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Week Fourteen: Science Fiction Parody and Satire

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy What is the meaning of life? How many times have you asked yourself that question? How important is knowing the answer? The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy seems to revolve around these questions. This book tries to flip your preconceived thoughts about the meaning of life on its head to make you really think deeply about yourself and your importance in anything. We are nothing but a spec in the whole scheme of things, but yet when someone does you wrong it is the end of the world to you. Why? Why do we think we are so important? People have a natural longing to know the answer to the meaning of life. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, this is addressed. Arthur confesses that he has had this feeling that everything must have meant more. Slartibartfast explains that everyone has that feeling and it means nothing, nothing means anything. This book is just trying to get you to think, but if nothing means anything then why do anything? T
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Week Thirteen: Literary Speculation

The Seventh Voyage I loved this story! I thought it was really creative and thought provoking. At surface level, it was just a sci-fi, space themed, short story, but then you realize it is so much more. It is a story that criticizes adult society, government, and human follies. These themes are cleverly intertwined into a high paced, smart, and entertaining story. The main character, Tichy, is on a space voyage and runs into some trouble when a repair job is needed on his space craft. This would not be a huge deal accept for the fact the repair is a two-person job and he is all alone. When he hits the vortex and it disrupts the space time continuum, Tichy meets the future and past versions of himself. One for each day of that week. Of course, the focus of these multiple versions of himself is to fix and repair the space craft. This is where the themes and underlying message of the story starts. Why can’t he and the rest of his selves work together and fix the problem? That sh
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Week Twelve: Diverse Position Science Fiction

Bloodchild For this week’s reading, I read Blood Child. I really enjoyed this story. At first, I was really confused. I felt like we were thrown into a word, not like our own, but non-the less were expected to understand. There was little description on the setting, or the events that lead to the current situation. After finishing the book, due to lack of sleep of a failing on my part to pay attention to the work being read to me, I was needless to say confused on what just happened. I went online and watched the author’s analysis of the work and read a synopsis. It was so interesting! I then listened to the book again! It all made sense now that I knew what a Tlic and that the main character was indeed human. I was now able to really understand and appreciate the story. I have always admired stories about heroic characters who gave up themselves for the people they love: Eponine, in Les Misererable, Gandofl in The Lord of the Rings, and Ripley in Alien 3. Those characters in
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Week Eleven: Cyberpunk and Steam Punk

Johnny Mnemonic Johnny Mnemonic, the short story by William Gibson, was a pretty interesting read! This story which first appeared in Omni  magazine in May 1981, was written during the time when cyberpunk and sci-fi were coming into a new age. While this story seems a little more on the fantasy side than most stories of that time, it definitely gi ves you that same quirky sci-fi feeling that you get when you watch Blade Runner or Tron. The 1980’s were a time of technological revolution. The first household computers were being created, along with gaming consoles and portable phones. People today seem to really love and have a connection to the 80’s. Maybe it’s because the 1980s were where the technology we rely on and use daily, originated. The 1980’s were the time of the computer’s infancy. People started to seriously think about where this technology would take us. Johnny Mnemonic certainly seems to address this. In the time of floppy disks, memory space was limited. I
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Week Ten: The Fiction of Ideas

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Aldrich I found The Three Stigmata of Palmer Aldrich a very ambiguous book packed full of many subplots and extraneous themes. There was a lot going on. As a person who is really bad with names, I found it hard to keep up with which character was which; Myerson, Bulero, Eldritch. Also, this was compounded by the fact that they all seemed to be very similar in character traits. Maybe this was on purpose. Maybe it adds to the confusing story filled with alternate universes and time travel. Even though I had problems with the story, I cannot say I hated this book. I found it very interesting and I enjoyed reading it. I cannot pretend to be a good writer, I am not, but I just cannot help but wonder what the story would be like when it was stripped of some of the themes that felt unimportant to the main plot. For example, the bit about the neo-Christian woman on Mars. That whole subplot was unnecessary.   The story took a detour for this story point a
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Week Nine: Space Opera

The Nine Billion Names of God I really enjoyed this short story by Arthur C. Clarke. It really got you thinking. Religion means different things to different people. To some people, it’s a strict set of rules to follow. To others, just a casual thing they don’t take too seriously. To some it is a crazy group of people who believe in fairytales. To others, a group of fellow believers they call family. To some, it means nothing, it’s taboo. To others it’s everything. There is one truth in the world, just one. Everyone believes in something and everyone thinks they have found that truth. But what if you are wrong? What would be the worst-case scenario if you are wrong in your beliefs? Have you ever thought of that? I have. That is exactly what these two computer technicians did, they missed out. They did not believe in the “crazy” monks in the secluded Tibetan monastery and fell victim to the end of the world.
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Week Eight: Contemporary Urban Fantasy

The Ocean at the End of the Lane I really liked reading this story, it is the wacky weird that I love; similar to Coralline or any of Tim Burton’s pieces. Except for a few scenes and themes, I feel like this could be a really good children’s book! For most of the duration of the story I thought the narrator was using a coping mechanism to alter his memories of a traumatic childhood event, creating this fantastic story in his mind. I still think I could be right, but the ending threw me off. I thought the neighbor would explain and clarify what really happened in his childhood and the mystery would be solved. But no. Like many alternate reality, crazy fantasy stories the ending is ambiguous. I suppose I could still be right, but I have trouble rationalizing some of the events in his memories into something that could have possibly actually happened to him. For example, the hunger birds. If these crazy events did not really happen, what were the hunger birds really? Are they repres
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