Blog set 4 Apocalypse and Post-apocalypse

                       H.G. Wells “The Star” (1897)

As I read this story at first I had to get used to the way Wells wrote this story and it took me a while to comprehend what he was trying to say. As I reach towards the last couple of pages is when I finally started to understand what was happening to these people on earth. The story started out slow and it did not catch my interest much but after I read it a second time around I begun to visualize what was happening and it was quite frustrating and scary. To see these people not have any idea of what was happening as we would of known because of our knowledge of these things, you can see how astonished they were by this strange bright light getting closer and closer and not knowing what it was or what to do. As one of the characters in the story the Mathematician warned the world no one took him seriously until it was too late. The end came and not everyone survived and as that star got closer and brought hell to earth there was not one soul to hide from the devastation that was about to happen. Towards the last page we see what another species the Martian astronomers that were on Mars saw from their viewpoint and to them what was happening to us on earth did not look that bad to them and then it ends with “Which only shows how small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem, at a distance of a few million miles.”  

                                                    

Octavia E. Butler “Speech Sounds” (1983)

In the beginning of the story you can see how it already starts in a fight, then the main character Rye said “buses were so rare and irregular now,” so I automatically came up with post-apocalypse era. To have lost something we use to communicate physically and verbally with throughout our lives is an eye opener and curiosity does stricken you but same time imagining living without being able to read, write, or even speak because of such a vicious virus it shows how dangerous and scary life would be. The way Obsidian and Rye communicate throughout the story intrigues me, because even though they both are impaired differently they still find ways to communicate and that shows hope to me in some way for them. To think that parentless children would become scavengers to survive and then just become wild because that is what their future looked like is a very upsetting and saddening thing to imagine. The ending was surprising because I thought Rye wasn’t able to speak or understand the children until she did speak and that’s when I knew even though this story was in a post-apocalypse era the ending did not fully end in a sad note but it left me wanting to know more of what happens next, does she find her brother in Pasadena? Leaves me with questions for someone who enjoyed the story.

UPDATE:

    Day 1

          My name is Alice, I'm 21 and I am a computer hacker. These past two years have been a nightmare for me, losing my family in a Tsunami on a trip to Asia and then I left the fire academy. I felt that I no longer belonged there. I couldn't save my family, how can I save strangers at that. I left my lifetime goal of being a Firefighter and turned to being someone I thought I left behind a long time ago ,a criminal. I'm hot-headed and have a bad temper at times but my boss deals with me because I make him good money and I am really good at my job. I've been stuck in this small dark office for months since I can no longer be at use in the real world. Let's just say the FBI was not to happy when I leaked some TOP SECRET stuff on the internet but they won't ever find me not in this place. I have been hearing rumors about some weather anomalies happening around the world but what really caught my interest and turned me ice cold was the word Tsunami. After I did some digging, I come to find out that no one knew about the Tsunami that killed my family because it was covered up. Why would this horrific news not have been known and why cover it up? This was one of the first anomalies that occurred and NASA knew about it, they let thousands die that day. So I have been tracking down these anomalies myself and there seems to be a pattern going on and next one is heading straight for us. I need to warn everyone about this, maybe this time I can save people, but how will I get out this place I am a prisoner? No, I will find a way! If someone finds this and I'm no longer around it means they finally found me. Alice here logging off.

Blog Set 3 Radiation and Global Terrorism

Two stories, different outlooks on life with the happenings of post war and global terrorism.

We come to terms with a mother who looked passed her child imperfections and saw nothing but a perfect baby but it is not what it seems. In this story That Only a Mother by Judith Merril (1948) shows the outcomes of radiation and conception. Margaret, who is alone at home expecting a child and going through a psychological battle with her thoughts is consumed by her thoughts about her child, if she will become a mutant as other children that have been born due to their partners working around radiation. There is some change of location that we usually do not see much in the Sci-Fi genre which is a home as many of us live in except it has technology related enhancements such as “On the way to the kitchenette, she pressed the button that would start breakfast cooking” (pg.212) now we all know we do not have a button that automatically starts cooking our breakfast for us only in the sense you would see this in a Sci-Fi story. Throughout the story Margaret is oblivious to the truth about her child until the end when her husband finally meets their baby and sees that the child does not have any limbs at all and goes into a “bitter spasm of hysteria.” I’m assuming that as the other fathers who had mutant babies did was being called “infanticides,” which is the mutant-children being killed by the fathers but none have been convicted for it so at the end it seems the husband, Hank, killed the child, “His fingers tightened on his child- oh god, she didn’t know…” come to find out that while he was on duty his wife was making up this perfect child up in her mind and writes to him about it. The only person in the world that can see through all your imperfections and love you more than anything is your mother and that is what we see here, she forgets the war, the radiation-mutations and finds herself humble with the limbless child she has and throughout the story when she reads about the mutations in Hiroshima she keeps repeating to herself, “but my baby’s all right.” It was an interesting take on this genre due to it did not have much science fiction tropes but you can tell for its time it was in a future-like place.

