AEL's Escapades in Science Fiction

fuckyeahhylia: THE LINKREDIBLE GIVEAWAY! To celebrate the...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:21:02 -0400

THE LINKREDIBLE GIVEAWAY!

To celebrate the launch of our new blog fuckyeahhylia, we have decided to have an amazing giveaway for the lovely people of tumblr. There are two prizes including a Wii U: Premium Pack (Black) and a Nintendo 3DS: The Legend of Zelda Limited Edition. The deadline and drawing date is on the bottom.

PRIZE INFORMATION

Wii U: Premium Pack (Black) - The reason for me giving away such a prize is because I had won the Wii U for free at a raffle, even though I already had my own. At first I wanted to sell the whole pack, but with the release of Wind Waker HD coming to the Wii U, I would rather a legitimate and deserving Nintendo fan get the opportunity to play it instead of someone attempting to buy it off me to save a few bucks. However, I do want at least SOME money out of it, so I will be selling the NintendoLand game elsewhere. Therefore, the NintendoLand software that is included with the Premium Pack will NOT be included in this giveaway. Other than that, the console itself is brand-spanking new (unused), and is packed and ready to be given to the lucky winner.

For more details on the Wii U: Premium Pack (Black) prize, message Noel on either his blog or fuckyeahhylia.

~

Nintendo 3DS: The Legend of Zelda Limited Edition - People around tumblr have always been sulking about not having this limited edition Zelda 3DS. I won this $100 prepaid visa gift card at an orchestra banquet last year and I hadn’t used it, apparently. So, I decided to search for the 3DS on eBay and I was actually surprised to find one under the budget! Gave the card to my mother and she took care of the rest. It’s in pretty great condition, barely used, all the functions are fine, the screen is as sharp as a tack. However, this was just for the hand-held device, not Ocarina of Time 3DS. I can’t provide for everything! Also, it didn’t come in the original packaging, so I’ll send it bubble wrapped and safe inside a small box. Charger and stand included.

For more details on the Nintendo 3DS: The Legend of Zelda Limited Edition prize, message Elly on either her blog or fuckyeahhylia.

HOW TO ENTER

To enter the draw, you must be following fuckyeahhylia since this is to celebrate our blog’s launch.

REBLOG ONLY ONCE

NO LIKES (unless it’s to come back to the original post)

Your reblog will count as one (1) entry.

BONUS (now this is where it get’s interesting)

If you follow either goddesszelda (Elly) or skyloftian (Noel), you will have two (2) entries under your name.

If you follow both goddesszelda and skyloftian, you will have three (3) entries under your name.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

You may only win up to one prize to make the giveaway more fun and interesting. However, you may request to switch to the other prize if the other winner is willing to.

Every url taking part will be written down on {x} amounts of paper slips depending on your amounts of entries and will be placed into a lottery bowl. There will be a total of two lotteries, one lottery by Noel determining the winner of the Wii U and the reserves, and the other lottery by Elly determining the winner of the 3DS and the reserves. The drawings of the url out of the lottery will be filmed and uploaded onto fuckyeahhylia to prove fairness in the draw.

There are no limits to where the prizes can be shipped to (in other words, can be shipped internationally). However, the prizes may take up to 8-12 working days to ship until you receive the prize. You must be able to provide us your address.

If you change your URL, deactivate your account etc. before the end of the lottery, a new winner will be announced.

The cutoff deadline for the giveaway is March 25th, 2013, 12:00AM EST. The drawing will be uploaded on March 30th, 2013, 8:30PM EST. Have fun and good luck!

changkyus: hey do you want free games i know you do well it...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:11:05 -0400

changkyus:

hey do you want free games

i know you do

well it just so happens im giving away all my old DS games i dont play!! “wow thank you mijung you are so nice so what are the rules of this lovely giveaway?” i am glad you asked!!

if you dont need the 3ds games PLEASE tell me so i can make another giveaway once this one is over! like seriously please dont take games you dont even have the system for

you dont need to follow me but if you do i may throw in an extra game or two

games included by default are: mario kart 3ds, okamiden, scribblenauts, dragon quest ix, pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of darkness, harvest moon the tale of two towns, loz: phantom hourglass, pokemon ranger guardian signs, devil survivor overclocked, kingdom hearts 3ds, ocarina of time 3ds, and loz: spirit tracks!

i can ship internationally but you obviously need to be comfortable with giving me your address!! im not responsible for items getting lost or shipment-related difficulties, sorry :c i have no control over that stuff!!

reblog as much as you want but be mindful of your followers! likes count as well

giveaway ends march 22nd, 2013 aka next friday!

the games do NOT include the instruction manuals or cases. i have no idea what happened to them so dont ask pls

any other questions/concerns/clarifications please drop me a message!

Oh shit!

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 03:08:42 -0400

Oh shit!

