Texts for the spring fantasy class

Since y'all asked:

• Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins, 2008; HarperCollins, 2010)
• Terry Gilliam, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Sony Pictures Classics, 2009; Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2010)
• Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box (Morrow, 2007; Harper, 2009)
• Kelly Link, Pretty Monsters (Viking, 2008; Speak, 2010)
• Andrew Leman, The Call of Cthulhu (The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, 2005; Microcinema International, 2006)
• H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" (Weird Tales, February 1928; available in scores of collections and anthologies, and at hplovecraft.com)
• Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death (DAW, 2010; DAW, 2011)
• Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men (HarperCollins, 2003; HarperCollins, 2004)
• Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky (HarperCollins, 2004; Harper Trophy, 2005)
• Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith (HarperCollins, 2006; HarperCollins, 2007)
• Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight (HarperCollins, 2010)
• Jonathan Strahan, ed., The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 5 (Night Shade Books, 2011)

Just a thank you for the help

I would just like to say thank you to everyone for all the help that they gave me with the paper topic. Y'all gave me a lot of leads to look into and helped me get a better idea of where to take the paper. I also would like to say that many of y'all papers sound very interesting and it would be nice to see where you went with them. Once again thank you all for the help you have given me.

Paper Idea

Ok, so I think I have a concept for this paper, but would love some suggestions on outside sources I should use as well. I would like to take a closer look at the various ways zombies are depicted in literature (esp. sci-fi) and other forms of pop culture. I haven't seen the Walking Dead, so I probably won't use that, but there's a huge difference between Evil Dead zombies, zombies in The Naturalist, zombies in Boneshaker, and zombies in say, the video game Dead Space. Not just in how they are portrayed either, but their origins are vastly dissimilar as well.

What do you guys think about this topic?

Fond nerd-ish memory..

Did anyone ever go to homestarrunner.com and watch those videos or play the games? This was probably back early high school/late middle school for me. There was this one game where you were a knight and had to go conquer the evil monster, but you had to make sure to do everything right along the way with all of these commands. I vaguely remember rescuing a baby and then using it to retrieve something through a small hole. It was SO HARD because if you missed even one step you were screwed... I'm wondering if this was only my friends that did this. It was frustrating to no end.

El Mal Ajeno

El Mal Ajeno (For the Good of Others) was a movie that I watched in Spain as part of my Spanish Film & Lit class. Although at the time I found it ridiculously depressing, I also appreciated its depth and how much it forced me to think. It has an element of sci-fi/fantasy that really adds to the plot. If anyone can stomach subtitles or enjoys foreign film, I'd recommend this one. And of course Pan's Labyrinth is one of my all time favorite movies, Spanish or not. I've been perusing my Netflix Watch Instantly, but unfortunately I share it with my brother and all of the recommendations supposedly "for me" have been nature shows or slasher films. Can anyone recommend me something to get into? Thanks!

First I hope y'all enjoyed your Thanksgiving. I saw that some of others are also having trouble with this but I am going to post it anyway. I am having trouble coming up with a paper topic. I would like to write on the Cherie Priest novels but I am just not show on what to write about. If any of y'all have any spare ideas please let me know.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I missed everyone last week in class, and obviously we didn't have class this week. I can't wait to discuss paper topics with everyone (right now, I'm kinda drawing a big blank) and I also can't wait to watch these Dr. Who episodes! It's hard to believe that this semester is almost over, it's gone by way too fast.

If anyone cares to, I'd love to hear about some of the topics in Boneshaker and Dreadnaught that you guys tackled in class.

In honor of the end of this course...

Since we are done with all of our reading, we can actually read for fun now (not that these books haven't been amazing. I think they're better than the ones I've read for the Dark Fantasy course). Because we all love to read, here is my list of The Great Ones.

1) The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
2) The Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (aka Stephen King's son)

Both of these two were the absolute favorites of the Dark Fantasy class and I bet they stay on yalls syllabus for next semester. If not, read them. They are AMAZING.

3) anything by Meg Gardiner (not an actual book title; just a general statement). She is one of my favorite thriller authors. Stephen King sings her praises as well.

4) Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (I haven't actually read this one yet but I've heard great things about it and I'm tackling it this Christmas break)

YOUR JOB IS TO GIVE ME A LIST! I trust all of yalls taste. Yall are all smart and I've enjoyed this class because of yalls opinions. So pretty please give me a list of your top 3 must reads. Besides, I need to make a Christmas list for my mom. :)

So You Want to Watch Doctor Who: A Beginner's Guide to Time and Space

Ok, bear with me here, because this might get a bit long.

Doctor Who is a lot of things. It's an exciting sci-fi adventure, it's some of the wittiest writing on television, and it is very, very British. Another thing it is is very big. Having first been aired in 1963, it's one of the only shows that can boast being older than its current star. The fact that there's so much of it can make it really intimidating for new viewers, so here I'll try to give a basic background on the series, including a brief description of each of the eleven incarnations of The Doctor and a list of some of the best episodes to watch, and advice on where to start.

What it's about:

The show is about a mysterious humanoid alien who calls himself The Doctor, who can travel through time and space. He's a member of a race that call themselves the Time Lords, from the planet Gallifrey, who have mastered time travel better than any other species in the history of the universe. In the old series there were other Time Lords, but by the time of the 2005 reboot they have all been killed in the oft-referenced but never explained Time War, and the Doctor is, to the best of his knowledge, the only survivor. As a Time Lord, The Doctor has lived for centuries (he's currently 1103), is psychic to a certain degree, has two hearts, and is able to "regenerate" when he would otherwise die, changing his appearance and personality but retaining his memories (which originated as a way to keep the show going when the original actor playing The Doctor couldn't continue). He has a (stolen) time machine called the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space), which is dimensionally transcendental ("bigger on the inside", as people often observe), sentient (although it doesn't talk), and can change its appearance to fit in with any environment, but is currently stuck looking like a blue British police phone box from the 1950s due to a broken chameleon circuit. He also carries around his utility tool of choice, a "sonic screwdriver", which manipulates most relatively simple technologies through sound waves and basically acts as a plot device to make sure that The Doctor only gets stuck in a situation when the writers want him to. The last important thing to know about The Doctor is that he usually travels with a "companion", sometimes human and sometimes not, to provide someone who the audience can relate to and someone for The Doctor to have to save all the time. Sometimes he brings them along because he's lonely, sometimes they tag along against his will, and sometimes he sort of accidentally kidnaps them, but regardless of why they're with him the companions are an integral part of how the show works.

Doctor? Doctor Who?

Because The Doctor regenerates, a lot of different actors have played him (currently on #11), each with their own take on the character. Things they've always had in common are being extremely intelligent, quite witty, pacifistic (especially in the new series), and something of an intergalactic vagabond. Between different actors, different writers, and different directors, the show has been different at different times, gaining a new feel with each new Doctor. I'll go over the basics of what each one was like.

The First Doctor (William Hartnell)- A grumpy old man, somewhat resembling a professor. Starts out petty, selfish, and cowardly, but becomes nicer and more protective of his companions later on.

The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)- Almost clown-like in his dress and demeanor, the Second Doctor took himself much less seriously. His silliness and resentment of authority carried over into later Doctors. Played the recorder and carried an impossible amount of useful items in his coat pockets.

The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)- Suave and gentlemanly, he dressed like he was going to the opera. He was the archetypal action hero Doctor, and was less opposed to using violence. He was stuck on Earth without a working TARDIS for most of his run, having been exiled from Gallifrey.

The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)- The most long-running and well-known Doctor, he had big curly hair and a comically long scarf, and often offered people jelly babies (British candy, like gummy bears). He affected a goofy and bumbling demeanor, but was actually extremely secretive and deceptive, often pretending to be caught in an enemy's trap only to reveal that everything had gone according to his plan all along. Was elected President of Gallifrey for a while, but left. Had lots of horror and mystery stories.

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)- Dressed like he was playing cricket, with a sprig of celery pinned to his jacket. Noble and peaceful, he struggled with the fact that people around him kept dying.

The Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)- Dressed in bright colors, but was actually a much darker, more unstable version of the character. His default emotions were anger and self-satisfaction, and the show got much more violent during his run.

The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)- Famously had a straw hat, a question mark-shaped umbrella, and a vest covered in question marks. Started out bumbling and silly to tone the show down after the Sixth Doctor, but gradually grew to be ruthless, manipulative, and fiercely protective of his companion Ace. The show was cancelled after his run.

