Hunger for Blood Redux

Vampires. They are the tyrannical terror of the undead world, the horror that cannot always be detected for they often hide behind a mask of beauty and charm. But how did they become this way? How has literature evolved them into these seductive creatures?

That is where our reading came in. Though Dracula introduced the vampire as a charming count, Anne Rice took her stories further. Not only do her books bring forth the beauty and majestic quality that vampires have developed but they make them people. Not only that but vampires become personable in Interview with the Vampire. Louis tells his horrifying and yet mystifying story to Daniel who becomes entranced by it. Louis does not seem evil... but rather the victim of a curse as he sees it... while it is also described as a gift. He tells of how he feeds and how Lestat taught him how to feed.

Louis does not seem like the monster that vampires are described as. Even Lestat whom Louis comes to despise is not a truly nefarious character. We come to see that there is something hidden in Lestat's past as to why he is the way he is. If you read more in The Vampire Lestat, you come to find that that is true. His maker forced vampirism on him but instead of hating himself and what he had become, he cherished the gift and sought to enjoy the life that had been given to him.

So why is it that people like me have such a fascination with these beings? These creatures of the night? Do they live some sort of morbid fantasy that we all have? Is it that by putting a name on a monster that looks so like ourselves that we can feel more human? I saw vampires as a higher evolution of humans. They are immortal and strong, a predator that can keep humankind in check. That is a point I believe Lestat made in the Vampire Chronicles- trying to teach Louis that "God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creature under God is as we are, none so like Him as ourselves." I think that truly lies in the point of view that I think of them as. An evolution, an adaptation and the closest to immortality that humans could ever get.

But is immortality really worth that weight of your soul? I guess it would depend on how it was that you saw your kills. Marius taught Lestat (who then teaches Louis) that you are to kill only evil doers. Use your mind powers to find those who commit wrong and kill only them. They are not human so is it really murder to kill humans for food? That would be like saying that a wolf is a murderer for killing an elk to survive.

It is an interesting moral dilemma.

Immortality, to Louis, is a curse and not a gift. It is a way for him to spend the ages mourning Claudia and the life he could have had if Lestat had not found him. He will always remember that he was made not out of love but of need- not even of him but for his wealth and property. But unlike Lestat, he doesn’t accept his fate and learn to be as he is. Instead, he mourns for a life he will not have and people he will never see again.

"The world changes, we do not, there in lies the irony that finally kills us."

Reality... or is it?

I really like strange fiction. I like fiction that makes me sit back and wonder what exactly the story was about... and even if there was no point, it was still very good.

Oryx and Crake is a superb example of that. I still wonder what exactly the story was about and what the point of the controversy put in it has. The main character, whom is called Snowman and I will refer to him as such, goes through his story as to how he came to be- one of the only humans left in a world of genetically altered ones called Crakers. They are called that because Crake, an old friend of Snowman's, created them. He goes through the odd and yet normal story of how two boys are good friends and yet their lives begin to part. Crake is the genius who enjoys the tinkering of life and Snowman seems always disappointed in his life.

The most disturbing aspect of it was Oryx. There comes a point where Crake and Snowman are on the computer looking at pornography (I think they were fourteen at the time) and they see Oryx who was just a child at the time. Now, even though I am not disturbed by many things (I found the whole story of Bloodchild fascinating and not repulsive), the idea of two fourteen year olds looking at child pornography and saving it because they enjoyed it bothered me. It didn't bias me against the characters but it did make me always see them in this horrified light. No matter what they did after that point, I was off put by them.

It was like that in Existenz too... being disturbed regularly and yet continuing to read or watch even though you knew it was only going to get worse. Existenz got me when he was eating the weird reptile thing and it made me want to vomit (that was The Special- I bought the movie so I could see The Special). Of course it was how to plug yourself in the game and using the strange controller that unnerved me the most. I am a gamer; I like MMOs, but sticking it straight into my spine is a little intense. I don't know if I would be able to stomach that. I wonder how far into reality the actual game got. Just the set storyline? Or did the horrors of the real world actually come into play?

I think that is the greatest literary achievement of all. Writing a novel or perhaps making a game that involves a world that we actually live in even if it isn't the same type of realm. Sticking the most disruptive and off setting events in a work effect us on a level that it wouldn't if it didn't happen.

