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