Satire and Sci-Fi -- Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy

So for this week I listened to the original radio broadcast of Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy. I had never listened to it before, but I've heard lots of things from it (which, i learned from listening to it!) that were used in popular culture, and the infamous movie that came out (which I never saw..). I remember being really confused when playing the game Spore when the center of the universe told me that the answer to everything was 42, but now I understand.

When it comes to applying things that happen in the radio show that can be applied to our current future, it's very interesting. We've always had this one theory about how we're living in a simulation, or how our lives are run by a computer, but the notion of the Earth itself being a computer is a relatively interesting theory to think about! Also the theory of some big, super intelligent race of animal origin secretly running everything while humans scuttle about is also a hilarious side-note to a lot of these sorts of theories, which just sort of 'happen' while listening to the HHGTTG.

The other interesting thing to note about HHGTTG is the concept of a small little computer that can basically tell you anything and everything, because that's essentially what we have now! Smartphones and tablets are about the size of the theoretical Guide inside the radio series, and can virtually tell us anything we need to know, depending on our internet connection or access to 4G, that is. The other interesting thing is the concept of a race being boggled by wanting to know the answers of the universe and the reasons for life! Many a normal human has these sorts of thoughts after a while, I find.

There's a lot of interesting introspective things that sort of occur in this radio series, but the pure comedic humor is the best part about it, I think, and when it's paired with deep, introspective thoughts that sometimes get spoken about (I think of the analogy of people being not happy because of little green squares of paper!), it makes it a really invigorating and interesting set of stories to listen to!

Literary Speculation ~ Response (The Distance of The Moon)

This week I read The Distance of The Moon by Italo Calvino. When it comes to trying to distinguish the genre of this story, it's very difficult. The first time I read through it, I figured it was mostly an exaggerated, somewhat realistic story, but as I read more, it quickly moved into full fantasy, to even being sci-fi in some spots, and then turning into a romantic tragedy at the end. I think this story in particular really gets the blurred genres down very, very well.

When it comes to the question if having a distinct difference between genres is important or not, I think it's relatively important, but shouldn't be a strict rule that applies to all writing. Sometimes stories are better when different genres are blurred together to make a mash of something cool and weird, so you get a nice new piece to experience. The experience of this text is affecting my answer, because I think this story wouldn't have been as good if it was just pure fantasy or pure sci-fi, or pure romance. Having a good blend between all of these helps it develop a more reasonable and appealing shell.

Overall, I would recommend this story to a friend, because nothing is more appealing than describing a fetid, fermented, garbage-ridden spoon full of moon cheese.

Assessment of: Bloodchild!

Here's the Questions!

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read? 

A very interesting story, to be honest. I wasn't really able to get a clear mind picture on what the main creatures, like T'Gatoi, were supposed to look like. Later on I sort of imagined them like centipedes, but I'm still not entirely sure that's what it was. It was also interesting the take on how this species reproduces, and how the Terrans even arrived in this place, as I believed the planet to be just an invaded Earth earlier on in the story. The process of making more of the species for T'Gatoi was also very interesting, even though the description of what was happening was pretty graphic and hectic. It was also interesting how much T'Gatoi and her species "cares" for their property-- the Tarrens-- and the lengths they go to to try and protect what are essentially their incubators.

2. What connections did you make with the story that you read? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

The connections that I made with this story is that it's similar to the "preserves" that Native Americans are often corralled into. The whole preserve is sort of referred to as a cage by two of the characters, Gan and Qui. The other connection is the fact that the Terrans are refugees from what I assume to have been Earth. It was interesting, the elements of the preserve and the refugee aspect. I can't really emotionally connect with any of these two things, however, because I'm neither a refugee or Native American. The only thing I can really connect to on a mental level is the butchering of the achti midway through the story.

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium. What medium would you use? What changes would you make? 

I think the best medium I could do for a story like this would be a graphic novel. The changes I would make to this story is something to nail down how the Tlic look, and more backstory on the conflict between the Tlic and the Terrans when they first interacted with one another, as well as backstory on whatever conflict happened in the first place to cause the Terran to flee their original homeworld, which I'm still assuming was Earth. Other than that, I don't feel like the story needs much more changing or adjustments, especially when moving to a graphic novel format.
The medium would be ink pen and paper, with very washed out colors but bold, thick, black lines. Something along the lines of Mike Mignola would be the artistic effect I would want for this.