Parasites

I like aliens and otherworldly creatures. I will readily admit it. Science fiction has no hold on me unless there are strange races and people who are not quite like us.

The moment that I started to read Bloodchild, I knew that I wish I had been able to find Dawn by Octavia Butler. The story Bloodchild was provocative and tantalizing, wrong and yet captivating at the same time. I found that though the main character seemed to have a fear of their otherworldly family member, he also loved her as did the entire family. What would it be like to have such a parasite in your family and loving, or being forced to love that creature or person? The answer is not simple. However, it is answerable. I live in my own home with a parasitic family member except that, unlike in the story, I hold no love and no longer care for the person. It's a day to day fear about what will happen next or if you will be their next victim.

So why is it in the story that they love their alien guest? I think it is because even though she has to harbor her offspring within the humans, she cares and loves them and tries to be gentle. In modern society, the most parasitic of people are that way because of choice and seem to enjoy sapping the joy from those around them. They enjoy watching and getting satisfaction in pushing those who disobey them out of their world and demonizing them. In Bloodchild, she has no want to hurt those she lives with.

It seems to be a pattern among female science fiction authors to use the parasites of people... and make them not such a threat. In C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy, the main character allows Tarrant, a dark immortal figure in the world, to feed off his fear to keep him alive to continue their quest. As the story progresses, even with his lack of want to understand why it is that Tarrant has done things, grows to care enough for him to protect him when he is weak. He knows, that in light of the events, Tarrant's power is greater than his and will protect him the rest of the time.

You see, people in our day and age don't look at things like that. Our parasites are just that. There is no logic or change to make them better people. You have to treat them the way you treat a dog for fleas- abolishing them. There is no give and receive, only take.

A Gritty Future

The world of hacking, corporation take over and street heroes is one that is not only popular fiction, but a closer reality than I believe most people would rather admit.

I think that is the point of cyberpunk actually. It exposes a dark, gritty future that doesn't end up being flying cars, mystical robots and other fashionable things of the future. Instead, people are living in storage units, walking the streets to the beat of whatever corporation they stand for and using alternate realities to escape the one they are in. That is what Hiro in Snow Crash does. In real life, he's just a hacker that lives in a storage unit with a friend. In the game he "plays", he's a sword swinging hero with more battles to his name than any other. Drugs aren't the choice way to mess people up but rather viruses. Computer viruses. Of course, I guess if you are in a bar in a game and somebody tries to give you some special in game item, you probably shouldn't take it. Unless it's from the game developers themselves (and even worse when one of the game developers takes it).

I didn't get through Snow Crash, I just couldn't spend more time on a novel that I had no idea what was going on in (another book like that is The Harlequin by Laurell K. Hamilton- I couldn't get through that either because of my confusion). I guess Cyberpunk is like that but I have a short attention span and if I am not caught quick, I am never caught at all.

We watched part of Bladerunner in class but a movie that I watched instead and found it to be very reminisce of cyberpunk was Repo the Genetic Opera. At first, it seems like a dark, gothic tale but it is in reality a post apolcalyptic film that has many of the tropes of cyberpunk. For example, the main character is a female and a very strong one at that. The film is dark and gritty, a mix of classic gothic and then more futuristic things. After all, organ transplant has become a fashion statement in that world and Geneco, the company that gives them, rules the world. If you screw over Geneco, the Repo Man will come and get you. Like in Snow Crash, there is a "drug" that is popular called Zydrate, a blue fluid that is injected into you through a gun for pain (it was originally given to patients for surgery) which is now a black market item.

I find the entire genre of cyberpunk fascinating but far too much forces you into a world that you don't understand and they don't really help you along. Some people can find their way... but I am not truly one of them. I will stick with the films in the genre rather than the fiction.

To Infinite and Beyond.

More science fiction.

Before I talk about Babel 17, I am going to talk about A Scanner Darkly which is one of the most bizarre movies I have ever seen. When we watched it in class, I knew I had to finish watching it. A week later, it arrived.

A Scanner Darkly is one of those movies that screws with your mind as much as the characters screw with one another's minds. You have to just roll with it. I think the major theme in the movie is not just paranoia but justified paranoia. You are always being watched, you are always being listened to. The world is a lot like the internet in which someday someone will find something you have done no matter how you try to hide it. Privacy is an invented concept in the modern world, everything is public domain whether you wish to believe it or not. It reminds me of how on deviantart, somebody will steal another person's piece of work, post it on an obscure site and still a hundred people note the artist saying they found it.

