Blog Entry #6

The future we see in the world of "Burning Chrome," is, in my mind, the dated but still rich-of-context outlook the older cyberpunk writers of the early eighties would write, where it's about the blending of worlds, one inside the computer called "cyberspace," where all collective information is computerized, and second the world of reality in which they live, where dystopian skyscrapers that loom over them reminding them of usually corporate overpower. Now I know that sounds exactly like the world we live in, but for a majority of the story you can tell that it is written before the days of the Internet, especially with using the term"cyberspace," to describe what a virtual collective of all the worlds information on one place anyone can access if they have the right equipment and codes to get it. Speaking of who has the codes and equipment, the man with power in the story is the criminal mastermind Chrome, whom has control of all the money that criminal organizations have to send through him to which he send through the cyberspace. Usually, as with most cases of cyberpunk, The men with control of the money usually have the most power, regardless of what kind of crazy hacking someone might do. Regardless if you're a genius hacker, I believe Tony Montana said it pretty well in Scarface...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ7HZATMKBY



Oh my god, do you know how refreshing it is to read a story with kids that actually sound like kids actually talk? I watch too many films where they choose to instead think of a well enriched character background that they forgo any of those traits and head straight for muddled exaggerations and stereotypes, and to show the world of Cyberpunk through a young little girls eyes are quite spectacular. I get the feeling like I, along with the girl, are exploring these different area's of the place not with disgust or fear, but of wonder and curiosity. She has no idea the processing center her father took to would do anything bad to her possibly, especially when she is told by her father that her mother is apart of the processing system as a part that tells commands to the CPU. The choice the writer makes to be very oblique with how to describe the universe is one I find really powerful, with such a young character who doesn't know anything about the realities of her world, we are taken along for the ride (so to speak) in finding out more of her universe as she goes through it. Also, the fact that readers can pick up on certain things that the main protagonist can not also leave the reader with a much more insightful view on the universe without taking or giving any abilities to the main character. It's the type of Sci-Fi that gets me excited to go to class to talk about it, so I hope the conversation for this one is wonderful!

Blog Post #5

Mmmm, microwaves...I'm just kidding, I am actually not the biggest fans of stuff to come out of a microwave, but in this story by Issac Asimov, "Reason," microwave signals tend to be utilized in a much different way. In this story, what I thought was the most interesting aspects of the story were the connections I could make to cult like religions on earth and the ignorance within one to survive, as well as the human nature to not alter a situation that might seem bad overall in the long run, would rather wait till the situation stops benefiting them and in turn start to handle the situation. The first aspect, when Cutie is to be believed to be a "messiah," and that "There is no Master other than The Master, and QT1 is his Prophet" signal a parallel to all religions at the time, and with the unquestionable certainty on what they believe to be true and an unwillingness to realize otherwise, they continue to do the work they were sent to do, only to believe that they aren't working for Powell and Donovan, and that no planets or stars or any other being aside the prophet is what they work for. It also seems odd to me that for a story that is seemingly anti-religion that is the complete opposite of how most modern anti-religious writing would turn out. I would say that for the most part, Asimov points to the fact that the robots who follow the new religion are in fact using reason, but choosing to be ignorant of certain facts to progress. It gives a less stark and more humanistic approach toward the views of the robots, giving them more ability to connect with the reader and being able to express it's context in a more vivid manner. The other aspect I found interesting is the lack of effort Powell and Donovan end up showing once they find out that regardless if the robots followed the humans or their new religion to get their work done. I mean, I understand not wanting to mess with a good thing, but when the world relies on these robots to do it's work, as well as the fact that they know the robots think planets such as earth are pointless. Wouldn't you as a human want someone to check up on the robots and make sure they work as we programmed? It could be a symbol for the way humans lack the desire to affect any change unless it has a direct benefit towards themselves, emphasizing our attention on the most selfish of desires. It's not a sign that we're bitter and cold, but that when things get a little out of our hands, our hands won't be big enough to handle the next bigger issue to come, and it just goes downhill from there...

I dunno, I know Stanley Kubrick wanted A.I to be his next movie to work on right after Eyes Wide Shut in '97 and I just am surprised. It sounds to me a little like a mix of Pinocchio with Artificial intelligence and for a guy who has made some of the most intelligently conceived films to date, this seems much less cerebral of a story as it is an emotionally driven one, but that doesn't mean it is bad in any way. I found myself enjoying the story, and the fact that the mother feels so isolated and adrift even when she has the boy she always wanted, you can tell through her actions that David isn't really the boy she always, "wanted," more like the boy she was able to get that seemed closest to what she wants, with a father doing all he can to work and provide her with the happiness he believes she deserves. The connections to robot/human emotional spectrum are made as in all A.I based stories usually have, and I think this story is more along the line of Science fiction rather than Science fiction...

