I felt like I was one of the few people at this point in my life who had not read or seen the movie for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was excited to listen to the radio show, as that is something I have a little but not much experience in. I felt like this was the perfect way to enjoy this work. The radio show broke it down into bit size pieces for weekly installments, and even though I listened to all of it in three sittings, I still had things broken down into chunks. Having the different voices play the characters is something I have always enjoyed from full cast audiobooks, so I enjoyed is even more in this production with the inclusion of sound effects and music too. My biggest problem for this work was the ending. The radio show just seems to stop. They even said in it that there would have to be more books for anymore answers. I felt frustrated by not having a "real" conclusion. I'm sure for some people it would be like a cliffhanger that would make them read more, but whenever I see something like that I get frustrated and quit the series.
Amanda
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Saturday, April 20, 2019
Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler Questions
1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?
After reading Bloodchild by Octavia Butler I felt confused, so much so that I ended googling to find out more about what I had just read. Once I had done that I felt like I could better understand the story and was less confused and more disturbed. Online this story is argued to be a love story, but I think the only way I could believe that is if it was familial love. Gan makes all of her decisions to help her family. She gets impregnated so her brother and sister do not have to carry that burden, not because she has fallen in love. Once I started thinking about it that way it wasn’t so much a love story as a coming of age story, which fits with the opening line “My last night of childhood began with a visit home.”
2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the story with which were able to connect.
Personally I did not feel as connected to this story as I could have been. I tried not to let the fact that it’s a short story sway me, but I’ve never been a fan of short stories. Past that this work has a lot of good in it, if only it had been written in an easier way. I had a hard time getting into the story and understanding just what was happening. Once I figured it out I realized it was just a twist on a modern day problem. Sex, family, and survival are all problems addressed in this work, but the entire time you are wondering which side is the good. The problem is, they both are. These creatures are just doing what is needed to stay alive, and harming the others as little as they can. It’s almost a paradise, but it is twisted and corrupted by the fears of a child.
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 this story would make an interesting mini series or tv show. I might just be biased because I believe most books should be turned into tv shows and not movies, but the story would unfold more natural with having an overarching plot like this story gives, and smaller subplots of other things that happen on this planet. We would be able to go deeper into the children’s backstories, the mothers past, how humans got to this planet, other people being impregnated on this world, how this world has developed a new type of family all without losing the main story of a young girl afraid to do what she must to protect her family. Right now with the boom in young strong heroins this story would be a hit. It would be dark and horrible like The Handmaids Tale but it would follow its traditional African roots giving it a new and refreshing take.
After reading Bloodchild by Octavia Butler I felt confused, so much so that I ended googling to find out more about what I had just read. Once I had done that I felt like I could better understand the story and was less confused and more disturbed. Online this story is argued to be a love story, but I think the only way I could believe that is if it was familial love. Gan makes all of her decisions to help her family. She gets impregnated so her brother and sister do not have to carry that burden, not because she has fallen in love. Once I started thinking about it that way it wasn’t so much a love story as a coming of age story, which fits with the opening line “My last night of childhood began with a visit home.”
2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the story with which were able to connect.
Personally I did not feel as connected to this story as I could have been. I tried not to let the fact that it’s a short story sway me, but I’ve never been a fan of short stories. Past that this work has a lot of good in it, if only it had been written in an easier way. I had a hard time getting into the story and understanding just what was happening. Once I figured it out I realized it was just a twist on a modern day problem. Sex, family, and survival are all problems addressed in this work, but the entire time you are wondering which side is the good. The problem is, they both are. These creatures are just doing what is needed to stay alive, and harming the others as little as they can. It’s almost a paradise, but it is twisted and corrupted by the fears of a child.
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 this story would make an interesting mini series or tv show. I might just be biased because I believe most books should be turned into tv shows and not movies, but the story would unfold more natural with having an overarching plot like this story gives, and smaller subplots of other things that happen on this planet. We would be able to go deeper into the children’s backstories, the mothers past, how humans got to this planet, other people being impregnated on this world, how this world has developed a new type of family all without losing the main story of a young girl afraid to do what she must to protect her family. Right now with the boom in young strong heroins this story would be a hit. It would be dark and horrible like The Handmaids Tale but it would follow its traditional African roots giving it a new and refreshing take.