The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann)- Only appearing in a made-for-tv movie, he had long hair and a three-piece suit. Romantic and passionate, he reveled in life and gave people hints about their futures.

The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston)- The first Doctor of the rebooted series, he dresses and acts the most like a normal human, with a buzz cut and a leather jacket, and more of an ability to fit in where he travels than his predecessors. Full of survivor's guilt from the Time War, he could be dark and moody or disturbingly manic, but generally settled down into a laid-back, joking demeanor. Grinned a lot, and liked the word "fantastic". He only had one season, as Eccleston didn't like the way the show was being run and left on bad terms.

The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)- Competing with Tom Baker in popularity, he is the iconic new-series Doctor. Fast-talking, friendly, and witty, he's beloved by fans (especially female fans), and dressed in tailored suits, a pair of converse, and occasionally glasses that he didn't actually need. Pacifistic and occasionally melancholy, he would always give his enemies one chance to change their ways, but would coldly and methodically destroy anyone who didn't repent or who he thought irredeemable. Probably the most human and relatable Doctor.

The Eleventh (and current) Doctor (Matt Smith)- Dressed in a tweed jacket, suspenders, and a bowtie, he's an eccentric old man in a young man's body. Much more distant and alien (like the early Doctors) than Tennant, but shares his friendliness and tendency to ramble. Clever but absent-minded, he tends to miss important details of situations or social norms, all the while talking circles around anyone who bothers to listen. He's very excitable, and will latch on to anything he considers "cool" (his bowtie, a fez, a space helmet, etc). He also tends to go into a cold fury reminiscent of Ten when someone manages to anger him.

Where Do I Start?

This is the question that usually plagues people who are new to the series, since there's just so much of it (49 seasons overall!). My advice to you is, if you want to watch the show, start with the new series. It's a lot easier to get into, as the episodes are shorter, it's more fast-paced, and because it's a revival so many years after the original show was cancelled, it does a good job of introducing new viewers to the show. More or less any season of the new series makes a good point of entry (I started with Tennant's last season and worked backwards, and I still understood it), but I'd recommend the beginning of a new Doctor, so either Series 1, Series 2, or Series 5. If you start with 1, keep in mind that that season has quite a bit of silly plots and bad special effects, so anything that seems dumb or off-putting will probably be something that gets better as you keep watching. Series 2 is better-produced, but with the exception of a couple good episodes (and one great one) it's rather unmemorable, and you'll miss some elements of Series 1 that served to introduce new fans to the Whoniverse quite well (particularly the episode "Dalek"). Series 5 has a high budget and is very cinematic and well-made, and has a number of good episodes. Like series 2, it does help to introduce old elements of the Whoniverse to new viewers, but you'll still probably get more out of it if you've seen series 1-4. So I suppose my advice here is to try starting from Series 1 of the newly revived show, but if you find it hard to get into it, consider giving series 2 or 5 a chance.

If you want to experience Doctor Who but don't want to watch the whole thing, there are a number of stand-alone episodes that give a good sense of the style and feel of the show. If I get a bit of time later in the week, I'll post a list of recommendations.

Cover Art!

Jon Foster's art for this series is absolutely fantastic. It really does a good job of showing off the Steampunk aesthetic of the books, along with Priest's skill with description.

I was watching my roommate play Skyrim yesterday, expecting more dragons and fire-mages, when all of the sudden I realized he was in a steampunkish dwarve factory, complete with steam powered robot guys. Nice unexpected dose of sci-fi.

While it's clear there are visual steampunk elements in Boneshaker, I'm not sure if it defines the world Zeke and Briar live in. All the cyberpunk stories we've read displayed worlds where just about every aspect of human life is dominated by the advanced technology and dilapidated moral structure. What do you guys think?

They're making a Dr. Who movie!!

Read about it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/dr-who-movie-on-the-way_n_1093101.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

Also, I canNOT wait to talk about Boneshaker in class!! It is SO GOOD.