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT HOMESTUCK

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:58:00 -0400

I wish I had introduced this earlier so I could get your ongoing reaction to progressing through this story, because not only is it very, very long, but is still in progress. Regardless, it’s something I’ve been interested in sharing. Usually when discussing entertainment that’s current with your students, like an ongoing TV show, or a book/movie/game “you gotta read/watch/play” that’s relevant somehow to a class discussion, it’s probably significant enough that you know what they’re talking about when they mention an aspect of its fiction. But if you aren’t already indoctrinated with a piece of entertainment, it’s not usually fruitful when a student tries to “convert” you unless there’s good reason to do so, because it can be very time consuming. I think this interesting thing to share is something you could potentially get a lot out of regarding how our culture reacts to literature – I remember you mentioning you thought the Twilight saga, in all of its scummy characterization, baffling plot developments, and BOLD liberties it takes with mythological creatures, was nonetheless highly informative in terms of what constitutes certain social phenomena, and this is a bit like that. But don’t feel nervous – I wouldn’t urge someone, especially a college professor, to take their time to read something very long if it were at all like Twilight in caliber.

It is mspaintadventures.com, a unique take on the webcomic format created and worked on by a single man by the name of Andrew Hussie. The current ongoing adventure, called Homestuck, is making a big splash in internet culture and continues to gain an ever-expanding base of readers and dedicated fans. It draws inspiration from countless sources, but ironically enough one of its biggest inspirations is EarthBound, the game I brought up at the beginning of this semester and then forgot about.

The story of Homestuck begins with a lot of seemingly pointless tedium and a slightly annoying awareness of its inanity. But with each successive Act, the story begins to unravel with a gradual campaign of titillation, revealing its secrets initially at a trickle and eventually into a great big snowball of topics in fiction we’ve looked at and talked about in class – apocalypse, the consequences of time travel (tying into the endless loops/escaping fate theme), alternate universes, exploring relationships and cultural differences with an alien race, and achieving godhood, to name a few. It boasts some very strong and believable characterization that comes off as especially relatable to anyone who’s used the internet extensively for social interaction. I will refrain from revealing anything specific about the plot or premise beforehand because I believe the less you know before going in, the more satisfying it is to read and comprehend the plot, like finishing a challenging jigsaw puzzle. However, I will say that the universe encompassing this story not only demonstrates some impressive aesthetic and artistic choices, but also ties some compelling mythology into its largely character-driven plot, uniquely underlaying the “video game world” with a mythos that demonstrates a mind well-versed in many science fiction stories and other subjects.

In fact, it has such powerful characterization and a richly layered universe I think it has the same kind of appeal to readers that made the Harry Potter series such a success. So what I’m sharing with you here could perhaps be called the next Harry Potter, which could be exciting enough to some, but not the main reason why it’s significant. There is so much more to it. Even if you found the Harry Potter series unremarkable or you overlooked it due to certain storytelling tropes that gave it “mass appeal” that you feel you’ve outgrown (for instance Harry Potter has a “coming of age” element it shares with Homestuck, but it is arguably not the centerpiece of these stories) there is INCREDIBLY good reason to look at Homestuck and MS Paint Adventures for other purposes besides the narrative, which is already much more complex and esoteric than Potter’s.

This difference is immediately apparent in the author’s tone. Not only is it a highly rare case of using second person effectively, but Hussie seems to have his finger on the pulse of the modernly flippant audience member and crafts some of the most hilarious dialogue I’ve ever read, and his language, full of some of the most bizarre portmanteaus capable by a human mind, achieves a unique, highly refreshing combination of hip and aged, sometimes switching between the two (and that’s just the narration, the characters are even more engrossing). He’s able to write a video game-themed mystical sci-fi romance space-ish opera epic laced with discreet pop culture references, struggles with recurring video game tropes, borderline hipster ironic humor and Nicolas Goddamn Cage. Yes, really, just watch the video clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXIoBnu2MU

Amazing.

That is a sample of the surrealist humor and a minor hurrah to remix culture present in Homestuck (You’ll probably be in hysterics and have your mind blown several times before you get even get to the part of the story that uses that song. And at that point, you are long since already fully “converted”). Despite having many serious moments, it never really falters too far from its comically abrasive and self-aware tone. And it is never hesitant to pull a fast one and do something totally absurd. Oh yes, there will be Cage. In fact, I don’t want to give away too much, but his breathtaking performance in Con Air has multiple influences over the plot. You know you want to read this.

It also has self-contained references and acts a sort of counterpart to Andrew Hussie’s greatest and most pervasive creative work, the best worst webcomic to ever grace the internet with its profound beauty, artistic genius, and deep philosophical struggles of two fictional gamer friends, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Scouring the internet, you’ll find countless parodies mixing other media with SBaHJ’s incredibly nuanced intentional shittiness, and the phrase “I TOLD YOU ABOUT STAIRS!” has ascended to nearly mainstream memetic status on the internet.

