MY REVIEW OF "BLOODCHILD" AND THE "DIVERSE POSITION" SCIENCE FICTION GENRE

"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.

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.

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.

MY REVIEW OF "BIG FISH" AND THE MYTHIC FICTION GENRE

Mythic fiction was not always known to me by its terminology as it is now, though I always loved the idea of attributing real-life science with a fantasy genre after its rebirth after Tolkein. Mending reality-reasoning and science with fantasy is actually a major part of my Senior Thesis (creature design ref sheets, my original creatures debicted in their own habitats, ect), so this is by no means a hard subject for me to graps, although it might be easy for Mythic Fiction to be confused by some to be a form of Sci-Fi (which, admittingly, it does share a lot of characteriusics). Mythic fiction, however, almost seems like a crossroads of sorts; kinda like a cement highway jutting from the dark, unspeakable bowles of a concrete city of restless and undesireble human reality that somehow slowly merges through time into a bearly beaten dirt path into a wooded area of unatural nature. At least that the vison I got when I read Big Fish.

Big Fish starts out the way a lot of Mythic Fantasy storybooks and movies start out: the characters in question as faced with some kind of impending tragedy or voidless unhappy existence brought about by the mere fact that reality is an unforgiving and unchanging thing which always seems to go against them (despite the characters usually reserving at least one small portion of their minds and hearts to the "brighter side"); through a series of events, the protagonsists begint to see (or think they are seeing) new worlds unfold before them, much like the main character as a child growing up and even as a young man felt as he listened to the wild and overblown "fish stories" his father would tell him. (302) And just as it can sometimes be in real life (outside of the books and movies), it can get hard for the characters (and even us as certain points) to tell what is real life and what is fantasy... or what is THEIR real life and what is THEIR fantasy? Which life do they want over the other? Is the fantasy life where everthing may seem perfect really what's best? Question after question to find a common link, a bridge to both sides ("Tarebithia"); in some ways the reality can be one's dream world, and the fantasy can be the nightmare if seemingly unable to control. As much as we may hate it, I feel Mythic fantasy can offer us a different side to the Logic and Reason: they are our restraints and keys.

MY REVIEW OF "HARRY POTTER", AND THE "SPIRITUAL" GENRE.

When I received my own copy of the first Harry Potter book, it was from a long-time friend of mine who had read it previously; from her following review of the book, I was merely curious myself, while at the same time I was in the mood for something different. My, was I ever right; not only did I become engrossed in the level of pages that each chapter had, but I quickly saw myself staying up until 1:00 in the morning reading! My dad was skeptical like most parents regarding the whole "witchcraft" thing, but otherwise and and my mum were very enthusiastic that I had taken up a healthy mental diet of reading (something I had loved to do to begin with, but did not do quite as often). I think what really caused me to become swallowed up in the Harry Potter stories was not just the lively characters and the overall originality of the story, but also the way J.K Rowling wrote the book; she never held back from her descriptions (no matter how scary of grotesque), and she took character thoughts to a different level by allowing them to be level with what the average person in that situation might think, thus creating an early and lasting bond between the reader and her tale.

The Spiritual genre is a part of literature that I have always been interested in, but not as enthusiastic about as I am with Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Horror. (248) Mostly its because I didn't know what to read regarding "spiritual" and what that meant, or if it was all just based around religion or the criticism of religion. Likewise, I think too many readers/writers take this too seriously and tend to think/write things that would otherwise offend rather then open peoples' minds to other possibilities, or maybe try and bridge the gaps with similarities, through interesting storylines and characters. In the meantime, I think the general public would be wise to be thanking J.K Rowling for her book. because she got kids of all ages to do something that their parents and schools have been struggling and failing to do for ages: getting kids to read.

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!