Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams was far and wide my favorite thing about this semester. I loved listening to the radio broadcast and hear the characters come to life in front of me. The way the genre tropes were presented so comically made them clear to understand and discuss in class. I specifically enjoyed the opening of the broadcast, with the severe irony of the character's home being bulldozed, and then the Earth being bulldozed after it. After the first episode, I pondered on the creativity and original storytelling made use of in this story using science fiction as their framework. The story was great, and it got me excited to see the movie.

This class taught me more about genres than I thought was possible, but above all else it kept me reading and sane during a crazy semester of thesis projects and sleepless nights. I enjoyed the class discussions and what I took away from every class prepared me for the next one. I hope to continue in my genre study as I work to present them in children's books in the future.

Oryx and Crake: Literary Speculation

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood was a great choice to read for this week's focus, which was literary speculation. We talked about how these novels can be freeing, seeing as they can focus on certain genre tropes while remaining independent of the genre itself, but my personal opinion is that genre is a fluid thing. I think literary speculation is an important distinction solely because it is aware it is not a genre. Some of my favorite stories play off of the idea that genre can be a little of this and a little of that. Oryx and Crake represents this idea, and I think Herman Mieville encompasses it as well.

All of that being said, I wanted to discuss our prompt, which was "is this an important distinction or not?" Personally, I put less emphasis on this than our class discussion did, but I think the distinction needs to be made nonetheless. The fluidity of genre is what makes it so appealing to me, and the I think the speculative aspect of this course was finding those 'gray areas.'

Oryx and Crake in particular was a strange read that had many highlights I didn't expect. The grungy nature of the world Atwood built was original both in creation and presentation . I would recommend this novel for anyone interested in the areas of literature that are less defined and make room for some of the most creative stories.

Lilith's Brood

For this week, I read from Lilith's Brood, or more specifically Dawn, by Octavia Butler. This author and her books opened a lot of doors to interesting discussions today in class. The book explored some concepts that were not so mainstream and pretty far from comfortable, such as the idea of cross species gestation. One concept that I found to be very innovative were the Ooloi, or the author's creation of an entirely new gender. This opened a lot of doors into discussions of our own gender norm and how we treat gender in our society. In this way specifically, the book dealt with something that was not a part of majoritarian acceptance and culture (though it should be.) I think the story itself was simply astounding in terms of creativity and originality. The concept felt very grounded and the conflicts and tensions were real to the reader.
This book, as well as her short story Bloodchild that we read in class had similar themes and subject matter, though they were described in entirely different ways from one another. Being a lover of longer stories, I felt that Dawn held together a lot more for me. Above all what I got out of this week was the idea that alien invasion stories and the idea of diverse science fiction can have many more origins than I originally thought. Dawn was one of the more original concepts that I have read in this genre, and it provided a good sense of hope for the books to come that I will most certainly read.

In-Class Questions and Answers

1The Aquatic Uncle

11.    Are there any prominent symbols in the story? If so, what are they? And how are they used?

I think the symbols in this story are obscured as the vague descriptions of what the characters actually are. We see symbols that are made through anatomy. I think fins and paws are the best examples of this. With basically nothing to go on in terms of imagery, the story is largely built in our mind and we are all probably picturing the characters in different ways; and this doesn’t matter because the story is mainly about the character’s struggles as an evolving species and not their appearance as a species. These anatomical symbols are used, in my interpretation, as ways to explain evolution and the eventual gap between humans and the natural world. As the story moves forward, we even begin to feel a certain disgust for Uncle’s tail as it whips through the water.

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

I made a connection with the story through the familial interactions between Uncle and his relatives. I think the conversations they have together are pseudo-realistic in terms of reactions and anger, and the only thing that changes is the subject matter. We all know an “uncle,” or someone who refuses to conform (or evolve) to the point of ignorance. In many ways, the dichotomy of the story is what makes me as a reader connect with it. Is it really so bad to want to live as a fish? The stigma against water dwelling in the beginning and middle of the story reflects a lot of our civil disagreements today. Something else I connected with was the last paragraph in particular. The way the protagonist (with his name, and all the names for that matter, which are terribly hard to pronounce) basically said he refused to be like any of them, the creatures who had specifically evolved. Even though he wasn’t the superior animal, he was who he wanted to be. In many ways, he adopted his Uncle’s attitude by the end of the story.

