Literary Speculation

I am a huge fan or A Clockwork Orange.  I have seen the movie many times and have read the book several times. It is so outstandly deranged and graphically messed up and will always stay with you but is a fantastic story. This story shows how the youth has risen above the ordinary person. They terrorize the public and abuse and hurt them as well. Alex, the main character, leads a small group of teenagers that rob, great, kill and rape men and women. They spend the rest of their lives in a bar that serves milk laced with drugs. In the movie, you can see how sexual it is because the chairs are naked people. The movie and book both make references about sex and violence. The kids are kind of crazy and insane with their behavior. A famous part of the story is when Alex rapes a woman and makes her husband watch while he does nasty things to her. The boys talk in the bar in the beginning of the story before getting all amped up start a robbing spree in the public. They steal cars, kill people, harass people, assault people and do everything else that you can imagine. Alex goes to prison and gets brainwashed by the prison so when he starts acting violent or things of sexual things he gets very sick. He cannot listen to classical music anymore and because it worked on him, the prison wanted to make it a huge plan for the rest of the population.
The movie shows the classical music much better and portrays the gang to be more mentally ill that crazy young youth. The prison and doctors use Alex as the test and gets exploited because of what they have done to him.
I think this story reflects youth and the culture of youth in itself. I think it has many elements that show how people grow up and grow out of things. But going to prison and changing is also very different. Alex, goes from being crazy and against the system to starting a different life once he is out of prison, in a way, all kids act like this at some point. Not to this extent but defiantly act out or go against the system.

Diverse Position Science Fiction

After reading the story BloodChild in class, I read it again and tried to understand it but I couldn't get over how graphic is was. The story is about a society where humans are the minority. Humans or Terran are animals to the Tlic that are used for birthing. When you start reading the story you think it is about growing up and becoming an adult. It is exploring the idea of losing your childhood and it explores other human themes. What i thought was interesting is that they are using humans as basically just property to make a creation. their function is to multiply.  This separates humans and technology completely. The Tlic say that the humans aren't animals, they are hosts to create new lives stranding humans and non humans together. The humans are reduced to a technological function. 

I agree with the story in a way that people are put here on this earth to multiply and make more babies. Everything that happens in our lives is to support kids and their future. 

Over centuries, people have come from different continents and have impregnated to create new races and over time this has become just normal. This story takes it above and beyond but at the same time, we are doing the same thing to women. We make children with them and make new generations of humans. Humans are starting to live longer and are becoming different in look, height, weight and even color. Many movies have also built of concepts like this to make sure that the human race stays in tact. Of course, this is a bit different but in all the demographics it totally fits with todays society and even previous generations. 

Cyberpunk and Steampunk

I read Soulless by Gail Carriger. This is a love story that is between two werewolves. The lovers go against evil to save their world. Alexia loves being in the supernatural world more than her own. This goes great with what we learned this week with going through alternative realities. In this case with vampires werewolves and such. She has to find out why vampires and werewolves are missing before its too late. The problem is that they are the real inventors of what was going on during that time. The mad scientist in this story is trying to take over her using her lover as bait to get her full power. Because the supernaturals are the ones coming up with all of the inventions, humans want to stop them and make sure they are the ones creating everything. Her lover, Maccon uses other vampires and werewolves to protect her during the full moon. What makes this a cool story is that she is going through different realities to save her one and only.

I this this is a great story because of the plot and everything but I have read and watched many movies like this story. She is looked up to because of how courageous she is and shows that she is a strong woman saving her man.

She is chosen by the council of supernaturals to keep the balance of the two worlds. Helping them all live together and make sure everything is okay.

I kind of feel like the story is like Twilight. I don’t know why but I got pictures in my head from the movies and parts of the book.   I love the fact that Queen Victoria from England is in the book which really shows the separation of the real world and the fantasy world. The ending is just like a movie would end, the peace is resotored from all the chaos and the two pain characters get married and everything is a fairy tale ending. 

Mythic Fiction and Contemporary Urban Fanstasy

I read Anasi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I googled Anasi and in African tribes and other cultures, is known to be a trickster and African God. This idea came from the country of Ghana. He can take shape of a spider and is considered to be the god of all knowledge of stories. It interests me because spiders are known for creating webs. Everyone has their own web and creates them differently. 

The story by Neil Gaiman is about two boys who’s father is Anasi, have to find each other in different parts of the world. The story brings them through many situations and uses their ethnic backgrounds throughout the story. The story ties in their African culture and the Caucasian cultures to create a funny way of looking at the ideas. Fat Charlie is from London and spider comes to visit him. The story is about going back to Florida where their father died. The story is also about getting spider away from his brother Charlie.