Monday, April 1, 2019
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
I picked to read this book after I watched the Netflix adaptation. I had really enjoyed the show so I wanted to see how close the book would follow to it, and then try to figure out why things were changed. After reading the book I can say that, for the most part, the TV show only changed the characters and left the plot alone. The same things seem to happen in both things, but the people are completely different. The tv show introduced a few great new characters to us that the book either glosses over, doesn't have, or is a combination of a few smaller characters. The TV show also stepped up its racial diversity. But all of that really comes down to stylistic changes, both are good with what they have. That saying, the biggest character change of all, was Takeshi Kovac. Maybe I found the main character of the TV show hard to read because most of his acting is actions instead of dialogue, but he comes across as more of a bad guy rogue. The book allowed him to be funny and even cheerful at some parts. That's not to say that the TV show didn't have him laugh, but he seemed more plagued by his past than anything else. Book Kovac is constantly stalked by an ex-partner who is missing an eye (TV is a black woman lover who lead his rebel team) but even in the moments of an one eyed ghost telling him how to change his life, Kovac seemed less melancholy. I have to chalk this all up to being able to understand his thoughts, something a book can give you the privilege of that the TV cannot.
Amanda
Amanda
Friday, March 29, 2019
Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Assignment:
The readings for this week emphasize the fiction of ideas. What ideas or mind experiments were explored in the works you read for this week? What were some of the implications or consequences of those ideas for those of us living today?
One of the best examples of a mind experiment in this book is the paradox of this book. In chapter 5, two character talk about a work of fiction in their world, that is in fact our history. They mention that FDR was shot and killed in Miami, leading up to a different man becoming president who can do nothing about German taking over Europe in World War 2. This is our world. So we are caught reading a book about a fiction world where they read a book about a fiction world that is actually our world. Once you get done with your headache, you realize how cool it is that Dick did this too us. Yes the whole premise of the book makes you think about how horrible life would be for the average American if Germany had one, but this was the first moment that I stopped and actually thought about what that would actually mean. Up until this point it had been fiction to me, but for some reason, making my world fiction put things into a perspective I could really understand.
Amanda
The readings for this week emphasize the fiction of ideas. What ideas or mind experiments were explored in the works you read for this week? What were some of the implications or consequences of those ideas for those of us living today?
One of the best examples of a mind experiment in this book is the paradox of this book. In chapter 5, two character talk about a work of fiction in their world, that is in fact our history. They mention that FDR was shot and killed in Miami, leading up to a different man becoming president who can do nothing about German taking over Europe in World War 2. This is our world. So we are caught reading a book about a fiction world where they read a book about a fiction world that is actually our world. Once you get done with your headache, you realize how cool it is that Dick did this too us. Yes the whole premise of the book makes you think about how horrible life would be for the average American if Germany had one, but this was the first moment that I stopped and actually thought about what that would actually mean. Up until this point it had been fiction to me, but for some reason, making my world fiction put things into a perspective I could really understand.
Amanda
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
While reading this short novel I was constantly wondering where the ending was going to take us. Sure the book is about broken systems, so I knew that the brainwashing would not "work out all right" and leave Alex becoming a better person, but I was expecting something more than what I was given. One of the thought I had while reading this work was that they would have Alex overcome his old life, start a family, and then have teenagers come and destroy his family like he did to others. That might have been too much irony, but I think it would have felt more just. Instead we are left with him seeing how his son will grow up to be like him and there is nothing he can do, but in the end it will be alright because man is not a machine so we grow and play by our own rules.
-Amanda
-Amanda
Monday, March 25, 2019
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
"It doesn't matter that you didn't believe in us, we believed in you." -Mr. Ibis (American Gods)
American Gods by Neil Gaiman was a very interesting read. Taking the old myths of the past worlds and mixing it with contemporary "gods" was executed in such a way that left the reader wondering who exactly was going to win in the end (or as the gods say there is no end). All of this brought questions into my mind. I was left with this idea that the gods had created us yet we had created them. After some time struggling with this age old chicken or the egg dilemma, I had to accept that this was an interesting work that could make people think a lot more about their beliefs and actions, but in the end in real life it all has to come down to faith, that old gut feeling.