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

I would choose to make this into a comic book. The obvious changes to be made would be visually physical descriptions of characters. The story as it is doesn’t describe the characters beyond the symbols of their paws and fins and tails, which can be applied to most animals on earth today. I would love to illustrate something that has such a wide array of characters that can be designed to so many different means. Other than the visual changes that would be made, in terms of telling the story through a comic, I would add a lot more of the “action” scenes, or the scenes where characters are evolving and running through the trees and climbing up them. There could be a lot of stunning visuals both in the water and on the land that can make the reader feel the struggle between evolution and stagnancy. Something that ends so abruptly and so openly could also lend itself artistically, and the ending would definitely be something I keep exactly the same.

Steampunk

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers has been one of my favorite pieces we've looked at in this class so far. Being a giant fantasy fan, this came as a rather pleasant surprise. In many ways, however, this story reflects some low-key fantasy elements; such as 'magic' and monsters. They feel different, but they serve the same purpose in my mind's eye. This story specifically dealt with some really cool storylines and themes. There are a whole bunch of layers in this novel, and not one of them is uninteresting. The origin of the stories multiple time lines comes from the magicians attempting to bring Anubis through a gate to reclaim their land for them. The failed procedure leaves time gates throughout history. When the gates are found by J. Cochran Darrow, he discovers he can travel through time using them. The alternating timelines are really cool in this story, but I think the most powerful parts in The Anubis Gates are the characters themselves. They all have ulterior motives and really contrasting personalities. I think it is the treatment of the characters that hold the stories complicated events together. The book lends itself readily to the understanding of cultures and the complicated interactions between them in a very unique way. The stories entertain, but also inform and communicate principles to the reader.
I have never read a steampunk story before, but this one certainly grabbed me and I look forward to exploring more like this one.

The Fiction of Ideas

For today's class, I read The Left Hand of Darkness by ursula K. Le Guin. The story is packed with information that are so formative of a unique world, its hard not to get enthralled by it.
We were prompted to think of ideas as fiction while addressing the pieces this week, which rooted itself nicely in this novel. There is so much happening in this story that it begins to feel pseudo-real and mirror a lot of the ideas and fears we have today.
The book starts with Genly Ai, the protagonist, making a trip to try and convince Gethen, a kingdom in this world, to join a group of humans called the Ekumen. The ideas portrayed in this novel range anywhere from political to religious to simply the ethereal. It is in the ability to make these obscure creations connect that this idea is wholly fictionalized in a story. I think that the root of ideas as grandeur as the ones in this book need to stem from the same place, and grow in uncertain directions.
The huge ending in this book as well is something to be considered for today. We live in a world that tries to separate cultures and people, and we are headed for a dead end. Just like the ending of this book, it took catastrophe to bring people together. If anything, we can learn something from this book about working together as a human race.

Space Opera

This week I read the novel The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester and focused on what elements in the story were drawn from or influenced by other genres. The story centered around a man, Gulliver Foyle, who is hellbent on revenge in a world where jaunting (or teleporting) has triggered a good deal of tension and even wars between clans and social classes.



This story reminded me a lot of old westerns and their motifs of exploring the unknown and finding new and dangerous threats at every turn. The story of revenge reminds me a lot of The Revenant, a neowestern film from this year. The story was, in fact, based on real events of a character seeking revenge for the people responsible for his demise. Both characters experience a disfigurement as well as travel being a major role in each story.

I think that the correlations between space operas and westerns are some of the most fascinating parts of this genre. It is fun to see the old ideologies stand the test of time, and really the only thing that's changed is the environment. Characters and institutions remain unchanged through time and the hard pressed theme of adventure and exploration stands true in both genres.

Space operas are some of the most creative stories I've read, and offer a lot in terms of world building and ingenuity. Not only do they speak to the heart of entertainment, but they warn us about the dangers of advancing technology taken the wrong way.

Night Circus

Night Circus is one of my favorite readings so far in the course. I am a sucker for creativity and world building, and Erin Morgenstern did a really nice job at both in this novel. We talked a lot about spirituality and how it is represented in fantasy writing this week in class, and I think this is one of the best books to have chosen for the topic. The spirituality in this book is encompassed wholly in the "competition" between the two characters, Celia and Marco. And I put competition in quotes because, in my opinion, the competition is actually between old and new magic, or A.H. and Prospero. Celia and Marco actually have little desire to compete, and in the end it is their desire to save the circus and their love for each other that really makes the moral dilemma so complex and striking.

I really emjoyed how the situations the characters were put in, although dramatic and fantatical, felt very grounded in a spiritual truth, especially in the ending, where the whole story takes on an entirely new meaning. The ending can be interpreted in many different ways, but I think everyone can agree that it is far from a "traditional happy ending", and that's awesome!