Cyberpunk/SteamPunk Response

For this week I read Fragments of a Hologram Rose; A short story. The reality that was supposed in this short story is one that has ARS machines, that can help with multiple things such as sleep issues, holograms, and the ability to destroy the holograms because somehow they're 'real' and tangible.

One of the interesting things about the ARS machines is the implied super futuristic use for them but also being incredibly 'dated' in what is used in them; the main character talks about 'cassettes' which I assume is cassette tapes that are used in these machines and for looking at events and objects.

Admittedly, even though I read this story two times very carefully, I found it incredibly difficult to retain or even really understand what was happening in the story. The most I could understand is that the main character had issues sleeping because of him being dumped by his ex-girlfriend during what I assume was the collapse of the modern world, due to the slum-like circumstances he explains himself to be in, and the constant power fluxes that are happening during the story. He uses the ARS machines to help himself sleep by what I assume is him remembering good things about his ex girlfriend.

Overall, an interesting story, but I had a lot of trouble trying to understand it-- I wouldn't likely recommend this one to another person, due to this hard to grasp narrative.

Multiverse/Beyond Scifi - Reading/Writing for this week.

For this week, I read through The Drowned Giant, and the first chunk of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

The sort of 'mind experiments' done in these two stories were pretty interesting to me especially the Drowned Giant's take on things.

The Drowned Giant sort of challenges the reader's perspective on the way they view certain creatures and objects in their every-day environment. Despite the fact that something as bizarre as a dead giant washing on shore would be a huge deal, it was only momentarily a huge deal in the story. It's baffling how quickly the thing turns into something that both side-shows and the government picks apart to either sell for money, or to be donated to a museum, or to be possibly used for building supplies.

The other story that had a good sort of mind story was I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. This story really dealt with the fact that people had a large fear of AI and computer technology, and the inspirations for deadly, self learning AI are really evident in this story, and I can see where characters like Glados and HAL get their scary touches to their dialogue. The biggest mindgame that happens in No Mouth is the changes that AM does to the four inhabitants, and only really giving them things when they need to 'survive' so it can continue torturing them, plus the whole explanation on how/where AM came from as a result of the Cold War turning into World War 3 was very interesting.

Space Opera ~ Vintage Season

For this week's topic, I decided to read the short story called Vintage Season, because the title of it really intrigued me. When it comes to things that this story has done that has been re-done in newer versions of 'space opera', I can name a few-- I'm not really great at listing my thoughts out in a coherent manner, so I'm going to use bullet points.

 - Time Travel: The antagonistic characters in this short story are from different periods of time in the world.
- Mysterious Disease: The blue death, which the main antagonistic characters have been inoculated with, appears as an actual threat at the end of the story when the meteor strikes the town. The main character, presumably, dies from it.
- Cross-time/Interspecies love: The main character and one of the younger time-traveling ladies sort of fall in love for a brief fling.
- Nobody Says Anything: The main antagonistic characters are extremely cryptic and won't tell anybody what, who, or where they're from.
- Advanced technology: The main antagonistic characters have a huge variety of advanced technology, like the symphony machine that shows music. The other being the EMP-like device that is used to hurt the antagonistic characters staying inside the house.

That's about all I can think of at the moment to list off for this.

Anansi Boys - Writing Response ~

So I read through Anansi Boys, and I actually found it pretty interesting and a fun book to read, despite the first small chunk seeming a little tedious with details. The humor of the book definitely sold me over into wanting to continue reading! I really enjoyed how the myths were occasionally linked back into the ancient, old world (like when spider first tricked tiger), and then brought back into the modern world when it came to dealing with the problems again.

Another thing I really enjoyed with this book is how 'casual' the myths/mythological creatures were sort of weaved into society. Fat Charlie didn't freak out nearly hard enough at him and his "brother" basically being gods, or the ghost of Maeve just sort of casually flitting about doing her business in order to get back at that one boss that I don't remember the name of. All of these things combined sort of made the myths more believable, in a sense, to me, because they were so easily related to the modern world and were just sort of casual in their existence, not like some grand pedestal thing that was rare for mortals to ever even see.