Week Fourteen: Science Fiction Parody and Satire

‘I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus’ was made by The Firesign Theatre in 1971. It is a comedy recording and it is actually the first time I listened to this kind of thing. At first, it was kind of confusing to me because there is no picture or anything but I think the recording is really amazing for people in 1971. I can easily imagine the pictures and everything myself, I kind of know that it took place in some science or future fair because there are a lot of robotic sounds and the characters interacted with them throughout the story recording. It is pretty funny because I feel like the main characters didn’t know what were they doing because all the future and robotic stuff are so new to them so they made a lot of mistakes which entertaining for the audiences. Curiosity is a very powerful thing in my opinion but it is also dangerous. Curiosity is a strong desire to learn or know something which means people try things that they don’t even know if it is safe or not. Because of curiosity, people try new things and get out of their comfort zones which are nice and exciting but I also think that it is one of the reasons that cause some people to die young or cause problem or do stupid stuff.

Listening to recording is pretty fun and entertaining even if it is kind of hard to understand at first. The way all the sound were made in ‘I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus’ is great, it is amazing how they can created all kinds of noise. Those sound effects help me imagine the scenes, emotion, and movements.

Week Thirteenth: Literary Speculation

For this week I choose to read Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. The story is about Jimmy or Snowman, the protagonist of the story and his friend, Crake. The story has two main things. First, the science experiment by Crake and second, the triangle love relationship of Jimmy, Crake and Oryx. The story keeps leading me to think about our world in the future. What the advancement of technology and science will do to our world. It has both good and bad side, advantages and disadvantages but who knows what will happen? Nowadays, there are companies that producing many types of supplementary product to help people with their sickness or whatever they need but no one knows the long term effect of those products. For example, we will not know if the pills that we are taking when we are sick will mess our body up in the future when we are old. So, may be, in the future, our world will turn out to be what happened in the novel.

About writing in genre or use the elements of genre for Oryx and Crake, I think it is not necessary distinction. I think, to specific the genre of some novel that have many types in one is too difficult and not necessary. The reader will be the one who decide the genre of the book they read themselves because a novel can makes the readers have many different feeling toward it so it is not important what genre of the book is, the readers will be the judge.

I think Oryx and Crake is an interesting story. I like the science experiment part of it but I think the love story is kind of sad and it is bad to have affair with your friend’s lover or anyone’s lover. The author made the triangle love story into another level, tragedy. At the end, Jimmy was left alone and he has to survive in terrible situation which I think is kind of suck but he may be  deserve it after all. 

Week Twelve: In Class Assignment 'Blood Child'

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

What I felt after reading the story was disgusted. It was pretty sad an terrifying. I don't have clear picture of T'Gatoi but well, I think I just imagined the worst creature. It's kind of messed up how human and creature like T'Gatoi are being able to live together and human also know that the Tlic's purpose of getting close to human are to use them as host animal.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss elements of the story which you were able to connect.

I have the similar feeling when I read the vampires  stories couple months ago, how they have no choice but drink human blood to love and survive. As same as T'Gatoi, she doesn't have a choice either. She needs human to carry her eggs. The connection I make is similar with pregnancy. It is just as scary as having a baby and give birth to a child. Also, if I am T'Gatoi, I think I will feel like I have a pet, feed it, watch it grows up, and then killed it for food. The relationship of T'Gatoi and human is like human with animal in real world. I feel bad for T'Gatoi because she has no one, even humans that she trust, raise, feed, and take care of are thinking of hurting and killing  her. Gan doesn't know what she thinks about human, he doesn't know if she thinks of humans as her host animals, friends, or family, or even anything. He doesn't know what T'Gatoi is either and he is clearly scare of her at some point. He chose not to run away at the end because he has no choice too. If it is not him, then it will be his sister or brother and he doesn't anyone gets hurt like Lomas. If I am T'Gatoi, I will feel hurt inside if one day my pet bites me or something. I will feel like my pet betrays me but I also betray him too if I am thinking of eating him.

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What change would you make?

I would adapt this story into film because I think film is the easiest and the best medium to tell the story. It is also fun too. I would make T'Gatoi looks really disgusting but not too disgusting because I feel bad for her and I want the audience to feel the same way too. I will make her look like a mermaid or medusa, just some parts that look like humans to not gross the audience out. Another medium which I think it will be fun to adapt it with is to make it into game. Thinking about making a game about this story makes me kind of excited because it's so gross. If it is for game, I will make T'Gatoi super disgusting though because I want to make the player to Gan and he has to find a way for his family and himself escape from the Tlic. That would be fun, killing the Tlic and see them explode and stuff.

Week Twelve: Diverse Position Science Fiction

I read Lilith’s Brood. Lilith’s Brood is the Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia Butler. There are three novels in Lilith’s Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites and Imago. I choose to read Dawn, the first story in the series. The story is about Lilith Iyapo. Lilith is a human woman that awakened by the alien, called the Oankalis.  She woke up centuries after the war. The Oankalis want to interbreed with human so they made Lilith to be a leader of a group of human which the Oankalis helped.