In We See Things Differently by Bruce Sterling(1989), you see how the Arabs look at us in their eyes and it is not a pretty sight, “the land of ignorance. This was America. The Great Satan, the Arsenal of Imperialism, the Bankroller of Zionism, the Bastion of Neo-Colonialism” (pg.612). This is how the Arab in the story thought about us when he landed in Miami. To see how America is portrayed in this story is horrifying but is it not where many people see us going? Now this story shows many different things that we can all relate to seeing such as, the greed for money that we can see in our society today, “It is very easy to buy Americans. The mention of money brightens them like a shot of drugs” (pg.613). Sexuality is depicted in this story as to show that the Arabs see us American women as sex symbols for the American men, as he says “Like all American women, she was dressed in a way intended to provoke lust.” It is a sad truth but is that not how some women get what they want? like we say here in America “sex sells.”  There is some hostility between the Americans and foreigners in this story but as long as there is something in it for them they throw that issue to the side. They speak of how America always was giving away money and helping other countries out then they get the blame when Moscow was blown up by some “Afghani terrorists,” Charlie persisted that the Americans had something to do with Moscow.  Towards the end of the story Charlie basically sets up Boston by sharing some lethal cocaine that was laced with a virus. In the story towards the end Charlie shows that religion is why he did what he did to Boston and to himself he killed a man for god. Now tell me what you think about this story it has more depth into it than I can write about but I have my reasons for believing some of this as well as other things but I am only human, so did this story really end on a religious note or did it all come down terrorism?

UPDATE:
       In class we went over these stories and our professor gave us an insight to the story "We See Things Differently" and she was telling us that Boston might have been the President in this time where politics and everything else is no longer standing but a Rocker who is well protected as a President would be as well as looked upon by the people the same way. If this is true than we see why Charlie shared the cocaine with him and basically killed him and it was all to keep America down when they were finally starting to get back on their feet slowly. The title of "That Only a Mother" is very ironic to the story because as the saying goes "he/she has a face that only a mother could love, in the story you see the denial that the mother has towards her daughter's mutation and still thinks she is perfect. These stories became more revealing when we discussed them more and depth and it is always interesting to see how my classmates perceive of the story and what they find that others did not notice.

Blog set 2

Alien or Human? As I read “Passengers” by Robert Silverberg and “Out of All Them Bright Stars” by Nancy Kress, I asked myself what makes these so called encounters different from how we as humans are? So as I continue to read on I see that these two stories has differences in why these “passengers” or “blue men” are here on earth for. In Passengers the aliens are these beings that come out of the sky and take over our body, which I find disturbing, and in Out of All Them Bright Stars they are not sure why these “blue” aliens are here on earth. Aliens as some of us have read or heard about over the years are always trying to take over earth or trying to make so called peace with us and yet in each story we humans are at war automatically due to the unknown which I assume many people are afraid of the unknown so are flight or fight instincts kick into high gear and we don’t know what to do with the unknowns that have invaded our earth but prepare for war.

There was a quote that had me thinking while I read the story Passengers and it was more of a question the main character Charles Roth said which was “leaving me the illusion of freedom,” (pg.434) and as I read that part it stuck with me imagine walking around not knowing if you are free or have a “passenger” inside and never feeling free. The thought of someone just letting you have that “illusion of freedom” is cruel in many ways, the main character Charles Roth is pretty strong minded to my viewing because in many other cases if that was to happen to you or someone you know you would think they would have gone mad by now and I would not blame them these “passengers” have no pity for humans and enjoy using them for their own pleasures.

The second story Out of All Them Bright Stars by Nancy Kress is shorter than the first story but leaves you with many questions such as “why are these blue beings here on earth” or “why does the blue guy want to eat a salad” and so many more but to answer some of those questions I would need more details I feel that the story was vague to some degree. There was that last sentence in the story where Sally Gourley the main character in the story was thinking back to what the blue guy said to her before he left which was “I seldom have the chance to show our friendliness to an ordinary Earth person. I make so little difference!” she makes inferences in what he says that she believes he is lying when he said “I make so little difference!” I was more curious in why they do not let him express that he is friendly and just trying to get to know us “ordinary earth persons”. Maybe the government knows that they are friendly and maybe just really do come in peace but they probably want the public to be on edge and scared of these “beings” on earth and to not trust them for fear that we will welcome them if we truly knew what they were here for.

These two stories combine and make a statement in what I call seeing through our eyes and not knowing what “they” see through their eyes. Who knows maybe they are friendly or just want to inhabit our bodies until then we may never know.

UPDATE:
   In class we discussed the previous stories and it actually gave me more insight to them such as in Out of All Them Bright Stars there was details in which depict things still going on in our country today such as racism and feminist, even though that is in the past there are people who still feel that way. When we spoke as a class I got more of the meaning behind the story than when  I had read it alone. We also spoke about if we thought the stories are a mirror to our world or a window? I think that in the Passengers, that it is a window because that has never happen to me or have I heard of such thing besides in the story, I think that as a person we would not tolerate what was happening to us as the characters in the story were doing. Overall after the class discussion it has changed my view on the stories making them more clearer to me as the reader what the author is trying to get at in the story.

Introduction

    Hey Everyone!!! My name is Priscilla and I am glad to have met you all on our first day of class. I picked this class because the theme of it intrigues me and I wanted to know more about it. I am an open-minded person, I love to read books and sometimes I read comics, as well as manga. The genres that I am mostly interested in are supernatural, fantasy,and some Sci-Fi. If it sounds interesting or peaks my interest I will read it no matter the genre, so you can say I enjoy a little bit of everything when it comes to books. I am also a cosplayer, if some of you are wondering what is cosplaying? well in brief detail it is when you dress-up as a character from an anime,comic book, movie, or TV show and you go to conventions and can act out the part of your character or just have fun being someone else for a day or two. It is fun for those who are open-minded about things like that. As for favorite TV shows or anime, my latest top list are Orphan Black, American Horror Story, and I just finished sadly Sons of Anarchy which I will miss. As you can see my liking of TV shows ranges from different genres. I can't wait to read everyone's blogs, and see what you guys are interested in as well, hey who knows we all might have something in common, probably not but that's what makes us all unique. So this is a little piece of who I am, I hope it gave you some insight into what I like and also what I wish to receive from this class will be to find more authors to read more of and to see all the interesting things we will get into during discussions or activities in class.