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

  Artemis by Andy Weir (6 Points) After reading "The Martian," I was pretty intrigued by Weir's work and decided to double back during the jump into Cyber/Steampunk to see what this moon-based book was all about.  I'll start by saying that I have mixed reviews overall of the novel but let's start with the bad: I genuinely believe that Weir gave their own best effort in writing a strong female protagonist, and absolutely flunked it. It basically felt like his character, Mark Watney, had put on a woman-of-Muslim-descent-suit and then traveled out to a moon colony. Many of the interactions, dialogue, and overall emotional responses of the main protagonist, Jazz, just never felt genuine as a young woman surviving on a diverse moonbase, let alone a human being sometimes. Like, she would get close, and then immediately swerve into an over-exaggerated and overly-testosteroned version of what she could have been as a character: strong-willed, independent, and incredibly s...

Babel-17 (5 Points) Alright, there is a ton to unpack here. Firstly, I was completely blown away to learn that this book had been written in the 1960s, and went into the reading believing that it was a contemporary work from the writing alone! (Sure the beauty of the main character being described as "Oriental," children playing marbles, and the phrases like "coal scuttle" should have given it away, but I'm fairly bad at distinguishing these things.) Overall the book was a bit in an out for me and felt very much that I was trying to decipher the language of the novel just as much as the main protagonist was trying to learn about Babel-17. While I found the world-building and spectrum of alien characters to be incredibly fascinating, it was also all very terribly confusing. Which lead me to think that this book was published closer to our current time with its explorative and innovative writing techniques. It definitely didn't feel like a realistic science fi...

 The Martian (6 Points) What are the three things I enjoy about survival stories? One, I like a character that stares the statistically chances of death in the face, shrugs their shoulders, and continues trying to live. Two, I enjoy a setting where the environment actively work against the main characters survival, but still hold hope to save the main character as well. Three, the reuniting of an isolated character back into society with other humans that provides the audience with relief as well a delivering satisfaction. Other key factors to the enjoyment of survival stories is creating realistic scenarios (or at least making it sound believable enough to the audience that they can suspend their disbelief) for the character to survive, as well as how admirable a main character reacts under pressure. This story pretty much had it all, as well as an incredibly funny and relatable main character who the audience roots for from beginning to end. But let's get to the Sci-Fi of it: Thi...

 Anansi Boys (6 Points) Well, I'd certainly say the Gaiman has woven quite a story here, and like many other works of his that I've encountered; these stories always defy the norms of typical fantasy genre by creating a harmonious and often humorous balance between the aspects of the real world as well as the fantastical. I think a lot of the ways that Gaiman seems to deviate from the standards of fantasy is that the real world remains very present and tangible throughout the story, and even characters, places, or objects that are imbued with magical influence or knowledge still have a very tangible feeling to them. I also enjoy that Gaiman doesn't waste time explaining too much of the magic or writing the main characters actual feelings or thoughts, but instead lets their actions throughout his writing speak for itself, and even conversations the characters are brief and succinct. When the fantastical elements are presented by Gaiman, the characters in the world and the au...

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...