Johnny Mnemonic

Im not sure where I had heard of this story from, but seeing as how I had never read it I decided to give it a shot. This story almost seems like it was written to be turned into a movie. Not that that's a bad thing, I really enjoyed the story and wish it had been continued into a full novel. The whole idea of storing information in a person is interesting, and that, coupled with the body modifications in the story made it a ver entertaining read.

Burning Chrome

Out of this short story collection I read The Gernsback Continuum, which I wish had been a novel in itself. I love the ambiguity of the ideal other world, you don't find out if the main character is crossing over to an alternate reality or if he's just hallucinating the whole thing. This story could easily be a full length novel, maybe where the main character gradually becomes more and more a part of the other world, although its already extremely successful as a short story. The idea that were living among the scraps of yesterday's tomorrow and yet we never appreciate it was very interesting. I loved this story, just wish it was longer.

The Unnameable

I've never read anything of HP Lovecraft prior to this, and this wasn't bad. The ending was sort of overly cheesy and he seems to be very fond of certain adjectives (gibbering for example) but on the whole it was pretty good, I can see in parts of his writing how he influenced Stephen King, who I'm a huge fan of. The idea of the unnameable is an net resting one, mainly because (to my knowledge) Lovecraft was the first writer to popularize the idea.

Kwaidan

Kwaidan is an interesting collection of stories, some of which are not very satisfyingly resolved at the end. Every single one of the stories deals with death in some way, and a lot of them are based around the interesting notion that if you die with a strong desire for something to happen, it will come true. I enjoyed these stories and the way they present the dead as sharing our world, and having quite a bit of influence over us.

Legend

Ugh, this movie was almost impossible to sit through, I kept nodding off throughout the film and I never sleep during movies. Where to begin, to be perfectly honest, I might have some better critique to give the movie if I knew what the hell was happening at any given point in the film. I still have no idea what the plot was, If you asked me what the movie was about I wouldn't be able to tell you apart from Tom cruise is trying to save a unicorn so he fights the devil, but in the end it was all a dream?

Watership Down

Im not sure if this is on the book list but I consider it a fantasy novel. I had already seen the movie of Watership Down and it was so good I decided to check out the book (this is one of the few instances where I saw the movie before reading the book). I loved this book, it's definitely up there as one of my favorite books of all time. The interesting thing about this book is how the rabbits human-like personalities but cannot do anything physically that an actual rabbit cold not do. This book also reminded me of A Clockwork Orange in that the rabbits have their own language and words for things that are not explicitly defined, but have to be intuited based off of context instead. A good example of this is Hrududu, the first time one is mention you don't know what it is, but when they describe how shiny and fast they are you realize they're cars. The author handles rabbits well as main characters, one of my favorite parts of the book is when they first use a piece of wood as a raft to save the rabbits that couldn't swim from the dog. When Blackberry first tries to articulate this idea to Hazel, Hazel can't understand what Blackberry is trying to say, a makeshift raft is simply beyond his ability to comprehend. It's only when he is shown what Blackberry is saying that he finally gets the idea. This idea is such a fundamental one to human culture, it's really interesting to read an example of where the idea of floating on wood may have originated from. Fiver is probably my favorite character in the book while also being the most mysterious, with his prophetic visions and intuition. Fiver is really the character that makes the book awesome. Not only does he provide foreshadowing for certain events in the book, but the way his powers are left completely unexplained while also being widely accepted by the other rabbits adds an epic element to the book that makes it feel more like a quest.

Let the Right One In

I didn't really care for this movie, I think it had a lot of unrealized potential but the whole thing was so slow paced that it was just a struggle to watch. The story was interesting but any tension that might have been created was ruined by the slow pacing. The best example to this is the climax where the main character is forced to hold his breath underwater by the other kids older brother. The pacing is so slow that this scene almost comes out of nowhere as there is no buildup leading up to it.

The Aquatic Uncle

I enjoyed this story, it's definitely one of the most original short stories I've ever read. Writing from the perspective of some of the earliest species to live on land, and giving them a human voice introduced a lot of interesting concepts. The main message I got from this story, and the reason why Lll left the main character for the uncle is this. The uncle is a coleocanth (probably misspelled) a fish that still exists and has stayed unchanged for millions of years, very similar to sharks and alligators/crocodiles in that respect. The uncles argument for a return to the sea is that if you've evolved to a perfect state physically then you have more time to develop as a person/being. While your life is static and unchanging you can become more complete.

Bloodchild

I really enjoyed this story, the relationship between the humans and The Tlic is fascinating. The existence of the Tlic as a race that is both parasitic and symbiotic at the same time is an interesting concept. Especially the way the Tlic are understanding and reasonable, rather than trying to force the humans into coercion, which is something they could probably do. The way the story was written is interesting as well, since almost all of our class believed the main character to be female until it was revealed otherwise. I'm not sure what in the writing gave everyone this impression, it may have simply been the fact that the writer is female, and some writers struggle with writing from the perspective of the opposite gender.

Frankenstein

While I've been familiar with the story of Frankenstein for many years I had never read the book until now. The writing has a very distinctive Victorian era style to it, and while I enjoyed the book overall, my one complaint is how frail all of the characters were made out to be. It was almost ridiculous. Mary Shelly would write about how Frankenstein received bad news and was then stricken ill for several months. This theme of frailty is repeated in numerous instances throughout the book, and it makes me wonder if it was simply a stereotype of the time, that the rich upper class were more fragile than the average person.

Conventions of the horror genre

Many items appear quite consistently in horror, particularly in films, although a lot of these show up just as often in novels.

- dead bodies
- caskets/coffins
- castles
- graveyards
- hooded robes
- bats
- wolves
- young women being crept up on while sleeping
- candles
- spiderwebs/cobwebs
- spiders
- death personified
- tombs
- ghosts
- witchcraft
- hidden rooms
- trapdoors
- booby traps
- madness/someone going mad
- resurrecting the dead
- machines
- dungeons
- torture
- haunted house
- mysterious sounds at night
- storms/lightning
- clock ticking
- travel by night
- brains
- hunchbacks/physical deformities