In this story, Lilith is a middleman between humans and the Oankalis. Most of human doesn’t want to interbreed with the Oankalis and they want freedom. Lilith also wants to have freedom like other human but she also has some relationship with the Oankali. It is difficult for her to solve the problem.

Lilith’s Brood does reflect about the majoritarian culture. It is one of the important problem now too because the world is open wide for everyone to show their opinion in any way. People have freedom to think and decide what to believe on their own. This is important to someone who has duty to control, take care, and solve the problem for large group of people. For example, the government. The government needs to listen to the thought of people in the country and manage everything to make everyone be able to live together with peace.

Lilith’s Brood makes me wonder of the world in the future. I am pretty sure that there are real aliens around the galaxy and we are also aliens for them. What if the story comes true and all this stuff will happen to human? For the time in the future, I think it will cause a lot of problems but well, we have to find the way to live and survive. Now we just have to wait and see.  

Week Eleven: Cyberpunk and Steampunk

For this week I chose to read the novel, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.  It was published in 1992, which is older than me but the story is up-to-date, like it happens nowadays. The story is about technology that we use nowadays so that means Neal Stephenson is really good at imagine the future world from back then. Hiro is the protagonist of the story. He is a pizza delivery guy and a freelance hacker. He has to find a way to protect people from the virus named “Snow Crash”. Snow Crash is the virus that can hack human brains and make them mindless in real life.

In the real world, I think social media is like Snow Crash virus for us because internet sometimes brainwash people like Snow Crash virus hacks human brains. Some people just believe anything that is on the internet and social media can spread something very quickly by people forwarding it, even though, the person who forwarded it to another person might know the truth or not. The point is people do not know the fact of the thing they forwarded and they sometimes forwarded them to other people without thinking and unaware of the results and what will happen later on. When the news already spread around and everyone already believes what the internet said, people will no longer figure out the fact of that news, or even if the new fact come out, most of the people will still believe what they heard of read at first. That means the information they got from the internet are already bury deep inside their head and it makes people ignore the truth.

In summary, technology can make the world moving forward in both good and bad way, depends on what people choose to do. People need to learn how to use social media in the right way. They need to learn from their mistakes and think before they share something so we can move forward and make the world the better place. 

Week Ten: The Fiction of Ideas

Week ten, I read The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin. It is one interesting book! It’s about Genly Ai, the main character, who has a mission on the planet of Gethen. He has to convince the Gethenians to join the Ekumen. The strange thing is that the Gethenians do not have obvious gender. They are both male and female. Once a month they can become either male or female depending on their partners.

Nowadays, the world has changed and many things happened. I think there is no barrier between genders like the Gethenians in the story and everyone should be Genly Ai. We all should find the ways to gather everyone, every gender all together. In our world, there are many issues such as culture conflicts, religious conflicts, political problems, gender issues, and every other unnecessary thing that should not be the topics for people to argue about. So gender issues are not the only problem we have and all the same issues are happening in every places and everywhere in the world. This means all of these issues include many people; a lot of people, even a small family will have all kind of issues. The world is like a big family and we have many big problems to solve. To live peacefully together, everyone in the world is all involved to solve the problems.

We cannot tell or control anyone to be what we want, especially, their gender. We have to think and try to understand them not try to change them to make the world a better place. It is about humanity and what we human being can do to another human being.

The Left Hand of Darkness kind of led me to the new world, the world without barrier of gender and it makes me think of many things about the present world. In my opinion, this book is a really good book for everyone to read and start thinking about the new world which is the better world for the future.

Week Nine: Space Opera and the New Frontier

For this week, space opera, I read The Martian by Andy Weir. I never watched the movie and the only thing I know is that it is about a guy who is stuck in space. I read it and I found it interesting how the mood of the novel is kind of relaxing even though he should be panicking and everything because he is stuck in space alone and he will die soon if he has no food or water. Mark Watney is really funny, I feel like he doesn’t scared of anything, except dying of course. He is a chill dude and very positive. In my opinion, the novel is kind of heavy with scientific stuff, plus math. Some parts are hard to understand because of the science and math stuff.

The Martian has many different feels from many genres. There are many elements in the story that it takes from other genres. The first element that I found is that Mark Watney has to find his way back to earth, so I guess this can be includes in adventure genre because he is on a journey, a terrible journey to find his way home. Also, with Mark’s personalities and how he thinks and talks to other people in the novel, I think this will fall in comedy genre, it is entertaining and makes the story even more fun and relaxing. Space environment and science stuff make it into the sci-fi and science fantasy genre and it is drama because he has to deal with trying and struggling to survive.

The Martain is really entertaining, exciting, and fun to read in my opinion. I don’t know how the author created the story but it feels real to me and I like Mark, how he thinks and how he talks. His conversation with the people in NASA is really amusing. At first, I expected the Martian to be very serious and boring but it turned out that it is fun to read after all.