Literary Speculation

Margot Atwood wrote a book called Oryx and crake. It is a post-apocalyptic story, but most are told in flashbacks. It is speculative because of its futuristic setting and dystopian world. However, it also fits in the sci-fi genre because if the hybrid animals and people. It also falls in the romance genre because Jimmy loves Oryx and it caught in a love triangle with crake.

If this novel didn't have a mix of all these genres then the story would not be as interesting. Without the love element, the story would be survival and that would be a little boring.

Afro-Futurism

My story for the week is "Brother from another Planet" by John Sayles. It was created in 1984 when the major of the culture was white. I found it interesting that there were not a lot of whites in this story. One of the cultural perspectives are even though our main character is from another planet, he still has that fear that people of color have of the white police. That's still a cultural issue today. Walking down the streets of New York, he got to experience different cultures that are not white. For example, when he was taking fruit from her store, she tried to speak to him in her language thinking he would understand her. He didn't understand especially when she called the cops and he knew to be afraid. Even though he wasn't from this planet, he learned that people of his color are treated very differently.

Cyberpunk

The name of the story "Johnny Mnemonic" by William Gibson and it was published in 1981. The setting of this story is 2021. This story plot has been told over and over. You have good guys and bad guys and you have one guy caught in the middle. His job is a data trafficker and for us trafficking his a negative meaning to it. For example, sex trafficking or drug trafficking.

The altered reality is very futuristic even though it's just 2 years away.  For example, The city just looks like a regular city but the technology has his impressions of what technology would have looked like. But in reality, is over the top. The thing that alters reality the most is that Johnny has a giant computer storage in his head. But if he didn't have that in his head, then it would be just like any other story.

The Fiction of Ideas

In The Drowned Giant by J.G. Ballard, A dead giant washed up on shore on a regular town. At first, the townspeople were very curious and were hesitant about going to see what it was, but then they gradually got more curious to the point where they got the courage to got up close to it. The story gets weird when the dead giant has been there for a while and the townspeople begin to feel like it just normal. The Narrator goes to see it every now and then and he begins to notice that some of the body parts from the giant are gone.

The writer is exploring mind experiments through the idea of messing with what we think is normal. For example, at the end of the story, he sees the giant's body parts scattered around town and everyone is just ok with that, which is definitely not normal.

An implication of this idea for today is first-person shooter video games. When these types of games first came out and younger kids started getting curious and wanting to play these games, parents freaked out because it was not normal for a kid to shoot people. Years have past and its become normal for kids to play these types of games, but its not normal. Even though it's become second nature to many kids to play these violent games, it still doesn't make it age appropriate.