This comical story is very interesting to be because when Charlie is drunk, he talks to a spider and asks why his brother hasn’t visited. Once he says this, spider appears. I feel this happens many times with siblings and they always get along for a bit then its over and they have to separate. I am the same way with my siblings.

I think this story is very relevant in the contemporary world because these ideas don’t change and using the spider as a story has been passed down from writer to writer.

I loved picturing some of this story because even when I was in Kenya, many people wear spider jewelry and have many insect imagery because they fight off certain things.

The Sirens of Titan

I love Kurt Vonnegut's work and have read many things by him since high school. I have read Slaughter House five, Cats Cradle The Sirens of Titan and Jailbird.

I love this story because it is about the worlds richest man who goes on a trip from Earth to Mars, Mercury and Titan, a moon of saturn.  Malachi Constant and his american time and space flying partner Winston Miles Rumfoord start a new civilization on mars which leads to a mission to take over the planet earth and kind of do what we did with the native americans and other cultures and brainwash them to take on a new religion and change Mankind. Rumfoord uses Malachi as a god or Jesus in his religion.

What I find funny about the book is that after reading about them going all through space and to all these planets and doing things only people can imagine, the book goes in to detail about how Winston had his own ship which has changed shape to something called "chromo-synclasic infandibulum," Talking about how Winston materializes and breaks free from physical substances of materials when he is in different places he travels throughout the solar system. One of the places I thought was funny to include was his and his wife Beatrice's huge house in Newport Rhode Island. It is such a different way to go from space to Rhode Island.  The richest man gets invited to the estate which will make him the first person to be able to travel with Winston to his estate. They go bankrupt and whats funny is two martians that joined their faith bought the estate which happens many times in todays world.

Kurt Vonnegut usually incorporates things that are going on in todays world in his writing which I find really fascinating because he wrote most of his works many years ago which means he is writing a head of his time period.  I didn't like this book as much as other readings I have read by Vonnegut but his style is so different than most readings that I usually choose.

Dark is Rising

For this week, I chose to write about Dark is Rising.

I liked this reading because it is the way I always wanted to start my day as a child. I always wanted to wake up in another work or dimension and explore. When Will wakes up on his birthday and he is in another time, he wanders with a magical horse that helps him. His journey is to collect the six signs. The dark attacks him and he fights back.  I think this plot line is very popular with young children's fantasy because they always believe that there is another world because of their imagination. Will goes through any battles to get all six signs with the help of friends.  I love Merriman's role as a character because of the roll as Wills helper. Many kids play games like this with their friends so I think many kids can relate. That is the great think about fantasy.

This adventure is also well known in older movies, for example, the princess bride and many others. Journey to the Center of the earth, Eragon and many other movies are based on the same idea. A child needs help to complete his quest to get back to his own work.

I was never really into fantasy as a really young child but as I got older, I started to get more into reading and thinking into fantasy and the ideas behind everything I read.  Even in movies that show the same thing, they don't leave to to have your own idea or picture because the movies show these things to you. The great thing about reading a book like The Dark is Rising, is that you can picture the characters as you like.

The Hobbit

The hobbit is magical, long and full of detail. I was never really into the lord of the rings or the hobbit until i saw the movie.  Bilbo Baggins, the main character goes on a journey that every kid dreams of. Fighting middle earth and even the ascetics of the film are just so moving.  Every kid wants to go find treater and set of with dwarfs and magicians. I feel that after seeing the lord of the rings, i was kind of thrown off by the hobbit because of which came first.
The movie and book show how heroes are made along with fairy tales coming to life. Gandalf the greatest character is Bilbos protector considering he is yet a small hobbit.
The series lord of the rings and harry potter had the same effect on me, i was into the movies when they came out but didn't fantasize and read and watch them over and over again. The graphics in the movies were outstanding along with the acting and ascetics but I feel they had a time and then what was that. Everyone can agree that the shots are beautiful but there were many parts of the book that were left out for obvious reasons. Reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and saving the gold is always been a popular plot for young children. For example, even in pirate movies and older children films, kids latch on the a map that will find them treasure.
What i loved about the Hobbit, are all the fine details that build the characters backgrounds and really makes you think they were real. J.R.R. Tolkien took time to make the reader feel like there were times before the book was written where these characters were alive. It made me feel like i knew them more and really could picture their long beards and high beer bellies.