MY REVIEW OF "THE HOBBIT", AND THE FANTASY GENRE.

For as long as I can remember I have always loved Fantasy, before I discovered the amazing writer that is Tolkien; when I was a little girl, I admit I enjoyed drawing unicorns, dragons, and goblins (and still do). The first true fantasy book I ever read was The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, which I immediately loved for the descriptive, very-rounded characters, and powerful positive messages. One thing about the Fantasy genre that I've always enjoyed is the amount of imagination that the best of writers put into such stories as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings, Alice and Wonderland, The Looking Glass, and (to some degree) His Dark Materials (though after reading this, I didn't get much out of the overall theme except that it was one big pseudo-Narnia clashed with some slightly distracting hidden agenda against some kind of slightly unrelated subject).

Another thing I also like about Fantasy, and I am aware that I do not share this same like with most other people, is the level of archaic languages and old-style writing that are popular among this genre: when I first picked up and began to read my Aunt's copy of The Hobbit, I was surprised to find just how hard it was to read (I was much younger than I am now), as I was not so used to reading archaic languages as I am now (and reading backwards Japanese texts). But I enjoy reading and making out the messages of archaic text because I feel it is one of the best ways to expand one's mind in literature and in grasping the English language (or whatever other language you speak, depending on the story material).

One last thing that attracts me to the Fantasy genre is the creatures; whether they are more humanoid then animal (like the Hobbit creatures in the book), or more animal-like then human (like the friendly satyr character in Narnia). I am mostly fond of the purely animal-like creatures, such as talking animals (like the "Warrior Ice Bears" and Lyra's Demon in His Dark Materials), as well as purely made-up beasts like the hippogryphs in the Harry Potter books, most notably The Prisoner from Azkaban.

While it was hard at first to understand the writing style of The Hobbit, I still love the imagination that went into the construction of the story, plot, characters, creatures, and the world/universe that it all takes place in. Fantasy is not just about creating new words, people, and animals, but its also about creating whole universes just from one's mind, sometimes all from scratch.

MY REVIEW OF "PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES", AS WELL AS THE ZOMBIE SUB-GENRE "UPRISING".

Zombies. What comes to mind when you think of zombies? Do you imagine walking corpses invaded by simple renegade souls? Or do you dare to conjure up the image of newly animated bodies which once harbored the souls of average men and women but have now been resurrected by some kind of cruel and unnatural acts of voodoo or spells of Magick?

My own earliest visions came back to me as I read a certain novel called Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies; the premise of this tale is an alternated version of British Regency, which is "ruled" by the Living Masters and slowly becoming overrun with the Dead Enslaved. The once much beloved ancestors of a past time who's souls have now passed on to the afterlife were apparently unable to bring their bodies with them, thus somehow resulting in an overabundance of empty shells; while the book itself never divulges too deeply into why the bodies of the Living have not succumbed to natural decay, the real question here for me is how much sheer angst it must have been for someone to engage in savage combat with the Undead facade of someone or many you once knew in the living world. Suppose the zombified remains of my own Great-Grandma, Ma, who passed away some many years ago, were to rise for some unexplained reason and join the forces of a seemingly impenetrable mass of potential "corpse-brides" in either a fit of blind attack or a slowly advancing assault: how could I bring myself to fight the image of the one I love? I liked the feeling of both humor and deep thinking this "remake" novel brought about in me. I believe it has not only inspired me to take to reading Jane Austin's original novel, but also look deeper into the increasing Zombie fandom with better and more open-ended ideas for this genre, where the traditions of literature are not as strict as they are with Vampires and Werewolves.

And if you are in the mood for a Zombie B-flick, I recommend watching Ray Dennis Steckler's 1964 film, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!

Goodnight, and stick alive!

MY REVIEW OF ANNE RICE'S NOVEL AS WELL AS THE VAMPIRE SUB-GENRE.

This is my first assessment of the book by Anne Rice as well as my general ideas/opinions of the Vampires in Horror Fiction:

Before I began reading "Interview w/ The Vampire", I had always been a fan of Vampires ever since I saw the original Dracula movie with my mum when I was young; the characteristics of the Vampires as a "species" are certainly of the things I admire the most, considering no other fiction "monster" shares quite the same with them: the hematophagy trait (blood-feeding), the unique undead mortality (or immortality is you will) which forces them to continuously feed, their lack of resistance to mere sunlight (unlike werewolves, zombies, ect.), and even the recently abandoned idea of vampires taking on the form of vampire bats, just to name the most prominent.

The early literary works of vampires all had special traits and shared details which bore connections to their existence in the fictional world as the quintisencial monsters; the most common way a vampire comes into existence is by being bitten by another [Vampire], and the way the vampires live is though a pseudo-zombie fashion, not by the demonic possession of a slowly decomposing body, but of a repetition of nightly acts (the blood-feeding) which keep the Vampire's body from decomposition and eventual death. This form of living is of course not too discernable from how regular mortals live (we mere humans stay alive by eating and drinking), but the big difference is Vampires have an unlimited life span as long as they continue to feed from the blood of mortals (virgin women are the most popular, as I learned from watching the original version of the film Nosferatu). And this brings me to one of the things I enjoyed in Anne Rice's novel, about how long the Count Lestat has been "living", for hundreds of years. Another thing I enjoyed in her writing regarding this same issue is how living for so long may seem like such a wonderful thing, until you unfailingly witness the passing of your non-immortal family and friends; clearly, she made a good point about something we humans have for so long immaturely wished for.

In conclusion to my first reading class assessment, I enjoyed Rice's novel thoroughly, as I did the movie some many years ago, both I viewed as very well as opening the true portrayal of Vampires. My favorite part of the reading/watch list, however, was watching the original and color versions of Nosferatu, because the film-makers were not only able to create and save a film that had been condemned by the originators of the Dracula films, but because they took a popular monster type and recreated it [though the creation of Count Orlock] without removing or corrupting any of the major and exciting traits of the Vampire. And that's more then I can say for the "Twilight" franchise.

This is just another blog for the Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi Reading Class for Spring 2010. This is where there will be written responses to the assigned reading for the weeks.

Stop.