The most interesting thing perhaps is how the characters in the movie have no idea that the ring leader of them is actually an agent in disguise. Even worse, the actual government doesn't know that the guy they are looking for is actually their own agent. My favorite part, and most well done, is when they walk into the house and think that they are about to be raided. They go over the possibilities of what might happen, because the door was unlocked, and then they find out it was just the girlfriend. They almost shoot her. You would think with that level of paranoia one of them would have serious health problems beyond the drug issues.

But now onto Babel 17 even though it seems to have little connection to A Scanner Darkly.

It is not a long story but the theme of language and communication is a strong one. When the main character finds what they believe is a code, she realizes it is not a code but actually an alien language that can be used as a weapon. Eventually she is seen as a perhaps traitor and is rescued from danger. Language is often a theme in games as well as books. In many of the modules I have played in Neverwinter Nights, the puzzles consist of deciphering languages that turn to be these ancient powerful civilizations. Many times, like in Shadows of Undrentide, you end up in the wake of that civilization because of your discovery. That is much what happened in Babel 17.

Stars the Limit?

I will be the first to say that when it comes to science fiction, especially hardcore science fiction, I am not expert. Actually, I avoid it at all costs most of the time. However, I think that after spending half a semester on the different types of science fiction, I may change my mind.

I couldn't read The Stars My Destination because I couldn't find it in stores and reading on the computer hurts my eyes, but I have seen Serenity and I can share what science fiction experience I do have from my own readings.

Serenity is one of those movies my friends used to drag me to their houses to see after exams ended in high school. One of those movies that sat me down in and I had to ask a million questions during and give lots of commentary because though the effects and story seemed nice, I seemed determined to not like it. Fortunately, I came around and I really enjoyed the movie. I always like movies that have a lot of eye candy to offer. I think what got me the most was the set of neutral characters and how they, to me, seemed like a ragtag party that would be put together in a role playing game. Even though it was scifi, I was captured by that. I can't dislike a party of adventurers.

The stories we read in class, however, I found were interesting. Shorter, more concise stories in a genre I am not familiar or comfortable in tend to work better than longer works for me.

Dime Store Magic

Witches.

More than vampires, werewolves and monsters witches have been a fear of people for ages. You only have to look back at our fairy tales and most of the time, the villain is a witch- generally an old crone who lures people so that she can use them for her dark purposes. They are a popular theme for Halloween and even in more modern literature. I think, however, like vampires and werewolves, they have taken a more gray meaning. If a vampire or a werewolf can be a monster that can be understood and even liked, why can't a witch? Why can't a witch use magic that benefits others instead of magic that is meant to curse and harm?

I think, though, it can be agreed that witches are a form of fear for female power. In the stories, the witch is always a woman. They are almost always ugly (or have used power to make themselves beautiful). Back in the Middle Ages, and even more current, women were burned who were simply suspected of witchcraft. These are the tales that are handed down to us and our children. It is, in a way, disturbing.

But the more current stories begin to call into the fictional world helpful witches. For example, in C.S. Friedman's Feast of Souls, her witches use a part of their life force to help their fellow villagers. The first witch introduced sacrifices the last part of her life force to save a young child for a woman. It is grim, yes, but it is power they use to help those around them rather than harm (which is a wonderful comparison to the mages in the book who are male and feed their infinite magic off of other people!). Of course, compared to the magi, they are considered lesser being they are not only women but that they fade with use of their magic.

Another example is in Kelley Armstrong's world where her main witch, Paige Winterborne, is one that doesn't have any offensive spells. She can call into being defensive shields but her powers cannot be used to harm. She is one of the only otherworld races in the series that doesn't get anything to use offensively against the bad guys that often end up in her path (but that is probably why she is married to a sorcerer).

