Hitchhikers Guide

For this book, I just listened to the audio books. It was very amusing. The characters were very sarcastic, but I love that kind of humor. This was a very easy audio book to get into. The only thing that kept throwing me off was the voice effect that they used for the Vogons. It wasn’t cold or menacing. As for the main character, I thought he was very funny. I think the reason I get annoyed with him sometimes, is mainly because I am jealous of his situation. I would love to have experienced what he has experienced. I also like the whole idea of things happening and actually recognizing the probability of that happening. I bet many things happen in our everyday lives that are highly improbable that we don’t think twice about. When the improbability of things is told to us in the book, it makes what has happened slightly more amusing. “What are the odds!”. I think Arthur Dent must be one the luckiest men in Hitchhikers. He just happens to have a best friend from another planet that saves his life and happens to know a lot about the universe because he is a researcher. I do like how the deal with the Vogons. They almost mock them. I especially love the part where the Vogons are reading poetry, and when Arthur and Ford give them compliments on their poetry.
One of the most curious parts of the book for me was when the Ultimate Answer was revealed to be the number 42. I knew ahead of time that the answer would obviously be inconclusive. It wouldn’t suit the book to try to give a legit answer. However I loved the idea of given a number as an answer to the meaning of life. It adds to how amusing and unpredictable this book was for me when I first read it.

Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler

What I found the most disturbing about this story was how Butler wrote it. It doesn’t hit the reader right away what is happening or what the story is really about. At first I was confused about certain things, but as the story progresses, it becomes clear that this story is rather twisted. I had wondered why this T’Gatoi was trying to fatten up Gan. It also explains why the mother acted so strange at the beginning of the story. I don’t know how I would feel if I knew that I was to be the host for some parasites. Personally, I don’t see how getting to know the creature, who will eventually use me to home her parasitic children, make her putting eggs inside me any less disturbing. I’m already creeped out by the fact that women have to give birth. I find the idea of a living thing coming out of me, really strange and disturbing. I don’t think I could handle living the way they do. I imagine myself acting like Qui. I would try to find a way out. I don’t really know how even the mother could watch as her children get used for other species’ reproductive purposes. I think Butler did a great job in making this concept relate to large group of people. She didn’t make it so that only women could connect to the book, but I feel like she succeed in making this relate to men as well.

The scariest thing about T’Gatoi was her personality. She was strangely nice and caring but at the same time she could be cold and very business like. She knows what she wants and how to get it. This character reminded me a lot about the “other mother” from Coraline.

The Devil Plant By Lyle Wilson Holden

This short story was among the “Best of Weird Tales” PDF. Well this story was pretty much a story of revenge. I liked it because he explains why he is doing it at first. Also because the story is from his point of view, I immediately side with him. After explaining how Silvela ruin his life, he tries to figure out a way to get him back for what he did. I still can’t make up my mind about how to feel for Silvela. He had wronged the Rodrigez. According to the Rodrigez himself, he had done so unknowingly. Also Silvela is a “poor idiot” because he doesn’t know that his friend has been conspiring against him all along. What really intrigued me about this story was the choice of weapon for carrying out his scheme. I love the idea of an exotic plant killing things. I found it fascinating how the Rodrigez lured Silvela to the “devil tree”. He didn’t have to do much. Silvela’s curiosity did get the best of him. I think the part of the short story that I paid most attention to, was the description of the devil tree as well as the part where Silvela gets killed by it. It was a brilliant idea of the Rodrigez to choose an exotic plant was the weapon of choice, because it could be easily overlooked as an accident. The first thing I wanted to do when I read about the devil tree was draw what I thought it would look like. Even though it was a fairly short story, I liked the way Holden took the time to describe Silvela’s death. It was really tense when Silvela was on the tree about drink the elixir and oblivious to the devil tree’s tendrils. The end was rather disturbing. Rodrigez mentions that he will forever carry Silvela’s distorted form writhing in close embrace of the devil-tree’s snaky arms. I can almost picture him with a twisted grin of his face while he thinks of that.