Blog Post #4

When people think of the small issues in their lives, they manifest into much bigger anxieties and can cause us to lose sight of the important things in life. We think the fact that we weren't able to pick up milk after work and having to drive home in traffic on the way home from their is an abomination against humanity and, oh the trauma...That kind of over thinking about the small stuff is exactly what H.G Wells' story 'The Star' tries to express, except he uses an asteroid altering much of the earth's ecosystem and environment to make them realize that the little stuff isn't important at all. These kinds of stories about asteroids heading straight for earth with the possibility of immediate annihilation are frequently used to constantly purvey the feeling as if you are about to die, and that all the small, minor arguments and struggles seem stupid in the first place and that we need to come together as humans on earth to thwart the imposing threat. I would say that this story much more elegantly handles such a topic better than schlock-miester Michael Bay or Roland Emrich would be able to express within one of their scripts about impending doom, but it lacks the personal touch seeming as we don't get to really connect to any one particular character or how they deal with the struggle, which would have added more desire for me to read more, but overall it's a solid sci-fi story that set the standard for ages...

Ahhhh...Don't you love the sound of your own voice sometimes? Especially when you were asked by someone you find very interesting and unique a question that pertain to one of your favorite interests and you had trouble shutting up for hours and hours and hours and hours and...you see where I am going with this yet? The ability to speak is one of the few things as humans I believe we should never take for granted. Their are many issues in the world today with violence over freedom of speech and to think that acts of terrorism would be the thing to rid these rights is a scary, yet not unrealistic thought. In the story "Speech Sounds," a lot of what Octavia Butler is trying to express deals with how humans deal with trauma and loss through a world riddled with a mass pandemic, loss of most communication abilities, as well as no societal structure for people to rely on to survive. None of what I just mentioned isn't prevalent in our lives, which is why this story is very effective in evoking themes from my life in my head that I can relate to the main character. If I was one of the few people that could talk, and one of the few men that seemed trustworthy was one of the first to speak to her as well as help her avoid dangerous territory, I would be very tempted to have sex with them in that immediate moment, just due to the fact that life feels much more on a time limit when in constant danger than when you don't have to worry as much about your safety. I don't only see myself within the main character, but I see tidbits of our struggles in the real world inside her story, and I find that to be a little disconcerting...

Blog Entry #3

Within the first short story, "That Only a Mother," I felt as though I was tricked by the teacher into believing I had read the wrong story, or at least that the collectors of Science Fiction stories had made a large mistake in putting somewhat of a psychological family drama in this pantheon of Sci-Fi short stories, but after one or two re-reads of the material, I started to notice some of the key aspects that define the work as nothing but Science Fiction. The story is set in 1953-1954, and as Maggie reads in the special newspaper, its set around the continuing Atomic Bomb struggle in a World War III type scenario, leaving most of the newborns to have immense mutations, leaving the normalcy rate very small for babies being born after the attacks had started. The mother, Maggie, is trying to keep correspondence with her husband as she is trying to deliver their baby around this time, and as the baby is born and grows, she starts to notice a rapid growth in the babies intelligence but not in her motor skills. She tells the husband this, only the correspondence continues without much change in positive tone until the father finally comes back home after four years of being away and finally sees that the baby is actually mutated and has no limbs whatsoever. The reason I wanted to regurgitate all of that context was to show you that throughout the telegrams that Maggie sends Hank, It is only till the 29th of February do we notice Maggie begins to lie to Hank about the state of their child. We can see as the messages chronologically after that date, she consistently starts or ends a telegram stating how either the hospital had told him misinformation (if they told him anything at all), or that they don't know what they are doing and that the baby is fine. Why she lies, I can only interpret as a mother striving at all costs to cope with the immense trauma of nuclear mutation to the child she gave birth too by deluding herself to believing that her baby is healthy without it, especially since the intelligence of the baby is through the roof. If it was your own child and you found out this kind of information, would you not fight at all costs to keep it, even causing yourself to believe things that are just unlikely to be true. The husband, Hank, probably would have been more okay with finding out this kind of stuff through his wife, but the fact that she misleads him and herself in her own delusions, crushes Hank. I think the story has it's roots set in fear of the A-bomb of the late 40's and can be seen as a cry for peace as the thoughts of families bringing themselves to this kind of mental struggle due to things they themselves couldn't avoid due to purveying violence within the world, causing people to feel helpless, delusional, and paranoid, all of which work very well within the Science Fiction genre.