To Live is to Die- A Spiritual Journey

I think the roots of most fantasy has started with children. As kids, we are allowed to like dragons and fairies, look into our closet and perhaps find Narnia. But as the characters we love mature, we begin to mature as well and with that comes frightening realities. Maybe in the back of the closet there is only hangers and coats, maybe the fireflies outside are not fairies but rather, just fireflies. But does it have to end for them? No, it usually only goes to a darker, more complicated world. There is no longer just elation at the start of an adventure but the tension of a thousand emotions that they are not sure of.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman is a superb example of this. Often I remember reading the beginning of that book and thinking it needless children's literature but then the undertones come through. It's like when I was a child and though I had never been to church, there was the thought of God all around me and my family. I never quite came out and said that I thought the stories of God were just as ridiculous as Jack and the Beanstalk, but it was there. But when I grew older and I saw what it really did to people all in the name of "good", I realized that I was right to stay away. Lyra finds that out very early. There is a group of powerful people in the book that don't think that people should have daemons anymore. And the best way to cut the demon (or brainwash as in our world) is to start with the children. Learn to live without your daemon, desires or need to rebel. Cut out the bad stuff before the dust settles, so to speak.

I think that is the main reason why I really enjoyed The Golden Compass. Nothing excites and makes me feel more at home than a bit of fantasy that is out to give light to an institution that likes to give reason to doing really bad things. I intend to read the rest of the series to fully have the enjoyment of Lyra's journey.

Though I was never truly crazy about the Harry Potter novels, since I read six of them I have to admit they are a good example of this. I enjoyed the novels most when Harry was younger and the plots were a little less needlessly complicated. The Sorcerer's Stone opened to a boy who was living with his aunt and uncle who treated him more like a serf than even a slave. They worked him to the bone and even when his letter from Hogwartz came, tried everything in their power to make sure he was not able to go. Well, normal people can't foil magic so in the end Harry went off to the magic school and began the greatest journey of his life.

But journeys are wrought with pain and danger.

Harry finds out the truth about his family and in that also finds out about an item called the Sorcerer's Stone which grants eternal life. Of course, there has to be somebody after the artifact and of course our main character has to be in the middle of it. It ends up with Professor Quirrell who is a servant of Voldemort, the wizard who kileld Harry's parents and gave him the scar, trying to get the stone and is of course usurped by Harry and his two friends. As the series progresses, the task grow harder and the journey more dangerous, Harry realizing that he has to become a man and an able wizard to destroy the force about to rock the world to its very core. He learns to deal with death and heartbreak, a child still but growing faster than he would have liked.

These fantasy stories about spiritual journeys are books that you read when you are younger and don't fully understand all the extra wonder that is truly packed into them until you are older. I remember when I first began to read Anne Rice which was in about seventh or eighth grade and many of the themes horrified or confused me but now they are taken with grim acceptance. I am sure if I had read The Golden Compass or the Harry Potter stories as a child, I would not have understand the full implications of what was being presented to me until much later.

That is the joy of such novels as those. They offer more than just a fun tale- they give you more to chew on when you sit back.

The Epic Journey

This week, I have to admit, is one of my favorites. The roots for my love of literature did not come from fantasy. However, I discovered fantasy at the beginning of my junior year in high school. I still remember when my best friend recommended R.A. Salvatore’s The Dark Elf Trilogy to me and how skeptical I was to immerse myself in that world. Oh I enjoyed dragons and mythic creatures but I had never quite crossed the threshold into fantasy yet. But after that first chapter when Malice gave birth to Drizzt and Dinin murdered his brother to move higher up on the low male totem pole of drow society, I never went back.

I’ve read three of the series on the book list and those are the series I’m going to talk about as well as mix in thoughts from other books of this genre I have read.

I can’t talk about fantasy and not drone on about Drizzt Do’Urden. He was one of the main characters in the Icewind Dale Trilogy which, interestingly, was supposed to be about Wulfgar. But I am going to talk about the Dark Elf Trilogy instead because it involves more than just the classic epic adventure. It is the actual story of a character's growth and progress in a society that speaks against everything he believes in. The story begins in Menzoberranzan, a large drow city in the underdark of Faerun. There, the outcast dark elves of the world live in beautiful cities lit by fairy fire and their citadels built into the stalagmites and stalactites of the large caverns. Drizzt was born and meant to be sacrificed to their Spider Goddess but when his brother Dinin murdered his eldest brother, Drizzt was no longer a third son and was therefore allowed to continue to live.

What entails is him growing up beneath his sister Vierna, who is his wean mother, and learns through harsh whippings and beatings the place of a male in the world of his people. When he is fifteen, he enters Melee Magthere to learn how to be a true drow warrior. Now, as I am sure most people have yet to read the series, I won't continue as to what happens beyond that, for the plots begin to entangle Drizzt in deadly ways, but I will talk about his struggles. His father, Zaknafein, was never caught in the trick of the drow way of thinking and for that did not want his son to be caught either. Drizzt found out early the harsh lessons of what would become of him if he succumbed to such a fate. But as his integrity began to grow, so did his family's frustration with him and the hate they had for Zaknafein's influence over him.