Boneshaker

Ooooooo.....yall this one is GOOD! I finished Boneshaker yesterday and wow. I loved this story. I don't want to give anything away so I'll save all the good bits for class but I do have one complaint. It's not so much a complaint as me whining though. I know Andy said that the sequel isn't really a sequel because it doesn't follow the same characters but I almost wish it would. I have grown attached to these characters and I want to know what happens to them!! I have a good enough guess for Briar and Zeke but what about the Doornails? I NEED TO KNOW!!! The epilogue is very unclear about this. Something I loved about this novel was that there was no love story. No one was wasting time "falling in love" which I appreciated. Don't get me wrong, as a girl I love a great love interest but I'm glad the author didn't just throw one in here to have a love element. I don't think it would have worked. That's something I wish other authors would realize too: you don't always need a love story. I think if there had been one, I wouldn't have enjoyed the story as much.

If this is how all steampunk novels are, then I want to read more of the genre. I still don't really quite understand what justifies the steampunk genre. How is it different from regular sci-fi?

And on a totally random note: this is the kind of story that should be made into a movie. This (to me anyhow) is new and different. When I think about the movies that are coming out now (Twilight in particular), I wonder why Hollywood would prefer to make the same old movies instead of something as cool and unique as this novel. When I was reading it, I was freaked out I-am-Legend-style so I could see it working on a scary movie level as well as sci-fi.

Times of Scarcity

Our discussion in class Wednesday really made me realize just how little I'm aware of what's going on in the world around me. You guys mentioned stuff about aquifer problems out west and whatnot for the water issues, something I hadn't even realized was currently an issue. As depressing as the atmosphere was, that class woke me up a little bit, and I feel like I'm more motivated to do productive things with my time to help ensure that, as selfish as it sounds, at least my own future isn't one that is actively dealing with scarcity.

Also, as a journalism major, I found it interesting when we discussed how the general public only seems to care about whatever problem the media focuses its spotlight on. That does seem to be somewhat of a problem, and I wonder when national media will focus itself more on at-home issues that need to be resolved instead of celebrity news and nonsense.

Did y'all know you can set your Google page to read in Klingon? There is also an option for Pirate. My life just got better.

Please correct me if I am wrong and just missed it while reading: but while reading The Windup Girl, I thought that it was strange that with all the technologies they had to genetically modify the seeds to be resistant to the plagues and the megodont that they still used springs to store energy. I just believe that there would be a more efficient way for them to store power then having to constantly rewind the springs. I may have just read over why it’s this way. Do any of you have any thoughts on this?

Two Bacigalupi quotes

Of the Paolo Bacigalupi interview excerpts published at Locus Online, two are especially relevant to today's discussion:

‘‘There are a lot of things in my writing that somebody can find to hate. If you’re looking for escapism, you’re not necessarily going to find it. If you’re looking for something really nifty and cool, you’re not necessarily going to find it. If you’re looking for an exploration of fears, you’re gonna find it! That’s where I work. Is the world going to fall apart? And if so, what is it going to look like? I’m interested in the process of us not getting our shit together.”

‘‘As adults, we’re stuck in this matrix of decisions that we’ve already made. If you’ve got a mortgage to pay and you’ve got your commute already set up, you keep getting in your car and driving even as you kill the planet. We’re unwilling to make the more difficult decisions that would pull ourselves out of that matrix. But when you speak to young people, you’re speaking to people who haven’t cast all their choices in stone yet. They still have options; it’s all in flux. So to have an opportunity to talk to them about the world that we’re handing off to them is really valuable, and really wonderful to me.”

Inheritance

Ok so I have the coolest boyfriend ever and for our one year he's getting me this final installment in the Inheritance cycle. Why I am blogging about it (when I normally wouldn't because electronic PDA is equally as yucky as the normal kind) is because I won't actually get the book until the 27th of this month. So if you do read it, please don't post anything about what actually happens without giving me some kind of warning/ spoiler alert notice. Since it comes out tomorrow I wanted to go ahead and post this.

On a different note: does anyone else dislike this week's reading? I think I'm a little biased from last year's group who went on and on about how much they hated it but I am having a difficult time trudging through this one.

Twenty Minutes into the Future

Here's something I meant to post about a while ago, but didn't get a chance to.