Troll Bridge by Terry Pratchett

This was a very interesting read. I still don’t know how I feel about it. It a pretty funny short story because of Trolls and Cohen’s talking horse. However towards the end of the story, the situation isn’t as funny. The sudden realization that things are changing, and that the “good ol’ days” are actually over is rather sad for me. It kind of reminds me of the feeling I get when I finish watching a good fantasy movie. We wish there was more but we know there isn’t. That’s also how I felt after reading this story. I wished the ending wasn’t true. Of course there aren’t trolls running around in our world. However, with science nowadays I feel that everything I once thought to be magical is unveiled. It doesn’t seem as special anymore, like rainbows. I used to look at them with wonder, now I know how they are created they aren’t all that special. I think what most hit about this story was that I had a similar experience to that of Cohen. I returned to the Savannas in Venezuela and to my surprise the place was completely different. I remember when I was little it was all nature, there weren’t even roads. The next time I visited, you could see that human had been everywhere. There were houses, and roads everywhere. I fully understand why Cohen would give the Troll from under the bridge all the money he had left. The Troll was my favorite character. He tries against all odds to stick to tradition. In my eyes, he inadvertently was trying to keep the folktales and magic in that world. It almost felt wrong reading about trolls in the lumbar business. A character that I didn’t like was the Troll’s wife. It seemed like even though she was his wife, she was always putting him down instead of supporting his decision. I could understand that she wanted a better life, but if it meant giving in this new ways of being ordinary. I don’t think it’s worth it.
Another character I thoroughly enjoyed was Cohen’s horse. I loved the way he both mocked and looked after Cohen. I also like the irony in this story. It is almost as is Cohen is saving the world he used to destroy during all those years as a legendary barbarian. I did like that he in a way saved that troll from under the bridge by giving him money. He almost understands that this new world, where trolls don’t hide under bridges anymore, is partly his fault. One of the reasons I decided to read this story was the way the first few paragraphs were written. I enjoyed reading it because Pratchett did a really good job in describing Cohen and how worn out he was.

Seventh Voyage by Stanislaw Lem

This short story was not what I expected at all. This story was rather humorous. I felt for the poor man, but mainly I just laughed at all the misfortunes. He’s stuck out in space with a wrench and good sirloin steak revolving around him. The help that he could get from his future self to fix the rudder, he ignored because he thought it was a dream only to realize it wasn’t. It got a bit confusing when he started bringing the days of the week into play, especially when he argues with Wednesday self about their ability to fix the rudder. It was only a small portion of the story though. It was both amusing and interesting watching both sides of his arguments and conversations. His future self is always more knowledgeable and becomes frustrated by his past self. It’s weird to think that we learn so much in just a few hours. Of course our future selves would be wiser, but I had envisioned this to be us 30 plus years from now. I had never considered whether I would be that much wiser a few hours from now. Not to the point where I would frustrated with myself for being so stubborn and clueless. I felt so bad for Ichy when he finds out about Friday him and Sunday him. This means he has been there and is going to be there for a while. It’s quite curious because now he has more than enough people to fix the rudder, so it makes you wonder why there’s a Sunday him in the first place. Also seeing his future-self hurt must not be such an easy thing. I would in constant fear of the injury happening any second. I like that as you read on you encounter more problems. It makes it interesting again. Just when you think the problem is solved, we find out that there is only one spacesuit available and that now that there are more that one Ichy, there are more people to feed. I found it really funny that he had to trick himself ending up in a fight between his various selves.

Anansi Boys

I rather enjoyed this book. At first I wasn’t sure whether I would get into it, but then after watching Neil Gaiman’s interview in class I decided to give this book a shot. I like the way he very cleverly integrated both reality and fantasy elements. I think what I liked most about this read was that it resembled a storytellers way of sharing stories. It is almost as if he sometimes gets sidetracked trying to explain things, and then eventually returns into the telling the story. A thing that I found surprising was that it revolved around African mythology. I vaguely recall in class the mention of the characters being black, but I guess that hadn’t fully registered because I was still surprised when I read the book. I love the idea of incarnations. My favorite character had to be Spider. At first he annoyed me because he kept doing things like pretending to the Charlie and getting him into trouble and sleeping with Rosie, but his character is just very cool. I liked the part where he made a little spider out of clay while he is imprisoned by Tiger. I can actually live with the ending where Spider and Rosie end p together because it didn’t seem like Rosie should’ve ended up with Charlie if she couldn’t tell that Spider wasn’t really Charlie. The bird woman was also a very intriguing character, and it was rather odd that she would want claim over the Anansi bloodline.

Zombies

I found that this story was very character driven. People can somewhat relate to the characters, regardless of the time era in which the story takes place. The one thing that threw me off when I began reading this room was that language used conflict. The style from the original "Pride and Prejudice" and zombies. At some parts in the book, they didn't quite join. It was as if the languages where squished together. It wasn't really unified at some parts. That threw me off, and takes you out of the book and the story sometimes. I also wasn’t really comfortable with the language because it was hard for me to understand some of the wording, especially since English isn’t my first language. However, the thing that did attract me to this book was the humor and zombies. I’ve always been intrigued by zombies in movies and in general. The idea of a plague has always frightened me, so having masses of people become zombies is just a scary thought. Also because it can happen to anyone, the infection is not biased. Other than that, the book didn’t really keep my attention, so I didn’t get to finish it.