Satire and Sci-fi

I listened to 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' this week and I really enjoyed how the radio drama came out. It didn't need a lot, but seemed to add to the story. It was nice they even added recaps so you were caught up on what was happening. 

Hitchhiker's Guide seems to highlight invasion. Invasion is something that has happened many times in our own history and seems to still happen today in some cases. In the story, it talks about how Ford's alien race would come to destroy Earth. 

It also mentions the planet Magrathea, who created Earth, and while creating it for finding the answer to life, soon became the richest planet in their galaxy. Which resulted in the neighboring ones turning to poverty, which has happened in our own history on Earth.

Literary Speculation

I read Oryx and Crake for this week. While reading the story, I knew from a few paragraphs in that this was a science fiction novel. It takes place in a dystopian world, societies separated and science experiments. There is also romance in the story, between Crake, Oryx and Jimmy. 

While following the characteristics of one genre, I think adding elements from other genres into the story can be a important thing. It's not necessary for all stories though since some work fine without different elements. My experience reading the text isn't affected though since many stories I have read do have different elements from many genres. 

Bloodchild Assessment -

1. My reaction to the story I read was a little unsettling at first. I was confused about a lot of things like these creatures and what they looked like, the setting, and the names the author threw around. Understanding now that these humans lived on an alien planet, owned by the Tlic race, and some were forced to be carriers, made me realize how uncomfortable something like this in real life could be. 

2. A connection in the story would be "coming of age." In this story, Gan is the youngest child, but as the carrier, he now has a responsibility. Gan loses some innocence when he is forced to watch the little flesh-eating grubs be removed from another man's stomach. He was a carrier as well and this was their type of 'labor.' It does seem to have elements of slavery, but the author did say it wasn't supposed to be.

3. For this story, I would love to see it in an actual horror or fantasy film. The first few scenes could show the reason for why these families live on an alien planet now and serve under this alien race. Another change would be is to make sure the family members are the correct age show impregnation. Taking that aspect out would take a lot out of the story. 

Fragments of a Hologram Rose

This week I read "Fragments of a Hologram Rose," which starts with Parker in his apartment having trouble sleeping. While reading the short story, it's clear he went through a rough breakup and uses sense-recordings, which are kinda like holograms. Parker surrounds himself with these holograms of his ex's memories to help him sleep. Already compared to our reality, we don't have sense-recordings or holograms to help reflect on our past. Another part of the reality in this story is that the U.S (or southern California) is in a dystopia, or maybe some kind of post-apocalyptic. Which is different from our reality too.

The effect this story had on the narrative and the reader was to make you feel lonely. Going through such a hard break-up in a rough, dystopian world, the only happiness Parker seemed to gain was from looking at the holograms and memories over and over again. 

The Fiction of Ideas

While reading 'The Left Hand of Darkness,' the story starts out with space travel to an alien planet. Two astronauts try to bring two civilizations on that plant together for some kind of peace. 

The idea of space travel and alien plants/civilizations aren't fiction, the worlds the author creates for this story are. The creation adds to the alien planets we haven't discovered yet. The author also creates the planets religion and spirituality, which could be fiction but with so many possibilities in the universe, it's always possible that something similar exists. 

Space Opera and the New Frontier

While reading The Martian, the obvious elements in that story that we've covered before is  isolation and fear. Mark Watney was alone for two years, his only friend for a short time was a mars rover. Just like any horror story/film that we covered, being somewhere so unknown and literally out of your normal element and far from your home can send anyone into an endless state of fear. Mark does have something to kinda help him though which is his humor. He might not have anyone to share it with but it does keep him happy for the most part. In comparison to the other horror stories that have a strong isolation element to them, this is whole new level of loneliness for someone to face.

Spiritual Education

Since the beginning of the "The Night's Circus", the two children, Celia and Marco, are raised from a young age to keep their minds on the competition and build their strength and magic abilities to win. As they grew older and met for the first time, the two had a strong connection with each other. The complex moral issue shown in this story is how two people who are supposed to be against each other and fall in love against their teachers wishes. The two are feel heartbroken when they realize the competition can't be stopped and someone needs to be killed in order for someone to win. In their response, as Marco is about to commit suicide, Celia jumps into that same pillar of flame to be with him. This sends the two into what seems like a limbo world deeper into the circus, where they are neither dead or alive. But they're together. 

Sometimes going against your parents wishes can turn out to be a positive or negative thing. This issue seemed to be a neutral. The two stay together and love each other, while Marco's father-figure, Mr. A-H, helped officially end the competition between the two.