JP Schiller: Lit of Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi

Midterm Total:    61 points Zoom Classes Attended: 6 out of 7 classes  (6 points) Official Readings:  ( 41 points total)  ( Links directly to the blog post are embedded as well) * = JP's Absolute Favorites * Frankenstein by Mary Shelly (6 points) Interview with a Vampire   (6 points)  A Wild Sheep Chase (6 points) * Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (6 points) * Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (5 points) * The Hobbit (6 points) The Night Circus (6 points) Extra Credit Readings/Viewings:   (14 points total) Frankenstein 1931 Film   (1 point) Gothic: A Lecture   (1 point) * The Haunting of Hill House   (5 points) Nosferatu   1922 Film   (1 point) * Uzumaki Vol. 1 & 2   (6 points) 

  The Night Circus (6 Points) The prompt for this week's novel will be my focus, as I feel I spoke much of my opinions and general thoughts during the zoom class. So, what values are being expressed within this work? Morgenstern is not as clear cut about how her magical world works when compared to the works of J.K. Rowling, and I believe it is entirely for the better. But it doesn't make my job to deciphering what kind of values Morgenstern wants to impress upon her audience. There are no magical houses or forces that show the black and white sides of good and evil, but rather Morgenstern's circus contains both colors as well as the shades of grey in between. Only upon writing this now did I realize that the colors of the circus could also be a representation of Morgenstern's intent to depict a world that is no so simple as to be good versus evil. In fact, this story doesn't really seem to hinge on a true moral dilemma other than the fact that there is an ambiguous...

  The Hobbit (6 Points) I had always felt like a liar when it came to talking about my fondness for fantasy. Especially when it came to Middle Earth, where I had only ever gained any knowledge about it from the films. I'd stubbornly tell myself that I would read all the books when I'd see the film playing or when hobbits came into the conversation. All throughout middle and high school, I'd pick up the first volume of "The Lord of the Rings" Trilogy and open to the first page, and then my thoughts would drift away from the book and back into the real world. By junior year, I had sworn off trying to read the books out of frustration when I just couldn't grasp that the ink on the page was words. I was pretty confused at the difficulty digesting the prose provided, as I was an avid reader with relatively high reading ability, but had been drifting farther and farther away from it in time.  So when I received this assignment, it was with a lot of dread. Even thoug...

  Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (5 Points) Although there were a lot of similar concepts shared alongside other magic-based fictional books, this novel absolutely blew me away. I want to talk about the story itself, the main character, and the structure of magic. I was pleasantly surprised that this book was within the young adult genre because I had never seen or heard of it before and would love for this book to be shared among younger generations especially within the African American youth. Because it was a young adult, this book also did very well at getting to the point quickly and not lingering on less important elements, which made the story feel much easier to digest and understand. Even though I am entirely ignorant of the culture of Nigeria, it wasn't too difficult to keep up with specific references or terms because the main character was very accommodating in her explanations that both provided information without completely overloading the story. Okorafor also di...

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (6 Points)   Now, this is the type of horror/science fiction/alteration of humanity storytelling I'm into! Overall loved this book and it was the first time in a while where (as I listened to the audiobook retelling) I looked up from my seat working to realize that I was unsure how much time has passed and what was going on around me and was instead engrossed in the story. Which was awesome! (Well, aside from my instantaneous panic of thinking I'd listened so long that I'd missed my class when in reality I'd only listened for an hour or two.) I've never forgotten a book that has don't its job so well in transporting me into a different time and space, and I truly hope that I'll never forget this one. To start off, this book was very inventive on how the storytelling didn't always follow a linear pattern and established that this was written in the style of a recollection, rather than a regular narrative that is constantly ...

Uzumaki Vol. 1 & 2  (6 Points)   Well, I'll start by saying that I don't think I'll ever look at snails the same way again. But what an incredibly horrifying read! To preface, I really enjoyed the two volumes overall and was very happy to be so utterly disturbed by graphic novel works. I had previously been recommended the volumes by many friends and colleagues before, but our deep dive into different horror novels gave me enough courage to dive into Ito's evocative works. I have no regrets after reading the series (besides regretting trying to eat during a few chapters) and found it to be a much more suspenseful and haunting read than A Wild Sheep's Chase . There's a ton of things I'd like to touch on, but I'll try to maintain some brevity so whoever is reading this doesn't end up staying all day for it. To start, I want to consider the characters and the town. I felt a huge and obvious difference right off the bat in the sense of cultural tradi...

  A Wild Sheep Chase (6 Points) Haruki Murakami's novel was a very strange reading for me and unlike anything I'd ever read before. Whether that's a good or bad thing is very much up for debate, but I will say I'm glad I read it nonetheless. Truth be told, I'm not sure I was able to glean much satisfaction from reading the book at all and found much of the dialogue and descriptions of the settings and events very hollow and empty. Of course, it also did feel very intentional in terms of the writing, and I understood the book a bit more after our discussion in class.  Concepts such as a "hollow person," the loss of self-identity, and isolation were all very prevalent concepts in this book, and I feel like much of my discomfort with the novel was that it reflected on a fear that is much more realistic and existential than I had ever anticipated from the reading. Not many people like to dwell on the meaning of their lives or realized just how lonely they migh...