If you’re curiosity wasn’t already piqued by that wonderful video of Nicolas Cage and you haven’t begun reading and discovering its plethora of greatness on your own, consider the rest of this a primer explaining what exactly makes this thing worth examining besides good storytelling or surreal humor. There is a lot to be said about something that has grown so much in the span of a few years it’s been around. Since I’m to believe you’re a hardy reader (you can at least get to the end of this hugeass thing, right? Or will curiosity get the better of you? Or is my writing really that tiring…), you won’t have a lot of the problems others have when getting into it. I’m also to assume you have enough knowledge of game tropes and internet culture (the prerequisite is really not as high as some make it out to be. Just how HIGH do you even have to BE? Higher than your parents’ and your probably okay) and appreciation for Hussie’s bizarre sense of humor to enjoy it even more than the average reader.

The website itself has a primer of its own at this link here, because it is absorbed in such an unusual format and can be daunting to some; and despite being urged with great conviction by friends and peers to soldier through it, they find it alienating:

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?viewpage=new

Whether you approach Homestuck and MS Paint Adventures from the viewpoint of an academic critic of literature, a studier of social phenomena, or an active recipient of internet and video game culture will have a huge impact on how you interpret this body of work. It is not just a product of the collective experience in art and storytelling from Andrew Hussie but also the symbiosis between he (and other content creators he employs in his project) and the base of readers who absorb and respond to his work. Homestuck and MSPA can be seen as the brainchild of his own creative decisions, with a narrative and self-contained universe that comes entirely from his own imagination, and yet the collective of response and interaction from the readers is a HUGE factor that influences the content put into each page he conjures up.

To advance the story of MS Paint Adventures, you click the large blue text below the current “panel” or page, set up like mock commands for the characters being “controlled” on screen. These commands used to be submitted by random users on the forums, and you can tell this by the inane, sporadic nature of the commands at the beginning of Homestuck (“Zoosmell Pooplord? Is that seriously supposed to be funny?” It isn’t, and unfortunately this likely turned off many readers to what they might have found an enjoyable read). Since it’s the product of just about three years of effort and is still in progress, it takes a lot of time to read and has a ton of confusing things to process, so I recommend using just the “save game” and “load game” features utilizing browser cookies to remember your place like a virtual bookmark (without actually filling up your browser’s bookmarks menu). “Auto save” might muddle things up if you want to backtrack somewhere in the story.

Homestuck’s commands were hand-picked by the author, but eventually the scope and direction taken by the story called for Hussie to come up with commands himself so as to more feasibly introduce more complex aspects into the story (some aspects like character names are still the product of reader input). Hussie also occasionally gets aid from fellow artists, Flash programmers, web designers, and musicians, and ingeniously transforms Homestuck into something very unique. During some of its most memorable moments, which tend to be incredibly satisfying payoffs to the copious amounts of clicking and reading you’ll do, the comic gets multimedia with Flash animations accompanied by music appropriate for its many varying styles, and even interactive with mock RPG minigames, as well as metanarrative techniques made possible by only an online reading format, like altering the website layout to convey parts of the story (it gets WAY more elaborate than the “Pesterlogs” used for character dialogue). The sparse “walkaround” sections where you take control of one or several characters reveal to you details about the story, but if you’re lost, confused, or find those sections tedious you can skip them, and anything that happens in the plot that results specifically from completing a certain action in a walkaround will be alluded to whether you did that or not.

The previous adventure, Problem Sleuth, isn’t necessary to read to enjoy Homestuck, but could be considered a “sister story” to it. Its format is much simpler by comparison – no Flash animations of musical battles or things to click on that do anything besides take you to the next page. All of its commands are from submissions by forum users and each page is only a GIF image or two, usually with some text below it. It is a fully finished adventure and a parody of both adventure games and film noir – however, while not as grand as Homestuck (if you haven’t started Homestuck yet, it’s sort of a taste of what you can expect) it is no less cerebral a piece of entertainment, full of complicated simultaneous subplots and a real mindfuck of a climax. Perhaps more importantly, it sets up a lot of the running gags that Homestuck would continue. Additionally, characters and other things appearing in special “offshoot” pages not part of the main storyline that were the product of commands submitted by those who made a donation to the site (found on the “Secrets” page) would reappear as major characters and elements in Homestuck. It’s yet another thread in the interconnected web of MSPA canon, and those who’ve been paying enough attention reading Homestuck will get a richer experience from reading Problem Sleuth.

The two adventures preceding Problem Sleuth, Jailbreak Adventure and Bard Quest, are permanently unfinished, and there merely for those who really want to explore the roots of MS Paint Adventures and see how it all got started, when Hussie was still experimenting with the user-submitted command approach (but making some hilarious shit as a result anyways), and establishing much of the very base of the conventions and self-referential humor that would constitute his storytelling format.

As an academic critic of literature, does Homestuck matter at all? Is there too much divided focus on its other elements of presentation like the visual art for it to be comparable to real literature? Is it just too weighed down with its social aspects and love of pop culture to be significant to the sharper critics? Some of those questions could be applied to other media like movies, but it gets even more unclear here because Homestuck defies what we think of as traditional media.

