Tuesday, October 18, 2011
This Week's Readings
So, judging from the other blog posts, I'm not alone in being a little bit confused by some of the stories. But really, I didn't find them too bad. I did feel like Under the Moons of Venus and Elegy both had an opposite style to Chiang's stories, in the sense that where Chiang over-explained the details I didn't want to know about, these authors seemed to not explain the things I wanted to know more about. In particular, I was fascinated with the concepts of the Plague Gods; I would have loved to have a little bit more backstory, maybe even a full novel based around that sort of storyline, as opposed to a metaphorical lesson sort of story. Was I the only one that wanted these to be more than just "short stories"?
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I really do like the idea of them and would like to see more. These authors definitely had a different style to Chiang's, although maybe not quite the opposite. Rajaniemi definitely took a different approach, relying on the reader's familiarity with the concepts involved so that he could tell a story that had some mystery to it. Broderick had hints of Chiang, though, especially with the explanations of the different theories near the end. The main difference is that Chiang uses his stories as a way to follow a line of reasoning about an idea, basically teaching it, making an argument, and telling a story at the same time. The structure, style, and plot of his stories reflected those ideas, so he made sure that the readers understood the idea and followed the thought process involved. Broderick's story was much more about the characters, and he only used that style when his characters were reasoning out an idea. Rajaniemi was very different, using ideas that would make sense to readers who had seen them elsewhere, but telling the story through the eyes of a character with no technical or theoretical knowledge to give everything a sense of mystery and fantasy.
ReplyDeleteI have been enjoying all of these stories so much that i'm trying to work my way through the ones that we skipped. most have been pretty interesting, a few i could have done without.
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