Eventually his struggle leads him out of the underdark and able to befriend people of other races despite the connotations attached to his skin color. By the end of the Icewind Dale Trilogy, Drizzt is a hero all across the lands of Faerun and probably the only dark elf that people can trust. I just read the latest book, and one of the last to be written about him, and I must say that it is marvelous but even speaking about it would ruin this character's colorful world for whoever wants to engage themselves.

The issue of integrity and acceptance of difference is often a common device for truly good fantasy authors. It turns an epic journey into a real dialogue and struggle between the characters. This is true in Jennifer Roberson's novels of Tiger and Del (which come in 3 beautifully illustrated thick books). Tiger is a sword master in the desert lands who takes contracts for his services with the sword. The world he lives in is patriarchal and he is no exception to this. Del, on the other hand, is a fair skinned and fair haired woman swords mistress of the colder lands. She comes into the Punja (the desert land Tiger lives in) and needs a guide so that she can find her brother who was kidnapped. But the problem is that she's a woman in a man's world now and they see her as little more than a vessel for children. Tiger even thinks that (and has more personal reasons for taking the job from the beautiful woman).

Their struggle continues through all the novels, Tiger eventually accepting her gender and the idea that she could be as good as he is with the blade. But the struggle they have to get to that point is very interesting... and it's a big dominance battle between the two of them.

The last series I read was the Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. The stories, especially the first two, were very engaging. Most Arthurian tales describe Morgan Le Fay as a terrible sorceress who seduced her brother Arthur to bear a child of his for nefarious purposes. However, these books portray her differently, as a caring and devoted priestess of Avalon. She and Arthur's coupling that produced a son came from a pagan ritual in the story where the new king would consummate with a priestess of Avalon. However, after that night, Morgaine (which is her name in the book) realizes that the man she had copulated with was her half brother (because Morgaine's father was not Uther but her mother's first husband). That is a long secret they keep between themselves.

I think this series really captured me because Morgaine is really not a bad person in it. She becomes the person who both the other characters come to for solutions but then blame her for the uncertain outcome. For example, when Guinevere is unable to conceive a child, she asks Morgaine for a charm to help her fertility and the priestess warns her and says that the outcomes are often different and uncertain. The only product of that charm becomes a threesome between she, Arthur and Lancelot while both men are rather intoxicated. Everyone in the series uses her (Lancelot beds her and then throws her out as if she is trash, Guinevere thinks she is an evil harlot but asks her for favors and so forth) without thinking of the repercussions to Morgaine. I think the only one who throughout the books that stays by her side and defense is Arthur and I was never sure if he stayed simply because of the guilt of having unknowingly bedded her or if he truly cared.

The heroic journey and the epic fantasy tale are all wrought with trials and tribulations that we all share. The difference between our world and theirs is that in Faerun, the Punja or ancient Avalon, everyone can be a hero... or a villain. Some time ago I remember in an interview with R.A. Salvatore, he speculated why fantasy is so popular. In fantasy, everyone can make a difference. Everyone can be a hero.

Enjoy the Silence

There's something frightening about silence and darkness. Usually the silence is meant to comfort, to bridge a gap so that someone doesn't have to make up words to fill the void. However, to me, silence is a force more frightening than the visible and jumping monster.

I will be the first person to admit that Japanese horror films don't scare me. Actually, I usually find them strange, maybe intriguing, but even the ideas are not all that scary. They are full of mysticism and I think they border more on the lines of folk and spiritual lessons rather than true fright. I am not saying that I think Western horror is scarier, even though to me is usually is, but they hold different values. For example, Japanese horror holds a value in the use of silence and the quiet threat. The spirits in Japanese horror are not usually dangerous in of themselves but what made them come into being.

The stories that I read, the first four in Kwaidan, were more like folk tales than anything. They conveyed lessons or morals, as most stories did in that time. Very few were actually ghost stories like what we have in the Western world. That's not a bad thing but it's still something to consider with the cultures. The Western world really likes to scare itself.