I think it’s worth examining anyways, like Harry Potter; it may be fiction with motifs that you can “read before bed,” as you called it in class (even though Homestuck can be really goddamn dark sometimes – I will only give this minor spoiler: After “[S]Dave: Accelerate”, prepare for lots of bad and depressing shit to just keep happening and happening), but it has a ton of creativity and even when there are magic elements present that could provide cop-out explanations for many aspects of its rich world, it still had a lot of thought put into and manages to be interesting or at least have some depth. And like Harry Potter it starts off slow and boring but the protagonist discovers he is a part of something really cool and then suddenly he is thrust into this archaic yet modern world of badass magic. And like Harry Potter it has an assload of characters being introduced as the story progresses but none of them are really poor characters, some are just less important than others, and the main characters (Harry, Ron, Hermione = John, Rose, Dave, Jade OOPS SPOILERS) are the heroes you’ll be rooting for the whole way and they never lose importance and are best friends to the end (or maybe more than friends??) and are relatable to much of the audience. But really if you’re a big critic of literature what could there be said that hasn’t already been said about Harry Potter? Not much. But Homestuck could represent a new kind of connection that authors of fiction have to their readers. That’s why I think it’s worth checking out.

…

Wait…

…What the fuck is this shit?

ANIME FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANS

(Finally, in honor of 4/20, here is an old comic of Hussie’s, mocking weed culture.)

—

(FINAL finally, If you feel like responding as you go along, I recommend it in intervals - after Acts 1 & 2, Act 3 & Intermission 1, Act 4, Act 5 Act 1 (Hivebent), and Act 5 Act 2. Act 6 is still in progress and updating serially.

I had the luck of beginning my reading when the massive 15-minute Flash movie for the finale culminating together both threads of the bifurcated Act 5 was still being labored over causing a long hiatus of updates, allowing me to catch up on everything before Hussie and his team could resume any more updates.)

—

(FINAL FINAL finally FOR REALS, here is an archive of Andrew Hussie’s Formspring questions after he closed it down and moved over to tumblr around the same time he was working on the End Of Act 5. It provides some excellent insight into his work, full of some truely illuminating and goddamned hilarious interactions, and yet another layer of reader influence I’ve touted so much. It’s definitely worth looking through as well once you’ve finished both Act 5s if you’re an inquisitive fan wanting to look deeper into all this. Start from the bottom.)

It’s been a while since I used this blog to share anything...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:51:10 -0400

It’s been a while since I used this blog to share anything else interesting or relevant, but there’s two last things I’d like to do so with. The first is this.

You’re likely familiar with Heavy Rain, which was a big deal since it was basically an interactive movie instead of a video game. A game of that kind isn’t personally to my tastes, but I watched this, and was wowed. This isn’t from Heavy Rain, or even a scene from another game, but merely a demonstration by Quantum Dream of their cutscene technology.

Holy crap. This is what Heavy Rain should have been, in my opinion. I guess maybe they felt sci-fi in video games was a path too often revisited and they wanted to go for the film noir approach instead, but this is just too cool to me. I don’t see why they wouldn’t make a game of this if they have the technology.

Even though it’s short I think it exemplifies the work sci-fi was made for in examining social issues. And yes, this could have had better writing than Mass Effect 3.

Concept of the Week: SF and You, Part II

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:47:00 -0400

After this class, I think a little bit differently when I think of sci-fi. The nerdy stuff that excited me, video games, movies, and the like, still come to mind, as well as those influential novels and stories from the 20^th century, the pulp comics, the cyberpunk movement of the 80’s and 90’s, etc. However, my perception of what constitutes sci-fi have changed to include stories that are less about the cool technology and space aliens and whatnot and more cerebrally focused on the issues of even minor scientific changes like evolution –stories we read like those of bears discovering fire (thus beginning to evolve), ancient African tribes resisting the forces of globalization, or women founding their own civilization are sci-fi even though as these descriptions suggest they are themed more around the social issues these things create. I have also added a few authors like Philip K. Dick to my awareness of the important sci-fi greats. I still view sci-fi as a genre that can provide some quality escapist entertainment, but I also now look at it in a more scholarly way. Looking back, the most useful thing I’ve gained from this course is understanding characters and story purpose through identifying conflict. It helps me look at texts more critically.

As for my favorite sci-fi narrative, normally I’d say the original Star Wars trilogy, but from the very beginning I already categorized it as fantasy. The Half-Life video game series, especially Half-Life 2 with its heavy dystopian themes, is probably one my favorite sources of sci-fi, as its one of the few first person shooters that engages the player to use their brains and piece together the sci-fi world through their own player-controlled actions. Its “sister” series, Portal, is another quality source that greatly streamlines the intelligent aspect of Half-Life’s first-person gameplay into some challenging puzzles and complex character relations. Most people play Halo just to shoot the hell out of their friends or random people over the internet, but I find its another FPS series with a Starship Troopers-esque narrative universe that I grew fond of from playing it (Halo: Combat Evolved was probably partly responsible for other mediums knocking off and driving the whole Starship Troopers/Aliens-like subgenre into the ground), although it’s not nearly as sophisticated as Half-Life. Although I don’t play it myself, a lot of my friends are dedicated players of the highly popular StarCraft 2, which has a unique, distinguished, and well-designed cast of characters and some intriguing lore.