Throughout the novel their are many lessons to be learned about competition, self-sacrifice, love and moral ambiguity, but above all their is a sense of the greater good that drew me into the story so completely. Overall, this book sort of opened a new door for me in terms of fantastical literature, which I originally viewed through a narrow scope of wizards and dragons and knights. There is a big world of fantasy literature out there, with a lot of different moral centers, that I can't wait to read and study.

The Hobbit

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien is definitely a genre defining novel. It was by no means the first, but it was one of the few that brought to life the fantastical elements that we see in stories like it today. In class, we discussed the concept of the heroes journey and its importance to the narrative structure of a fantasy. The greatest part about fantastical novels, especially Tolkien's, is how easily you can get lost in the expansive universe; almost like you're really there along side the hero, going on a journey of self discovery. 

I loved the lecture today about the journey a hero goes on, mainly because it is applicable to almost any story, though especially to fantasies. I found myself making allusions to stories across all genres as we heard about the path a character might go on in the course of a story. 

The Hobbit especially encapsulates this idea of reluctancy that plays a large role in a hero's journey. From the very beginning, Bilbo was as reluctant as anything could be to the idea of an adventure. This pull against the journey we knew he would end up partaking on is what opens the door to one of the most entertaining things to read about in any story, character development. A character that grows and changes is what lies at the heart of entertainment across the board, and Bilbo's attitude change is what makes him such an appealing character.

The hero's journey is such a fun concept to learn about, and truly what makes fantasy so compelling and structured. The Hobbit is a timeless novel that defined "fairy stories" and opened the door for authors to be inspired (especially one of my favorite authors, George RR Martin.)

Witches

Aunt Maria  or Black Maria was a witch story I definitely didn't expect going in. The stereotype of witches is a lot different from that of other classic horror characters in that the stereotype can go one of two ways, cute or ugly. There is almost a spectrum between the two that we can place a witch on, and in this case, I would say Aunt Maria herself falls somewhere in the middle. She seems, for all intensive purposes, to be a typical, if not adorable, old lady in the beginning of the novel. Her pushy personality aside, she seems pretty standard. It is only as the novel progresses that we realize how truly horrific she is. This makes the novel much more of a psychological horror than anything else.

We all know the stereotypical witch, but this type of character is easily shifted around,  and I believe that Diana Wynne Jones did a nice job creating a compellingly creepy witch that fit the tropes in a way I didn't expect as a reader. 

What Is "Weird"?

This week in class was focused on the weird. Specifically, what has changed between the old weird (Lovecraft, Stoker) and the new weird (Mieville)? And what exactly makes either of them weird in the first place?


I read from the novel Kraken by China Mieville for class, and it has been my favorite reading so far in this course, and a great example of the "weird".

The story itself is as highly creative as they come, with a worker at the Darwin Museum finding their most prized exhibit missing, a giant quid. The quest to find out what exactly happened throws us as readers into some strange situations that play on the tropes of the genre and the moral questions we have as humans.

This novel helped me put a scope on what exactly it is that makes something weird, and I can only hope to sum it up with one word: Mystery. After reading this novel, I firmly believe that most weirdness in these stories we have been reading has been rooted in mystery or something unknown. In the case of this story, there are a lot of mysteries I gathered from my reading. There is the classic "where is it?", and then from there the mysteries unfold into "why?" and "how?" and "Are they right?" In other novels from this course, the weirdness stems from other mysteries, like "How is Frankenstein going to find the monster?" or "How will the interview end?"

I think the fun thing about the mysterious qualities of these horror stories is truly what makes them so unnerving. The importance of horror, in my mind's eye, is to reflect on the questions we are afraid to ask in a normal way. Questions like "Can science go too far?" or "What if a giant squid actually could bring about the end of days?"

And what better way to ask these questions than with a good mystery?

J-Horror and the Search for Good and Evil

This week's reading assignment offered a myriad of different stories, all of which opened the door on the same conversation: how does culture effect the concept of horror, and how does horror reflect that in turn?

                                                                                       (Takashi Shimizu, Ju On, 2000)

I chose to read two short stories by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki entitled The Bridge of Dreams and A Portrait of Shunkin. After reading a good deal into both of these stories, I realized that this type of horror is distinctly different in a lot of senses from the Western stereotype. It was, first and foremost, entirely believable. Both of these stories were set in a real place and had a story line that was entirely believable in most senses. What made them horrific was how "just a little off" they were. There was no glaring monster coming to eat your face off, there was just the culture these characters came from and their reactions to it.

In many ways both of these pieces also dealt a good deal with perfection and the standards that they are held to within their societal roles. In A Portrait of Shunkin, the perfection of beauty plays a large role, and in The Bridge of Dreams, the entire theme revolves around the "perfect family."