When you think of science fiction, you usually think of stories set far into the future with advanced technologies that would be practically unimaginable today. Some that we've read, though, especially Cory Doctorow's work, takes a very different approach, and uses a setting just barely ahead of when it was written, exploring technologies that are plausible based on current developments. This is actually something that I really like about Doctorow's work, because he uses it to extrapolate the implications of current events, be they legal proceedings or technological developments, into a world of science fiction. Good examples include Little Brother, which took the US political climate at the time it was written and applied it to technology just barely more advanced that what was really available, or "The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening" which extrapolated current developments in British copyright law into the fairly near future. Another example is Dollhouse, set only a few years after it aired, in which the only difference from the present day is the existence of the neural technology that drives the plot. This technique really allows an author to get readers to think about current events, or about the kind of changes to society that might occur given the technological possibilities of the near future. As much as I like the idea of exploring completely new and different worlds with science fiction, I do enjoy this approach every once in a while, especially when it's as well done as a lot of Doctorow's work.

Which does everyone prefer in their science fiction: the near future or the distant? Technology that's incredibly advanced, or currently plausible?

Remember, remember

Happy Guy Fawkes day everybody! And, of course, happy gameday!! ROLL TIDE!

PSA for all the girls!!!

So there is this website called pintrest and I think it definitely is in the spirit of Cory Doctorow. It is the girliest website in the world. Basically it shares all these pictures of everything from recipes to DIY projects to cute animals to fashion and then the links to find them on the web (thats the Doctorow part). It is worth taking a look at for sure. My roommates officially have me addicted but I'm still trying to figure it out (hence the poor description here).

The Things

I'm pretty confident that if I had never seen John Carpenter's The Thing, I would not have enjoyed this story as much. While it did a good job of retelling the story from the alien's point of view, a lot of what made the story so terrifying and moving is only to be found through watching the original. If you haven't seen the movie, I would definitely recommend watching it. The movie contains some of the best non-CGI effects you can find (which is why I paid no attention to the release of the recent remake).

Random Thought while reading "Sultan of the Clouds"

When the cities in “Sultan of the Clouds” are first described, the first thought I had is of an upcoming game called Bioshock Infinite. In the Bioshock universe, the first two games are retellings of the 1950’s in an underwater city named Rapture. In this time Line science has achieved the ability to allow humans to splice their genetics with plasmids which allow the user to have powers, i.e. telekinesis or shooting lightning from their hands. But But using too many different types of plasmids causes one to go crazy. The first two games are great and really have good stories, a lot of elements come from Ayn Rand. However, in Infinite the world has changed into floating towns connected by lines that you zip across. I know it’s kind of random but that was the first thing I thought of when they talked about the cities. Here is a trailer if anyone is interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDQ4FhslSk

The Hunger Games

So I just reread the Hunger Games series and once again, could not put it down. I think I read the first and second book each in a day. Part of what attracts me to the series is obviously the love story, but it also raises some interesting questions about our possible future. Children as pawns in the struggles of war is a key theme throughout and I find myself wondering if our society would ever sink so low. I think the reason that I prefer this series to Twilight is mainly because Katniss is not a weak and useless female lead. She takes charge but admits to her own faults, whereas Bella is a damsel in distress nearly all of the time. It reminds me of a quote by Joss Whedon (that maybe someone already posted here? is that where I saw it?) "Interviewer: So why do you write these strong female characters? Joss Whedon: Because you're still asking me that question. "

It's Not Over!

http://www.pottermore.com/

This is Rowling's extension to the books. I can't figure out how to get on the site! I thought it was supposed to open to the public yesterday, but apparently not. Otherwise, you have to sign up to be a beta member and then maybe you'll get an email invite. Anyways, I think the premise is that you read the books and extra stuff is added along the way. You get sorted when Harry does, and there are house points. So if you were like me and cried when it ended, it's not over!

Oh no she didn't.....

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/j-k-rowling-confession-moves-155021303.html

This article talks about an interview with JK Rowling author of the Harry Potter series and apparently....she wanted to kill Ron Weasley off. She didn't want to kill him in Deathly Hallows either; she wanted to kill him half way through the series.

.......As a HUGE HP fan (who is so beyond excited to be playing Quidditch on the Quad this month) I would have cried my dadgum guts out and been thoroughly pissed off at Rowling. Somewhere in the article she says that she was in a dark place or something when she felt that way... to which I say pop some midol and eat some chocolate and that usually fixes me right up. Am I right ladies?

As for the image, I keep seeing things like this on fb so I am going to start posting them. I have no valid reason but it's sci-fi humor and I laughed. Hope yall enjoy too

Interesting... I have a feeling someone's gonna go a little Mikey if this actually happens.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/us-government-social-media_n_1069203.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003