An unrelated observation: these sci-fi game series all seem to take the exact formula of the Aliens vs. Predator franchise. Just think about it – you have your three factions of human space marines, your ancient race of proud knight-like alien warriors, usually motivated by some sort of religious doctrine, and your swarm of bug-aliens that operate in a hivemind and try to consume or kill everything, all going at each other. Often you’ll have the space marines and the ancient warrior aliens grudgingly put aside their differences to stop the bug-aliens from fucking up everything by killing the Queen of the swarm or something to that effect. Seriously, look around and you’ll find that every popular video game with that theme has this. At least Halo and StarCraft both do, anyway.

Concept of the Week: Setting

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 05:13:03 -0400

Setting is one of the biggest factors that makes Vaster Than Empires, and More Slow work. Perhaps the most important aspect of the setting in this story is the social environment. Le Guin’s purpose was very clear in putting a motley crew of misfits alone with each other on a space ship travelling to a distant planet, settings both far removed from any trace of human civilization. This was in order to help drive home the theme of isolation that presides in the conflict faced by Osden and the rest of the crew. The social environment dictates that they all try to get along for the purpose of their mission but don’t, especially with Osden. This becomes important to Osden’s purpose in the story because it affects what ultimately happens to him. The physical setting of the planet’s forest is important as a psychological factor among our cast of characters. On a personal level, the forest is completely foreign and fully untouched by humans, and embodies the Western cultural view of the forest being a dark place full of untamed danger, the yin to the yang civilization provides, where one can enter and easily not come out alive. This view of the setting is part of what implants “the fear” that consumes the team and drives them further into conflict. The “fear” that results from this setting also is important to Osden’s character development as his empathic abilities enable him to discover the fear is mutually shared not only by the forest but the entire planet, and thus he overcomes his conflict. These events taking place in such a setting are the result of the underlying themes implied by the author – the theme of civilization vs. nature. A man ostracized for seeing through civilized people’s fallacious gestures meant to hide their true tendencies finds belonging in a place free of civilization.

Concept of the Week: Nature/Environment

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:13:24 -0400

In the advertisements you posted on Blackboard as examples to use, I noticed they all seemed to be trying to appeal to and using (rather blatantly) imagery meant to invoke associations with those highly ambiguous terms of nature and environment. From that I gathered that for this blog I ought to find an advertisement or piece of media of my own, and critically break down the true purpose of its environmentalist façade. I kept this in mind when searching for videos to use, but my first consideration was tempting because I could have Penn and Teller do the critical thinking for me, as you will see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DX3lZ8peBU

But then I decided I could have my organic cake and eat it too. The other clip I found was more in line with the other examples, and while it didn’t seem to specifically have any instances of “environment” or “nature” mentioned, it has an aspect that ties into what the first video has that I will talk about. Everyone seems to remember watching this campy old shit, but if even if you didn’t you’ve no doubt seen this flamboyant blue dude’s mug on various nostalgic merchandise. And if there’s one part of this show that seems to have imprinted itself on our pop culture it’s the chant for his summoning by five kids given magic rings by Whoopi Goldberg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BhGGe_RBmY

From watching the intro to this rather unfavorably aged Saturday morning cartoon, it is crystal clear the types of antagonists the young heroes will be trying to stop with the help of their vaguely homosexual, green-haired champion of Earth. We see them foiling the convoluted schemes made by caricatures of greedy corporate suits so exaggerated that they hardly appear to be human. Dehumanizing the “enemy” is a common tactic used in propaganda, after all – but how is something with the seemingly good intentions of protecting the Earth comparable to something as harmful as propaganda? It’s illustrative of one the points made in Penn and Teller’s video and one of the things we discussed in class about environmentalism. In class, we talked about cornucopianism and the view that scarcity of resources is a lie to manipulate the public into an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist frenzy. The Penn and Teller video offers a look at the dark side of this campaign where sensationalism and misinformation cause the facts to be overlooked by people (especially middle class Americans) eager to believe they’re taking up a heroic cause by both saving the earth from impending doom and battling the negligence caused by corporate greed. The viewpoint taken by Penn and Teller and their various sources of data seem to take a middle road in this issue, where there are indeed problems like global warming but we are nowhere near the state of things being projected by people who believe (or want to convince us) the world is on the brink of a crisis.

So what does Captain Planet have to do with it? It’s a pretty standard piece of mediocre children’s syndication but was very successful because it took a complex concern with many facets to it and simplified it down to the conventions of a Saturday morning cartoon, allowing kids of basically any race to identify with the “freedom fighters” united against an obvious opponent and a threat that in the context of a simplistic show is very clear (also its pro-environmental message was current for its time and it was one of the earlier instances of a group of protagonists each having control of one of the four classical Greek elements, a formula we would see time and time again in recent American animation).