What was most interesting for me in class today was our discussion about conflict, and how J-Horror in particular seems to move past the common ideology of good versus evil. I realized after the talk that their is a balancing act between two systems of life or belief. For instance, if a traditional film could be considered a man vs. nature conflict, a J-Horror film could be seen as man and nature on either end of a teeter totter, constantly hitting off of each other's imbalances.

I found this week's works and discussion to be thought-provoking in the sense that I had never dealt with material like this before, and it was nice to see a different take on a genre.

Sexy Vampires

The Vampire has evolved more than most creations and mythos throughout its existence.

He has gone from this:

                                                                               (Nosferatu, 1922)
To this:

                      (The Twilight Saga, 2008)

Studying the evolution of the vampire, as I found in class today, is a great way to cross-reference our societal norms. Regardless of the time period, monsters such as the vampire have always been a reflection of our culture with respect to love and intimacy. In our reading for this week, we discussed Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire. I think the most prominent aspect of this novel with relation to the writing prompt was the overall sexual tones both in the action of sucking blood and in the interaction between Lestat and Louis. Anne Rice likens the vampire's tendencies to extract blood from their victims to a drug trip or an intimate sexual experience.

In many ways, I found this novel to be a bridge between the old and the new treatment of this gothic figure. Intimacy is at the root of this story, but what lies on the surface of it is how the intimacy is expressed. In the era of Nosferatu and the original Dracula, intimacy was physical and deep, expressed through emotion and dialogue (which is heavily conveyed in Interview with the Vampire.) In today's culture, we view intimacy a bit shallower and tend to view it as merely physical, which would explain the success of novels such as The Twilight Saga, where these "monsters" are given a much more appealing style, with an attitude and disposition that is more toned down and reserved (the shy guy in the corner.)

At the root of intimacy is tension, and that is what we saw today in class when we watched the film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. The movie was a stunning and creative presentation of the vampire. The tension in this film was most obvious in the scene between Arash and the Vampire (who is a woman in this film.) When she pulls his head back and stares at his neck, there is tension both between the characters and in the audience. I found that the tension was a physical display of the intimacy between the two characters.

Whether they are bald with pointy ears, or blonde with a chiseled jaw, the vampire proves time and time again to be a reflection of our own culture and what we believe to be the true meaning behind intimacy.

Gothic Frankenstein

For our first class we were given the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley to read over and study. I had never read it before and was excited to finally have an excuse to pick it up (and of course I rented the Bernie Wrightson illustrated version from the library.) Bernie Wrightson is an amazing illustrator, and he produced some truly Gothic scenes for this novel that brought a fresh take to the now famous Frankenstein's monster that is more closely associated to Shelley's original piece.

Wrightson, Frankenstein (2008) 

This was my favorite of the pieces by Bernie, a two-page spread showing a confrontation between Victor and the monster. The drama conveyed in this scene captures, to a high degree of accuracy, the level of discomfort and paranoia I felt as a reader (a level of discomfort any horror genre fan should be accustomed to.) It's tight, it's cramped, the lighting is very high-key and the viewer feels about as trapped as Frankenstein himself.

Of course, to illustrate something as grandeur as this, you need the story to be well thought out and presented by the author. Mary Shelley's style of writing captivated me. The letters in the beginning of the novel were a surprise, seeing as I had figured, through the lens of today's over-saturated media of the characters, that the story would be completely different. I decided, as I read, to think about the differences that 200 years of evolution have brought to this story. Perhaps my biggest shock of all was the pivotal "resurrection scene" that I am so familiar with, and how it was only about one paragraph in the novel. I had expected a myriad of beakers shaking and rattling against the rain storm as lightning struck the monster from the top of a high tower, but instead found that the Gothic nature of the story doesn't really hinder on that scene, but rather on the repercussions of it.

Shelley's strong suit is definitely creating a sense of off-putting, low-key paranoia. I found the Gothic aspects of this novel everywhere; from the setting (remote, unknown and altogether unpredictable) to the mysterious tampering with abstract forces (specifically death). 

Adventure Baby in: Boogey, Bonebeard and a Bathtub Boat

I had a lot of reasons for signing up to take this course, but the largest was to facilitate with my thesis. I am an illustration major here at Ringling, and for my senior project I am creating an advanced picture book for children between the ages of 7 and 12. 

The book is titled Adventure Baby in: Boogey, Bonebeard and a Bathtub Boat, and I am making it with the intent of exploring different genres and how to introduce them in a fun way to children. This, the first installment of the series, explores fantasy and horror (so you can see why I was eager to take this class.) 

I look forward to understanding these genres more and more throughout the semester to help me with my creation of the book!