I guess the running theme within these stories are alternate realities in which the United States of America has just gone into turmoil, but this for other reasons. In this story we grasp that Large Corperations want to destroy the country that let them flourish, the Russians have dissolved and Arab's have a stronghold similar to the power they had during the middle ages and want to destroy the companies. Although those are huge themes, we follow the character Sayyid Qutb, whom is a terrorist preparing for a suicide attack within America. I find this story to be much more in the genre of Science Fiction that I am use too, closer to the dystopic kind of fiction I read in middle school in stories such as 1984 and Watchmen, except in this it seems to want to put the reader in the perspective of the terrorist to show you that his anger stems more from smaller corrupt acts like grimy customs officers to show that it's smaller acts like that added with the outside worlds perception of events that lead him to do what he plans on doing. In doing so, it forces the reader to debate whether the actions taken out are worthy of doing or are wrong and mean. I can't say which is right or wrong, but what do you guys think, blog readers? Comment below and let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!

Blog Entry #2

I find myself in a very weird place...and no I have not been taken over by a passenger within the last 48 hours...At least that I know of. This week we delve into the stories "Passengers" by Robert Silverberg and Nancy Kress' "Out of All Them Bright Stars," to discuss the alien encounter trope, and how the relations between humans and the aliens are played out the way they are in each story, as well as other human relations. In Silverberg's "Passengers," The story is about a man living in a world where their is a freak occurence when some other-earthly entity enters the human mind and force the person within the body and mind to blackout as they take control for random lengths of time, using the body for any which urge the entity wants to use it for, then leaves and the original person within the body comes back to consciousness. These entities are called Passengers, and give absolutely no rhyme or reason for the actions they choose to do within the bodies once they take over. In my opinion, I believe that the Passengers stand as a metaphor for the uncontrollable urges humans act upon without reason, and that most of the humans apathetic and content ignorance to the problem within the story is just a symbol for the ignorance most humans hold within daily life about a lot of the odd habits and urges humans have without much reason. Throughout the story it is shown that they live in a world bolstered with reliance on technology for most things in their life (I.E the purple liquid, the main character asking the device in the beginning what time it was, other news, etc.), and that within this convenience grows a lack of desire to try and attempt to deal with issues or tasks that require any form of skill. I would say that the other story has a bit of a different spin as to what could happen with the Alien-human interaction. In that story, their is a huge amount of symbolism to the racism issues that we deal with on earth when in the story it deals with an Alien from another planet tries to interact with someone from Earth and they get rejected from being different, but also noticeable are the correlations to conformity as alluded when people get mad at the woman that wants to help the Alien life form at the restaurant, and she decides not to help it because of what the other people might do, even though she knows they are in the wrong. Either story, you get the idea that Aliens are to represent either a thought or person or thing we generally find not comforting to deal with or understand, but could symbolize the very things we need to understand about ourselves to progress and become better human beings. Who knew it would take an Alien to figure that out...

Blog Entry #1

Greetings blog readers, my name is Mitch and you have just stumbled upon a blog of my thoughts on readings given to myself from a science fiction class instructor. I can not promise that this blog will only pertain opinions on the readings, but I promise that the tangents based on other miscellaneous aspects of my life and opinion will be introspective and thought provoking enough for you to keep reading. I am 20 years old, going for my AA and hopefully will be able to continue writing in my spare time. The main reason why I took this course was to pick an elective that was both something I needed to fill out a certain part of my degree audit, as well as something that would peak my interest in reading further, and this seemed to satisfy both requirements really well. Although I am fairly well versed in movies and certain books I am fairly unfamiliar with most of what the genre has to offer. I personally love specific Sci-fi films such as Under the Skin, Videodrome, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Brazil, Time Bandits, and others within the genre, but I'm fairly unlearned in many of the Fantasy as well as Horror genres of literature and film. I am also hoping with the progression of the class material that I will be able to become vastly whelm myself with all new kinds of books and movies to watch and discuss about. I am always a person that doesn't like to shut up about movies and books, especially if it's one I find very complex and open to different variations of interpretation, so if out of the plethora of other blogs on Sci-fi literature you find yourself wanting all of the things listed above, you've come to the right place. Thank you for reading, and I'll be posting again real soon.