Literature of Horror, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy- Jay Burns

For this week I read All At One Point by Italo Calvino. I definitely saw a lot of similarities in this with Aquatic Uncle that we read in class. I think it's really interesting to take the concept of the first atoms in the universe before the Big Bang and the way the author goes about it also makes it a compelling story and not just an entirely  scientific reading. However, there are still elements to it that make it feel like you're reading something slightly scientific . Things like including exactly how the universe was created, using a lot of scientific phrasing, and even just their names hinting to the names of atoms and molecules. It's obviously not entirely scientific though because it's just a short story about an atom "living" with all the first atoms. They get personified, as well, talking about one character being busty and another having overalls, even though we know atoms don't have human characteristics. It kept switching between talking abou

This week I read I Live With You by Carol Emshwiller. I wouldn't say this story has much to do with majoritarian culture or anything like that. There wasn't anything in the story that really talked about how other people live in different situations. The story was mostly just about the common fear that someone is secretly living with you in your home. However, it was much more than just the mild feeling that someone is living in your house. The person very clearly did things in the home, often nice things, to help the person out. This made their presence just noticeable but not noticeable enough for the person to call the police. It was also strange in the fact that it was told from the stalkers point of view, not the person being stalked. This provided a new and possibly scarier perspective to the narrative showing the thought processes of someone that's just messing with you to mess with you and nothing else for no reason. It was also interesting how it ends with the pers

1) What is your reaction to the text you just read? I thought it was a very interesting concept, the thought of what happens to people and Earth generations after an alien invasion (at least that what I thought it was). It was also very disgusting and graphic, however, and really made the concept intriguing and believable. I was confused at first what exactly the relationship between the Terras and Tlics but after a while it became clear that Tlics were kind of the caretakers of Terras and watched over them so one day they could be the host to their parasitic offspring. I also through it was really cool how they went about making this giant centipede character motherly and not monstrous. The way the main character perceives this giant bug like creature that lays eggs inside people as not a threat is an interesting concept on how people might adapt to being taken over after several generations. 2) What connections did you make with the story? I made the connection of how people might

Paprika, directed by Satoshi Kon, seems to take reality and then mess with every little aspect of it as much as it can. It is such a trippy movie that it can be even overwhelming at some points because it is so far from how we perceive the world that we can't even wrap our heads around whats happening. Some might find the movie jarring but I felt the way they go about it is intriguing and mixed with the gorgeous animation its hard to take your eyes off of it. It's all about phycology and the formats of dreams. This in someways almost makes the movie relatable to the viewer because everyone has experienced dreams and seen how nonlinear they can be. It really is true to the feeling of a dream which nonsensical things are happening but they somehow also make sense at the time. At the same time it also gives us a visual of someone having a complete mental breakdown and losing touch with reality. It's almost as if it wants us as the viewers to be able to connect that feeling to

This week I read  the beginning of The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin . This novel obviously has a lot to do with the idea of war and "modernization". The main character, Genly Ai wants to bring the Gethenian people to join Ekumen, which is a group of planets that talk peacefully with each other, kind of like the League of Nations. However, the culture of the Gethenians is confusing to the people who want them to join their organization. This is a example of how colonizing countries will always have different cultures and is hard for them to understand. It is also very cool to see a book from the late 60's talk about gender and lack of gender as that is now something becoming very prevalent in our culture today.  Another thing that so far seems to be a pretty important idea in the book is the idea of monarchies and how kings don't see things from a rational perspective. He even fires his Prime Minister because he trusts neither the Prime Minister, Therem H

The Martian is considered to be one of the first Mars stories that is actually probable to reality, no monsters or aliens or anything like that. It is based of science and even tries its best to be as realistic to what living on Mars could be like. I think while reading this book I found it was an interesting an original mix between sci-fi and non-fiction. It was almost documentary in that is was documenting how Watney planned on getting through his time on Mars and trying to survive. In non-fiction, it stays as true to life as possible, many non-fiction stories being autobiographies or documentary style stories. It goes through his thought processes in a rational way and doesn't seem outlandish like most other science fiction stories. It could even be debated that The Martian is more of a science non-fiction than a science fiction novel. Although the story it tells is falls, it barely fits into the rest of other science fiction stories in how realistic it is. Most of the time scie