Week Twelve: Diverse Position Science Fiction

           The story takes a look at a group of humans forced to leave Earth for reasons that are never made clear. They are taken in by an alien race that keeps them in a ‘Preserve’ then uses them, primarily the males, to incubate their young in a process very similar to pregnancy and childbirth. The central character in this story is Gan, a young man coming of age who has been promised to the alien ‘protector’ of his family. The story focuses on several things simultaneously.

           On one hand, it is the author’s pregnant man’ story about a man choosing to carry children out of love in an unequal relationship. Gan chooses, in the end, to not kill himself or his protector but instead to allow her to, in an almost sexual scene, implant her eggs in him. He does partly to protect his family and partly because he can’t stand the thought of her being that intimate with someone else.

           On the other hand, it is a story about power dynamics between two different races where one has the power to dictate the terms under which the other shall live. The humans live a life slightly better than that of livestock where they are denied access to weapons and anything else the aliens feel they shouldn’t have, can’t leave their ‘Preserve’ and have to give up their children to act as incubators for alien children. In the end it is a truly disturbing story. But overall, Bloodchild is a fantastic reading experience.

Week Eleven: Cyberpunk and Steam Punk

I watched Paprika this week, it is one of my favorite animated film directed by Satoshi Kon. Satoshi is also one of my favorite director, I love all his works, it is so pity he passed away in such a young age. Memories, Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paranoia Agent and Paprika are all amazing works, I really recommend them to everyone.

In Paprika, a gorgeous riot of future-shock ideas and brightly animated imagery, the doors of perception never close. A mind-twisting, eye-tickling wonder, this anime bears little relation to the greasy, sticky kid stuff that Hollywood churns out, those fatuous fables with wisecracking woodland creatures selling lessons in how to be a good child so you can grow up to be a good citizen. Model behavior isn’t on the menu in Paprika, and neither are dinky songs and visuals. Here, when a woman sprouts a pair of wings, she doesn’t only flit about like Tinker Bell; she’s also pinned captive to a table, a man’s hand slithering under her skin.

This is not an animation that made for children, it is made completely for adults viewers.

Week Eight: Mythic Fiction and Contemporary Urban Fantasy

Week Seven: The Novel of Spiritual Education

I am a person that don't like to read, but Harry Potter is probably the first long novel that I finished. I think that shows how much I love this series when I was a kid, I mean I still love it now and I really enjoy the movies as well. I still remember I was in middle school when I read the first book of Harry Potter, I started reading the time when I went to bed and I spent the whole night finished the book, I just couldn't stop reading it.
This week , I reread part of the first book again, I was still fascinated by how good it is. This book is full of wonderful, sly humor. In Hogwarts, exams don't mean just essay tests, but also practical tests. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tap-dance across a desk. Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox -- points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers.

Throughout most of the book, the characters are impressively described and every one of them are so vivid that you can almost see them in front of you. 

On the whole, the first Harry Potter book is very funny, moving and impressive .