Literature of Horror, Sci Fi, and Fantasy

Ocean at the End of the Lane was easily one of my favorite books that I've read so far this semester. The grim but gripping writing style flavored this book differently than most, who prefer to keep violence and gore tamely described. It was something I didn't enjoy in the moment, as I could be found often audibly yelling my disgust when reading some of the more gory passages, and yet I wouldn't dare turn my eyes away. I found that every gruesome detail made the experience seem all the more real. The author, Neil Gaiman, spoke extensively in an interview on what creates genre. He describes genre through elements that he says the reader would feel cheated without. With Ocean at the End of the Lane  as my window into the genre of contemporary urban fantasy, I might be able to gather some of it's key elements. Part of what I noticed most about fantasy in general is that it doesn't always try to get you to escape reality, but help you understand it. Many of these s...

Night Circus offered a world of wonder for it's readers to explore. By pacing out the development and description of the interworkings of the circus, Erin Morgenstern was able to create the feeling of discovery and magic. This feeling was carried through until the end. Mirroring the development of the circus, it's mother and father, Celia and Marco, grew alongside it. The commentary on upbringing in The Night Circus is well timed for a teenage audience, struggling to understand the world that seems to operate by magic. The world of adults, to a teenager or a child, seems like a machine that spins and whizzes with so many perfectly timed smaller machinations that all fit to fill their grander whole of society. It seems like there is no place for feelings of imperfection, but we all must find a way. At the very start of the book, "you" are thrust into the world of the night circus. "You" debate going inside, or turning back. You debate which tent to go in...

"The best thing to do is be who you’ve been, don’t move, stay where you are, drop all ambition as a Leopard Person. Relax. Do not strive too high. Learn but do not use. And only learn the basics. It is best to remain in your protective shell. Ambition is not your friend. Be glad the Leopard world has been opened to you, but remain a mere spectator." (Okorafor, 79) Very rarely have I seen a witch story that isn't eurocentric. In Akata Witch , not a single European character is even introduced. Akata Witch covers topics that many other cultures would rather leave neglected. Rarer still is an empowering story, not for just women, but for people of every sort who posses a trait that society doesn't deem "normal". In essence, everyone. In the Leopard world, things that would have gotten you bullied or even outcasted as a Lamb, are regarded as sources of power. This book is so important for kids in their formative teenage years to feel confident in every part...

Compared to eastern styles of storytelling, the classic western story The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien places a significant amount of attention to the individual and individual glory over the glory of a group or lineage. Due to this fact, it seems only fair to analyze how The Hobbit approaches it's single hero as he finds a place within his world. Bilbo is not your typical hero. As a middle aged hobbit, he is at first incredibly set in his ways. He declines his natural urges to explore and curiously question things in favor of comfortable ignorance. Rather than the usual young and eager hero, Bilbo expresses no desire at all to change the world or his place in it. He is neither trained nor motivated to help the party's quest. Bilbo's resistance to become a hero or feel like a hero helps me see the average person in him. Normal people don't feel like heroes, they don't know that they might also be on the hero's journey. Most people aren't agile, eager, st...

A Condition of New Death A Condition of New Death features the crosshatching of a bewildering event and a familiar newspaper report format. In A Condition, events that we consider impossible are treated as near-normalcy, as no bigger an event than a new strain of disease or a new tragedy, giving the audience almost the feel of culture shock. While many of the viewer's questions were answered, these only opened up more. A Condition details the "what" of New Death very thoroughly, describing the timeline of events with care as any journalist would. However, the "why" and "how" are never addressed, leaving you only to wonder. The laws of physics themselves were altered to create the phenomenon of New Death, and yet, no one within the world of the story seems concerned with why or how such a bizarre event is possible. It leaves me open to wonder myself what other possible mind-bending events have caused the people to be so conditioned to be prepared...

One of the core aspects of the Weird genre is that things are larger than you, and that the events of the story are beyond your scope of understanding. To create this sense in Borne , Jeff Vandermeer uses a variety of tactics that are employed to build a world and its creatures that operate on a scale that seems almost cosmic, or at the very least beyond human, in their design. So much is left unsaid in Borne , and so many questions are left unanswered. The Company, for example, works towards a grander purpose that is far beyond the sum of the parts of its workers. The Company in Borne is seen less as a business that we might associate with the word, and more of its own entity. A collective mass of minds that seem less individual and more one collective, foreign whole. The Company's most awe-inspiring creation by my opinion, Mord, also operates on this scale. It was a twist in the book to discover that Mord was once human; once acted like we do, felt as we feel, and lived as we...