(Here are links to the other two parts of Penn and Teller’s video, which offer some interesting perspective on the environmentalist movement):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=_ELJt0vUBi4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz8F6v5NB8I

Concept of the Week: Marx

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:45:35 -0400

We have a fairly basic but clear connection to Marxism in the characters of the short (emphasis on ‘short’) story The Nine Billion Names of God. One of the aspects of the story Marxism best explains is the unhappiness of the two men we could construe to be our main characters, George and Chuck, the engineers assigned for three months to work with an obscure Buddhist monastery in the Tibetan mountains on “Project Shangri-La.” In the Marxist model of human society, George and Chuck would most certainly be classed at the base of Marx’s pyramid model of post-industrial human society, being technical workers laboring for unremarkable rates (unless the monks happen to wealthy ones) to make money for what could only be material goods that bring short-lived, false and empty happiness. We know this from the way the book describes them watching TV commercials on page 918, and how the ads are “like manna from heaven” and their only “link with home.” By not sharing the spiritual beliefs of the high lama who has employed them, George and Chuck are obviously very removed from the product of their labor, and by being out in the Tibetan mountains far from civilization, they have little with which to fill the void of meaninglessness in their work, making them irritable and miserable for the three months they are there. The high lama, by contrast, is excited by the results of their work, and his status at the monastery puts him at the superstructure atop Marx’s social pyramid. By the time their job is done, George and Chuck could not be more elated to go home and return to their world of consumer goods, no doubt filled with beer, fast food, and reality television. Marxism helps explain the true role of these characters and why the setting they are put into makes their personalities the way they are (consumer-laborer drones unhappy in a job concerned with spiritual pursuits + no material goods to give them relief from their labor = unhappiness).

Concept of the Week: The Novum

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:08:56 -0400

The novum is distinguished from elements of other fiction genres for having a scientific explanation as to why it exists, or at least having a basis in science. For example, it provides the backdrop for which we can believably become invested in the dilemmas faced by the characters of some of our “future” stories like The Second Variety, Burning Chrome, and Nekropolis, or “otherworldly” stories like Bloodchild, When It Changed and Kirinyaga. This is important because having a logical explanation for why this version of the future has the world in this way or has people living in another world different from ours (for a set of reasons that are almost invariably part of the statement being made by the author) allows us to better understand why these characters act in the way they do. And once again, it ties into the purpose of science fiction stories as thinly veiled social commentary. It essentially allows story to ask, “What sort of issues would arise if X was possible?” - X being the novum, of course – and the author answers in the way the story plays out. For example, in Baby, You Were Great!, we have the novum, a broadcast system of a person’s basic emotions made possible by electrodes in a person’s brain sending signals to helmets worn by audiences around the world. As a result, the story confronts the relationship issues of a woman whose entire life’s emotional experiences have been turned into a reality “show” being followed tirelessly by a whole nation. It uses science fiction to examine the sometimes harshly unsympathetic roads walked by the people in charge of showbusiness and the desire of the common people to get an escapist thrill through even the most simple, direct means possible.

Concept of the Week: Close-Focus Reading

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:49:00 -0400

I’ll be doing close-focus reading in The Persistence of Vision, of the fourth paragraph that begins at about the middle of page 807 and the two short paragraphs after it. Our unnamed protagonist has an inner monologue and starts remembering the help he got from Pink upon arriving in Keller. He feels gratitude and attachment to her for teaching him handtalk and expecting little from him in return. He calls her his “special friend,” and admits to feeling possessive of her. Pink and the other Kellerites, with their unbelievably acute perception of others’ feelings, knew the outsider was still subject to his caveman instincts of warding off contending males who are after his mate. So they all took a moment to comfort the protag, letting him know it was a natural reaction not to be ashamed of, and the man whom triggered the protag’s territorial instinct turns his affection away from Pink and on to him. Our protagonist explains how this conflict among male mammals is normally resolved from the point of view of a behaviorist (they fight for dominance until one submits). The Kellerites turn that view on its head by responding to innate human aggression with yielding. Rather than fight back, they roll with the punches, so to speak, making the aggressor’s belligerent strains seem futile. He almost cannot believe how such a simple response succeeds in solving this problem of human nature, so he laughs, the others knowingly laugh with him and everyone is happy. There is no conflict in Keller because there is no jealously because everyone shares the love without any reservations. This passage is how both we and the protagonist come to realize why Keller is a true utopia, and his relationship with Pink is more transcendental than them being lovers in the way we view romantic lovers in our society as exclusive to each other.

Bonus clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KWHZERHfms

This clip from Moral Orel offers a good contrast to the passage and some unsettingly accurate commentary where the male tendency to “lock [her] away in [your] cave and defend with a gnawed-off thighbone,” as Persistance of Vision put it, creates strife and unhappiness, and makes utopia unattainable. Clay Puppington’s depressing drunken rant has a truthfulness that is almost bittersweet.

