"Diverse Position" Science Fiction is very much new to me, as I have always seen sci-fi as a good excuse to read about aliens, creatures, and new worlds. But thanks to such works as War of The Worlds, District 9, and this short story, Bloodchild, I am now beginning to see the science fiction genre very differently and with a new mindset for other possible stories of my own.
Bloodchild started off as a lot of science fiction stories that I have read in my time have started out: we have these humans or at the least human-like beings that are for any reason or another far away from their origin of place ("home planet"), and we the readers come to find out that the beings are rules over by these twisted creatures. And the "twist" in this story is that our rulers, or their rulers, seem to treat them more like tools rather then food as one might expect from an stronger alien race. This sort of "twist" in the story is a trait that I have come to notice the most in a work of "Diverse Position" Fiction, and thus I see it as the most important characteristic of the this sub-genre. And just like in District 9 where we find that the space alien population to be in the position of enslavement as our story's twist, we see a similair fate to the human-like aliens of Bloodchild, where the reproductive role is reversed between male human(-like) beings and female aliens, thus creating a hidden message regarding the horrors of childbirth from the point of view of the usual sufferers of this unfortunate condition.
In conclusion, this means that from reading this and other fine works of Diverse Position Science Fiction, you will see that this relatively uncommon subgenre is really quite revolutionary in its ability to portray a clear message through the use of role reversals. Also, I will be delving further into the engenious works of Octavia Butler this summer.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
MY REVIEW OF "THE WICKED STEPMOTHER" AND THE WITCH SUBGENRE
Ah, witches. My first encounter with a witch was from the viewing of the ever popular movie The Wizard of Oz, which is where I'm sure a lot of folks get their ideas about witches from. But did you know that Witchery (sometimes called Wicca) is a following? They exist today as gatherings of proclaimed witches and warlocks (male versions as most term them to be), and their belief seem to be mostly based on Animilism, similar to whats seen in Japanese Shinto religion as talked about in my last post.
In the short story, "The Wicked Stepmother", my first initiation was that the wicked stepmother was the true witch, as her ill treatment of the poor stepchildren could be seen by anyone as the formal treatment by a common wicked witch. But from reading this, I myself gather instead that the true witch was not the stepmother, but the true mother of the children, who had been turned into a female goat at the beginning of the story, after her and her husband (the father of the children) had somehow cursed each other and prevented one another from eating without the company of the other. From the reading, I could not find anything very witchlike in the stepmother (at least in the traditional sense), the only thing being that she gave birth to a one-eyed daughter, who was just as wicked as she was.
The huge but terrible sacrifice that the true mother of the children made when she was slaughtered by a butcher at the direction of the wicked stepmother makes me thingk that the author of this story may be trying to assure readers that not all witches may be evil, or that our initial ideas of what a witch is may be inaccurate. From this story, I have gathered that we as writers (myseklf included) may not be taking as far enough advantage of the witch genre of literature as we should, since from this short story alone I was surprised at the end of it that the real witch of the story was really a protagonist, when almost always it is the other way around.
In the short story, "The Wicked Stepmother", my first initiation was that the wicked stepmother was the true witch, as her ill treatment of the poor stepchildren could be seen by anyone as the formal treatment by a common wicked witch. But from reading this, I myself gather instead that the true witch was not the stepmother, but the true mother of the children, who had been turned into a female goat at the beginning of the story, after her and her husband (the father of the children) had somehow cursed each other and prevented one another from eating without the company of the other. From the reading, I could not find anything very witchlike in the stepmother (at least in the traditional sense), the only thing being that she gave birth to a one-eyed daughter, who was just as wicked as she was.
The huge but terrible sacrifice that the true mother of the children made when she was slaughtered by a butcher at the direction of the wicked stepmother makes me thingk that the author of this story may be trying to assure readers that not all witches may be evil, or that our initial ideas of what a witch is may be inaccurate. From this story, I have gathered that we as writers (myseklf included) may not be taking as far enough advantage of the witch genre of literature as we should, since from this short story alone I was surprised at the end of it that the real witch of the story was really a protagonist, when almost always it is the other way around.
MY REVIEW OF "A WILD SHEEP CHASE" AND THE JAPANESE SPIRITS GENRE
My interest in the Japanese culture was not an early one; I came into it through numerous "anime" shows that had been adapted to American viewing, with would include Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z, prominently. Given, neither of these taught me very much about Japanese spirituality, but they did give mne some insight that the Japanese cuture was rooted heavily in the belief that spirites, whether good or bad, still very much existed and could very much impact the lives of the living.
From reading "A Wild Sheep Chase", I was very impressed with the writer's ability to keep the man's identity a mystery despite him being a detective and being the main subject of the story, but thinking it over, his name may not matter as much as we the readers would like it to be, considering the Shinto-like spirits make no aminities to whoever they choose to insteract with (I'm not sure if "haunt" is the right word here). Furthermore, I liked how the writer gave the one character, the man dressed as the titular sheep, a slur language, as i always found it both amusing and interesting to hear characters speak in such a way that reminded me of the characters in Alice In Wonderland and The Looking Glass. And actually, this whole book rememded me of those two fantasy books, but "A Wild Sheep Chase" obviously has a darker feel to it.
From reading "A Wild Sheep Chase", I was very impressed with the writer's ability to keep the man's identity a mystery despite him being a detective and being the main subject of the story, but thinking it over, his name may not matter as much as we the readers would like it to be, considering the Shinto-like spirits make no aminities to whoever they choose to insteract with (I'm not sure if "haunt" is the right word here). Furthermore, I liked how the writer gave the one character, the man dressed as the titular sheep, a slur language, as i always found it both amusing and interesting to hear characters speak in such a way that reminded me of the characters in Alice In Wonderland and The Looking Glass. And actually, this whole book rememded me of those two fantasy books, but "A Wild Sheep Chase" obviously has a darker feel to it.
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