Shadow was such an interesting main character because, when it all came down to it, he wasn't really relevant to the story. Sure if you took him out the story would change a bit, but in the end the same things would happen: gods would go to war over the love and worship of man kind. It was like reading about a man who was watching an event. This is probably why the book is so long and takes so many tangents to get to the important stuff; I mean for a book about waring gods, we really only faces that near the end. Most protagonists are "the chosen one" and we can find endless examples of people being needed to fulfill tasks, rescue others, and solve problems. And while Shadow does play a big role for Wednesday, I truly believe that he could have figured it out without him. This is one of the biggest differences between this book and others like it. Instead of the gods coming to shadow and asking him to do these tasks that would be easy for them to accomplish but they need him to learn, grow, and be a better person, they bring him along as a taxi driver who also helps clean up the messes. Odin talks about how he needed a son, and yes Shadow convinces the gods at the end to not fight, but I just feel like it could have been anyone who was paying close enough attention.
Amanda
American Gods by Neil Gaiman was a very interesting read. Taking the old myths of the past worlds and mixing it with contemporary "gods" was executed in such a way that left the reader wondering who exactly was going to win in the end (or as the gods say there is no end). All of this brought questions into my mind. I was left with this idea that the gods had created us yet we had created them. After some time struggling with this age old chicken or the egg dilemma, I had to accept that this was an interesting work that could make people think a lot more about their beliefs and actions, but in the end in real life it all has to come down to faith, that old gut feeling.
Shadow was such an interesting main character because, when it all came down to it, he wasn't really relevant to the story. Sure if you took him out the story would change a bit, but in the end the same things would happen: gods would go to war over the love and worship of man kind. It was like reading about a man who was watching an event. This is probably why the book is so long and takes so many tangents to get to the important stuff; I mean for a book about waring gods, we really only faces that near the end. Most protagonists are "the chosen one" and we can find endless examples of people being needed to fulfill tasks, rescue others, and solve problems. And while Shadow does play a big role for Wednesday, I truly believe that he could have figured it out without him. This is one of the biggest differences between this book and others like it. Instead of the gods coming to shadow and asking him to do these tasks that would be easy for them to accomplish but they need him to learn, grow, and be a better person, they bring him along as a taxi driver who also helps clean up the messes. Odin talks about how he needed a son, and yes Shadow convinces the gods at the end to not fight, but I just feel like it could have been anyone who was paying close enough attention.
Amanda
Monday, March 18, 2019
Caraval by Stephanie Garber
Caraval is a book that should be compared to The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. They have all of the same elements: magic that seems to be fake but is real, love both romantic and non-romantic, a game brought on by a magician, a big twist at the end, and strange yet magical worlds that feel more like game boards than locations (something I am sure the authors did on purpose). I liked the books about the same amount, which is to say they are about average. But I have already talked about The Night Circus and my problems with it, now I will be talking about Caraval by Stephanie Garber.
One thing I liked about this book was the "magic system". I put this in quotes because I still feel like I cannot call it that. It is not magic to these people, it is their everyday lives. My favorite aspect of it was how they dealt with time. In the beginning the main protagonist enters a clock shop, and this is just used as a piece of foreshadowing for on of the most exciting moments in the book. Scarlett trades days of her life for a dress. This is something we see as a warning often in fiction, but I really enjoyed how they played with her not dying sooner but instead being unconscious for those days. The whole book is focused around time. Things are done at night. This adds an elements of mystery but also weirdness. Overall the way the book handles magic and time was very interesting.
So why did I think this book was average when I really like the concepts behind it? I think it all cracks down to personal opinion. I felt like Garber's writing style was a bit juvenile. I also felt like the story was predictable. I should give authors more of a break, because as I get older I hear more stories and it is harder to surprise me, but instead I get frustrated when I can figure out the big ending before the main character can.
Amanda
One thing I liked about this book was the "magic system". I put this in quotes because I still feel like I cannot call it that. It is not magic to these people, it is their everyday lives. My favorite aspect of it was how they dealt with time. In the beginning the main protagonist enters a clock shop, and this is just used as a piece of foreshadowing for on of the most exciting moments in the book. Scarlett trades days of her life for a dress. This is something we see as a warning often in fiction, but I really enjoyed how they played with her not dying sooner but instead being unconscious for those days. The whole book is focused around time. Things are done at night. This adds an elements of mystery but also weirdness. Overall the way the book handles magic and time was very interesting.
So why did I think this book was average when I really like the concepts behind it? I think it all cracks down to personal opinion. I felt like Garber's writing style was a bit juvenile. I also felt like the story was predictable. I should give authors more of a break, because as I get older I hear more stories and it is harder to surprise me, but instead I get frustrated when I can figure out the big ending before the main character can.
Amanda
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