The Final Chapter

13th Blog Post / Revisit of earlier post


I decided to revisit a post from the first weeks reading about the Frankenstein Monster. Besides horror being my favorite genre, the Frankenstein Monster is probably my favorite character in the vast world of creatures goblins and ghouls. The adversity he faces, the misunderstand aspect of his intentions when trying to find Dr. Frankenstein, and the life he was forced to live because of his apparence all lend to this sympethatic approach I get when reading this novel.

As the reader I can find so many things that I can relate to in this novel. The Frankenstein Monster didn't choose to the life he was born into, none of us do. So when he is abandoned by his master Dr. Frankenstein he throws a tantrum just like a new born and then we start to see what he is capitable of. His destructive force that turns into a killing machine, though he doesn't know what its wrong at first but to us, he is this un-human nightmare sent here to kill us which isn't his intentions. He was just scared, but then he starts to learn on his own since he was abandoned.

His ability to learn is the reason he becomes so dangerous. The Frankenstein Monster his forced to teach himself throughout the story. One important thing is speech, with this tool he is able to communicate with Dr. Frankenstein and with every human that he comes across. I found this to be extremely interesting because the Frankenstein Monster is one of the few intelligent creatures of the night. Which brings him up to a human level, I can get inside his mind so to speak because he can voice his thoughts, I start to understand his reasoning towards the end of the book when he kills Dr. Frankensteins wife out of revenge. Most of the time the monsters tend to be mindless animals in a sense, running off their natural instincts. Creatures like zombies, some ghost, werewolves, king kong etc. But at this point in the story, the Frankenstein Monster is actually plotting is revenge for being left alone and is strategically planning who to kill, who is closest to Dr. Frankenstein.

The thought of having something with that mindset and the ability to carry it out is pretty scary because now there is reason. Moral of the story, don't give a monster a reason to want to kill you, especially if he can come up with a reason.

Liliths Brood

Lilith’s Brood 

This weeks reading was one of the better ones out of the past few. I love how it talks about responsibility which is something I think everyone should take more pride into. This is another good story about humans interacting with another intelligent species, aliens. Of course in this novel the humans are weaker, making the reader feel vulnerable. Then we are introduced into the role genders play in this story. The aliens have this third category of gender called ooloi, which is described as a mixture of both male and female. Another little tid bit about the ooloi is the ability to change other genders and they can make hybrids with other species ( we find out this becomes problematic later on in the story for Lilith ). So if they went to a new planet they would have no problem blending in with whatever species that was on that planet. Hopefully there intent would be good and not malicious.

There aren't that many humans left so having any sort of connections with humans becomes very important. Can you imagine a universe full of life and being alone? Lilith and the ooloi have combined their genetics, heres the problem. She's isolated from the human race because she isn't a pure human being anymore ( figuratively ). Lilith feels like an outcast to the human race and now has to choose which humans to start over with. I can only image how difficult this must be when everyone sees you as an outsider and you have to cast that thought out of your head when making a decision. All that pressure is put on Lilith to make those choices, and to make the right one at that.

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas 

by Ursula Le Guin.

This novel is very well rounded short story. In this short story, they talk about a nice town called Omelas ( The Utopia, every story seems to have one ). Everything is going good except the situation with a deformed child. The people of Omelas are thinking " hey if we let this child be free we can't be perfect " selfish of them right? I know, I guess this is the price they pay for wanting perfection or this is what happens when a society is brought up on perfection. The standards that outline "perfect" cloud the fine line between what's right and wrong. Obviously this is a clear case to the reader, we know this is wrong and now after reading that I have this animosity towards the perfect town, kind of ironic if you think about it. The town that has everything going right for it and yet I have a problem with them already.

This really reminds me of things that go on in today's world. Giving someone else freedom doesn't take away from your own freedom, not like there is this limited pool of freedom and there isn't enough to go around. Anyways back to the story.

 In the town of Omelas, there are people who see the captive child and walk away from the town. They know what's going on but choose not to help, we see that all the time in today's world, everyone is guilty of it at some point. Its like a social standard thing were we keep on with our daily routine and the outside world doesn't influence us. When really it does, I bet if one person did do something then others would join in and support that individual. All it takes it one.

So I went from reading about this nice town and thinking the best about them, to uncovering the truth about the towns true nature. The figurative mask the town wears while this child is in a room suffering really talks to me about the type of society they are.

The Stars

Reach for the Stars! 


  The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester is really different from stories I'm used to. Our main character Foyle isn’t the best until he wants revenge and to destroy all people on Vorga for not helping him. It’s funny how much trouble the teleportation or "jaunting" caused to the everyone on all the planets.  Really quick on a side note, people in this novel can only teleport on each planet or to places they have already been to, unlike in most science fiction stories were its a free range of teleportation. Basically it causes wars and dangers to the common people because of the amount of problems that arise from them. This in turn is the downfall, funny how advancement in technology that was supposed to be for the better, ends up being the downfall. This was a very interesting take, I have seen it done before where the teleportation is used to get to some important destination for the heroes, but I never thought of what a teleportar could do if they weren’t a hero like stealing items, unless I think of the cartoon Futurama were Bender the robot would steal riches from all over the galaxy in all different time periods. Otherwise teleportation is usually just a means of escape, with some instances of quick travel. 

  *Another side note, there was another instance of teleportation in Dragon Ball Z ( yes the cartoon ) were Goku teleported himself and Cell ( the antagonist ) to save planet Earth, only for Cell to survive and return to Earth. I bring this up because the teleportation was used to not only as a means of travel, but also to save a planet. Thought that would be an interesting little piece of info.*

  It’s also interesting how it spread sickness but now that I think about it, its literally the fastest way for it to spread. And I like how it has the science atmosphere with people getting sick when they first starting trying out teleportation, but it also has the fantasy aspect of the story. Mixing things we understand like spreading diseases with components that we know aren't fictional yet like teleporting. Our brain puts two and two together and it makes sense somehow. The story continues on with the end being Foyle making a last ditch effort to escape from his past and have a fresh start. Very interesting stories overall and I would recommend it to someone who's interested in this genre.