here. If anything, the novel shows us that the desire to give up our well-being for the sake of others is hard-wired into our DNA.

Mythic Fiction and Contemporary Urban Fantasy

Charles de Lint  Memory and Dream Uses the colorful, mythical North American
city of Newford as an artistic background. de Lint illustrates rich tapestry of myth and
magic by using painting on a deeper level, creation-as a metaphor throughout the book. Following
the life of artist Isabelle Copley, de Lint confronts head on the harsh realities of denial, abusive
relationships, suicide and ultimately, responsibility for one's own actions.

    This novel reminded me of the film Night at the Museum, where the arework came to life.
The mythical structure of alive artwork brings a strong concept by portraying the artist as a form of
God, or mother by creating a form of life that will have impact on society.  de Lint’s  multi-voiced,
time-shifting narrative, which story spans 20 years, beautifully evokes a sense of creative community,
making it almost possible to believe that the rarified aesthetic atmosphere might well be capable of
conjuring up a spirit or two. The theme goes even deeper, as we can consider the strange connections
between reality and fantasy, and the importance of the stories we tell. The idea of the relationship
between Izzy and her numena can be understood in many ways. One of the most basic is as a
commentary about family, and the way that parents create children, and the accompanying
obligations. Another version of this theme is de Lint himself as creator; de Lint has become
more concerned with social justice over the years, as we read about the underdog, the importance
of community, and how the marginalized voices are generally given preference in Newford. Most
of these concerns grow organically from a well-told and interesting narrative.

The Novel of Spiritual Education

In Erin Morgenstern’s Night Circus Moregenstern's  creates a fantasy world
into a novel with romance woven throughout it. It is a nonlinear narrative with
a story that jumps back and forth between time periods, characters, and places.
One character lives in Massachusetts, which is where Morgenstern grew up and
still lives. Some would infer that these characters and the novel itself is about
experiences from his life.

The story comes with many literary themes such as magic, love and rivalry.
The theme of magic occupies a leading position in the story. Although the biggest
part of

it is dedicated to a competition between Celia and Marco, it also depicts people’s

attitude to magic and mysteries. The most interesting thing is that almost all
human beings are equally fascinated by it and scared of it. Rather than believe
in magic is the element of “ people see what they wish to see ”. Mostly people
are so terrified of a mere idea that there is something in the world that could never
be explained logically that they see “ what they are told they see ”. It is no wonder
that people behave like that; all in all, mankind has always had a difficult relationship
with magic and witchcraft. At the same time, a life without magic is too predictable
and the majority of people don’t mind to enjoy it from time to time. That is the reason
why people still buy tickets to a circus and use cards to read the future. Whereas ones

argue over love’s role, both Marco and Celia knows that it is the most valuable
thing in their lives. It doesn’t only help them to feel alive but helps them to solve a
problem which used to be insoluble. The story depicts different kinds of love which
are for friends, for work, and for competitions.