But let me move onto the movie that we were to watch for the week. Pulse was a interesting, if not slow moving, film. It starts with a girl who needs a disk from someone (who was presumably a good friend) and she goes to his apartment to pick it up. During the visit, he commits suicide, hanging himself while she is there. It moves onto another character who takes this disk, what he thinks is an ISP I believe, and puts it in and then this screen just comes up. People moving slowly, almost sickly, in their rooms. It disturbs him and he turns it off. The movie itself is very quiet, setting the tone for a very cold, lonely and disconnected world. Even though the characters are close to each other, the technology makes it all very isolating and distant.

I think that the movie put more into perspective the cultural type of ghost stories and horror than the short stories, though the stories were very intriguing.

But this section not only reflects Japanese horror but the entirety of the creepy, almost detective type, preternatural fiction. One of the other books, Moonwalked, is a reflection of that. It is about a skinwalker named Mercy Thompson who owns a car garage, and like many characters, wants just that and to be left alone. Well, one day a lycanthrope wanders to her garage and she offers him work and a meeting with the territory's alpha wolf, trying to help the boy. Unfortunately, the boy does not live... he is killed and left on Mercy's doorstep. The next steps are a series of finding out why werewolves are being killed and experimented on and leaves Mercy and Adam, the alpha of the territory she lives in, in the middle of the fray. Patricia Briggs is an author that often mixes more horror with her paranormal fiction than many current authors.

Another book that relates closely to the ghost story is No Humans Involved by Kelley Armstrong, my favorite paranormal fantasy author. It's about Jaime Vegas, a necromancer who is a TV celebrity on a show that talks to people's dead loved ones. The story begins when she is put on the show with another girl and a man who can supposedly talk to the dead, though both are fakes, and they are trying to speak to the spirit of Marilyn Monroe. Only Jaime is being plagued by the actual spirits of children and a girl who wants to know who killed her. The trapped spirits of the children haunt her and even with her werewolf associate Jeremy Danvers, she has trouble deciphering why she is being haunted. Add a cult, some very perverted spirits and drama with the other cast members of the show, and it makes for a very good read.

Though all the stories are a bit of a mix of the gothic and the mythical ghost story, they are all engaging and chilling reads.

Hunger for Blood

Vampires. They are the tyrannical terror of the undead world, the horror that can not always be detected for they often hide behind a mask of beauty and charm. But how did they become this way? How has literature evolved them into these seductive creatures?

That is where our reading came in. Though Dracula introduced the vampire as a charming count, Anne Rice took her stories further. Not only do her books bring forth the beauty and majestic quality that vampires have developed. Not only that but vampires become personable in Interview with the Vampire. Louis tells his horrifying and yet mystifying story to Daniel who becomes entranced by it. Louis does not seem evil... but rather the victim of a curse as he sees it... while it is also described as a gift. He tells of how he feeds and how Lestat taught him how to feed.

Louis does not seem like the monster that vampires are described as. Even Lestat whom Louis comes to despise is not a truly nefarious character. We come to see that there is something hidden in Lestat's past as to why he is the way he is. If you read more The Vampire Lestat, you come to find that that is true. His maker forced vampirism on him but instead of hating himself and what he had become, he cherished the gift and sought to enjoy the life that had been given to him.

So why is it that people like me have such a fascination with these beings? These creatures of the night? Do they live some sort of morbid fantasy that we all have? Is it that by putting a name on a monster that looks so like ourselves that we can feel more human? I saw vampires as a higher evolution of humans. Immortal, not as frail and the predator that could hunt us and keep us in check. That is a point I believe Lestat made in the Vampire Chronicles- trying to teach Louis that "God kills indiscrimanently and so shall we. For no creature under God is as we are, none so like Him as ourselves." I think that truly lies in the point of view that I think of them as. An evolution, an adaptation and the closest to immortality that humans could ever get.

But is immortality really worth that weight of your soul? I guess it would depend on how it was that you saw your kills. Marius taught Lestat (who then teaches Louis) that you are to kill only evil doers. Use your mind powers to find those who commit wrong and kill only them.

It is an interesting moral dilemma.

But I think it is best to end with one of the major quotes from the film... one that I truly find interesting.

"The world changes, we do not, there in lies the irony that finally kills us."

Scourge

This week's discussion is on zombies. Yes, the all popular can-never-have-too-many-games-or-movies-about-it-monster (which is very true; zombies make everything better. Like pirates.)