If you’re not familiar with Moral Orel I could offer an explanation but there’s always Wikipedia for that. If I could sum up as short as I can though it’s a parody and a criticism of religion wrapped in comedy blacker than the blackest black hole the universe ever had.

Concept of the Week: Reader Response

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 02:07:38 -0500

We never got around to talking about Nekropolis in class, as if we had just skipped over it. I decided for the sake of not leaving out anything on the syllabus I would give it a read and use my response for the concept of the week. After only a few pages, I am somewhat taken aback by the unusual words and names the characters call each other by. Looking at the editor’s foreword/description preceding the story helped clear up a few of the names for me - specifically, “jessed”, meaning bound into indentured servitude, and “harni”, a bioengineered clone. I had to get clarification on the many other foreign-sounding words through context, sort of like when reading Burning Chrome – but whereas Burning Chrome used computer jargon based on preexisting English words, these words sound like they came from another language. I still don’t know what a lot of these names meant, but the way these names were spelled and the way they sounded gave me the feeling the culture being portrayed here was analogous to (or the words are directly from?) Indian or Middle Eastern civilization. Not much later on, my beliefs were confirmed - page 389 describes mourners wearing white standing outside the Moussin of the White Falcon, and white is the color customarily worn in Hindu culture to mourn the departed, unlike the black worn in Western society. The words are still foreign to me, but do not impede in my understanding of the story. I was especially interested in how the dynamic between Diyet and her harni servant played out, and I wondered if after the tender moment they had after the first time in the story the mistress berated her, if her spiteful view of him would turn into one of love. Once she started referring to him by his name, Akhmim, that pretty much confirmed my suspicions. It’s a very intriguing relationship because we cannot always know if he is being fully honest in what he says, due to fulfill his duty of making humans happy, the very thing he was bred to do.

(Original post date: Feb 24th, 2012 4:48pm)

Concept of the Week: Gender

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:05:00 -0500

“I like to think of myself as a human being.” This is a quote by Bruce Lee, when asked on whether he considered himself Chinese or American. In terms of race, Bruce considers whether he is one or the other irrelevant. Ought we to answer in the same way if asked whether we are man or woman? Perhaps if we did, there would be no need for words like misogyny or feminism, and “The Other” mentioned by Simone de Beauvoir wouldn’t apply to the sexes. Gender is, like race, just another identifier – and much less clear-cut than being either male or female. Sex is different because it is required for humanity to propagate.

When It Changed presents a society where the need for two sexes to reproduce is gone, and thusly, the women decide to take their leave off a decaying, ravaged Earth and spend six centuries building a colony on a new planet with no men. When the men finally do come back, the concept of “the other” is taken to the utmost extreme – our female protagonists can hardly view the men as human when their kind has not been exposed to men for six centuries.

The Second Sex tells us how women in almost every society throughout history were defined by the men for “the sex”, and were differentiated for it in reference to the man – in other words, viewed as abnormal or substandard. This is like what is happening in the story but with the roles reversed.

Why didn’t the U.S. draft women during the first and second World Wars or the Vietnam War? They could have, but drafting all the women means there’d be almost no one around the homeland to have babies and keep our population up, which would put us in a very disadvantageous position if we’d lost the war. Does this still mean the draft policy during that era was discriminatory?

(“think about it in terms of gender and the complexities that arise due to the way in which our genetic code is not necessarily the same as our behavior” really confused me.)

Blog Prompt: Reflection

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:43:00 -0500

The literary technique I learned so far I found valuable was the contrast between plot and conflict. As we’ve made clear conflict is the blocked desires of a character – when we normally think of conflict we like to think of a dispute between two different parties, but it can easily be the self (and no one else!) that creates conflict. More importantly, it is conflict that creates instability in order to drive the plot forward. Without conflict you don’t have a compelling story. Whether you like the protagonist(s) or not, ultimately for a story to be good you want to see how the plot goes in regards to how they resolve their conflict. In the same vein, learning the contrast between moral and theme was also helpful to me – themes don’t make value judgments (unlike morals) and tend to be more complex. Of the stories we read this semester on “Robots, Computers, and Science,” there were a few that stood out to me as exemplary of science fiction, due to their themes. Liar!, The Algorithms for Love, and The Second Variety all played on a similar theme – whether there is really a difference between man and machine. It’s the kind of social commentary that science fiction is defined by, and is full of intrigue. It gets down to the kind of tough questions I like examining. Take Your Choice was another interesting, somewhat ominous story that took an unusual twist on sci-fi conventions. It made several stylistic choices that really hit home for me once everything was wrapped up – the protagonist remained a nameless everyman, and the “time travel” turned out to be a ruse. When that, along with the results of the scam pulled all over the world coming up with people consciously choosing annihilation for their fake future, was revealed, it was a real “oh crap” moment that made me think “this is really what we are, huh?”