First of all, though the zombies did make the book more interesting, it is still Jane Austin at its core and so kinda, no pun intended, frightfully boring. Other than the momentarily amusing points where Elizabeth's character has been made more interesting by her involvement in the deadly arts, I still had to fight my way through the book.

However, I think if the plot of the zombies had been pushed more... other than a minor inconvenience to people, then it might have been better.

I think the most unfortunate part of this story was that it was just like the original with simply the inclusion of zombies in the mix. It made it more fun but... truly... it didn't affect the story any. I would have rather the book have carried beyond the original story that people all know and "love". But let us move onto the zombies. Why do we love zombies? I think it is for the same reason that people who play Dungeons and Dragons like goblins or World of Warcraft players like trash mobs- you can kill a bunch of them at one time and do an epic battle in efficient time. I mean, most movies or games you don't have a one on one battle with a zombie.

No, it's an entire room full of them and your mastery of the beheading arts will allow you to slay zombies until you escape! Or until you fall and your friends leave you behind while your now zombified teammates eat you alive.

The most wonderful parts of zombie stories is that not everybody survives in them. Actually, most of the time only one or two characters out of a group survives (if that). The book we read... nobody died. That greatly disappointed me. It always kills me when an author can not off one of his or her characters to make the book have more impact.

In conclusion, I expected more but was not wholly disappointed. Maybe the lack of fun pace in the book destroyed my attentions.

Creation

The past week, which I nigh forgot to speak about, is in reference to the first book required to read: Frankenstein.

I think when reading it I was surprised for though the story speaks of much horror and fear, the story is not truly terrifying. Actually, as we talked about in class, it seems a conscious (or perhaps subconscious?) reaction to family, need and creation. In the story Frankenstein creates a monster and when it truly lives, he is in fear and abandons it as if ignoring the problem will make it go away. I just remember thinking that the character shows an incredible lack of foresight into what he will do with his creation. After all, if you worked so hard on such a project, would you not think on what you will do with it when it is completed and works?

Apparently not. Frankenstein abandons the creature to itself and its lack of knowledge about the world around it. Which is not right for it spawns incredible anger and resentment in the monster. The monster goes from being gentle and observing to what it is called and considered- a monster.

But does that account for the horrors that the creature begins to set into motion? Is his disdain for the life that Frankenstein made for him fully responsible for his brutality? He did learn things in his time alone, enough to find himself in possession of moral fiber. Was it his fault he began to kill? I think that if he truly had the eloquence that he was written with that he could have found a way to live without killing a child and then an innocent woman. I think that it was very convenient for him to blame Frankenstein rather than deal with the idea that he may have to live and survive on his own without troubling his maker. That does not absolve Frankenstein of blame but when he decided not to build a mate for this creature, he at least tried to prevent putting more horror into the world.

But, perhaps, if he was going to play God and make this creature, he could have continued to do so and destroyed it rather than wait for the doom that would be bestowed upon him.

In a way, this story I believe influenced Anne Rice's Taltos race... and how in the Mayfair Witches (and later in the Vampire Chronicles), they did not wish to deal with the Taltos race and the horrors they were beginning to bestow upon the world. It is a very... disturbing pattern that I often see in novels. It almost seems like a form of mercy upon the creatures.

But sometimes mercy isn't always deserved for the wicked.

The beginning

This is a blog designated for my Lit. of Horror, Scifi and Fantasy class at the Ringling College of Art and Design. In this blog I will be comparing, relating and sharing my opinion about the works that are assigned (and maybe read just for pleasure) for the class. Before I do my first real blog, I want to share a song with everyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCF3VPwLHUU

It waits for the day, I will let it out
To give it a reason, to give it its might

[Pre-chorus:]
I fear who I am becoming,
I feel that I am losing the struggle within
I can no longer restrain it,
My strength, it is fading
I have to give in

[Chorus:]
It's the fear,
The fear of the dark
It's growing inside of me
They won, they will come to life
Have to save,
Save my beloved,
There is no escaping
Because my fate is horror and doom

Hold down your head now,
Just let me pass by
Don't feed my fear,
If you don't want it out

[Pre-chorus]
[Chorus]

Long ago, it came to me and ever since that day,
Infected with it's rage
But it ends today

[Chorus]

One of my favorite songs by Within Temptation and I think it encompasses the feeling of all three genres. After all, what is a journey, a story or a situation without fear?