This video…I have nothing to say. It speaks entirely for...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:11:00 -0500

This video…I have nothing to say. It speaks entirely for itself.

Watch and learn.

AEL, good work w/ the theme post and the way in which robots are the new "evolution" of humans. Interestingly, Darwin never said "survival of the fittest," which was a term favored by scientific racism to promote why blacks should remain slaves. Darwin said the much-less pithy "the tendency of organisms with beneficial random mutations to survive to reproductive age." A thing to think about. I love the Mega-Man X connection--I too loved Mega-Man as a kiddo. Good work this week!

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:10:34 -0500

Oh…sh*t. And I still hear “survival of the fittest” used completely innocently, the speaker probably totally unawares of its racially charged bakground. How incredibly awkward.

But to be fair, the Darwin version is…long.

This is really cool because it throws out a reference to...

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:08:00 -0500

This is really cool because it throws out a reference to Asimov’s first law of robotics right there in the intro. Even though most of the game has you running sideways, jumping, and shooting, it’s somehow still full of subtle parallels to Asimov’s work. Mega Man X is fantastic.

It really is true that my exposure to sci-fi comes mostly from dated video games.

More of those animations from EarthBound, for little reason other than that it's weird and awesome and I like it. And the blog I found these pics off of is amazing.

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:43:00 -0500

More of those animations from EarthBound, for little reason other than that it's weird and awesome and I like it. And the blog I found these pics off of is amazing.:

Seems pretty SciFi-ish to me.

Concept of the Week: Theme

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:37:00 -0500

One of the themes implicit in Philip K. Dick’s The Second Variety is the end of humanity on the evolutionary line, not unlike the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. But in this case, the aforementioned space rock is instead nuclear weapons and the species that survived and evolved are robots – both the designs of humans, and built for war. While it not so implicit that the robots pitted against our protagonists are programmed to exterminate all human life, we are given evidence at the conclusion of the story that these robots are more than senseless killing machines. This is a sci-fi story that came from an era where the complete destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had recently shocked the world, and where robotics was a brand new discovery. Dick used that to channel the public’s initial, subconsciously fearful reaction that robots could someday replace us. Themes in fiction are supposed to avoid making value judgments, and while this theme is undoubtedly very grim, it is still examined neutrally in the story. This is evidenced in Major Hendricks final epiphanic thoughts about the nature of the Second Variety. “He felt a little better about it. The bomb. Made by the Second Variety to destroy the other varieties. Made for that end alone. They were already beginning to design weapons to use against each other” (Dick, 331). At the very conclusion of the story, Hendricks realizes that, in a way, the machines are “human” after all. Like living organisms, they adapted ways to outsmart their prey. By imitating humans and getting behind their defenses undetected before summoning the hordes of more primitive “species” of robots adapted for overrunning and killing, the numbered “Variety” androids illustrate the possibility that we will be the orchestrators of our own evolutionary replacements, a theme explored often in science fiction. The Second Variety exposes the grim circumstance caused by “survival of the fittest” when humanity is no longer the fittest.

Works cited:

Dick, Philip K. “The Second Variety.” Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts. Ed. Heather Masri. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. Print.

Concept of the Week: Conflict

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:21:00 -0500

Elena from The Algorithms for Love by Ken Liu is, in my opinion, the best character we’ve read about so far. Within a story that takes ten to fifteen minutes to read we are told of a deep and multi-layered inner conflict in her worthy of a novella. One of her primary conflicts could fit the very definition of “desire blocked” as we call it in class, and in the text it goes like this: “I wanted something to fill my arms, something to learn to speak, to walk, to grow a little, long enough for me to say goodbye, long enough to quiet those cries” (Liu, 422). She is rendered unable to birth children after her first attempt at having one and it leaves her empty, grievous, and envious of the everyday mothers she sees around her. Part of what puts her at odds with her husband Brad is his incapacity to fully comprehend her desire to raise a child but not birth one out of loyalty for Aimée, who died in infancy for reasons unexplained by the author. So to resolve her conflict, she builds robotic dolls as surrogates, and her revisions make them so close to real humans that her “Tara” model fools Brad into believing she is not a mechanical doll. Elena’s impeccable robotics work is what creates her second major inner conflict. The more she learns to imitate human behavior with robotic algorithms, the more it becomes plausible to her that human behavior itself is algorithmic. The success of Tara on her real-life Turing Test does not make Elena pleased with her efforts, but frightened. “What if our brain cells are just looking up signals from other signals? What if we are not thinking at all? What if what I’m saying to you now is just a predetermined response, the result of mindless physics?” (Liu, 425) She discovers she may have cracked the code for the human brain, and exposed free will as a mere illusion. To solve this conflict, she attempts suicide at least twice – she fails, only creating more conflict with Brad through more lack of comprehension.

Works cited:

Liu, Ken. “The Algorithms for Love.” Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts. Ed. Heather Masri. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. Print.