Literature of Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction

First Contact is the first space opera I've actually read; I've seen the Star Wars movies and some clips of Star Trek, I guess I like to keep with the "Star" titled works, though I'm not actually sure if Star Trek counts as space opera or not. After reading First Contact, it brought to my attention aspects of Star Wars and even other unrelated works that I had noticed a bit but not actually put much thought into. The main theme I picked up on is that of self-preservation, in fact that seems to be the focus of First Contact . As the humans come across the alien vessel, the narrative almost immediately begins discussing the logistics/necessities of the situation, none of which are good unfortunately. It makes it painfully clear, and reiterates multiple times in fact, how neither of the ships can risk going home without destroying the other. This actually reminds me of the phrase in Harry Potter, " Neither can live while the other survives," in essence m...

Although high fantasy is my favorite fantasy subgenre, contemporary urban fantasy is always fun as well and I enjoy it immensely, well, of the probably small amount I've actually watched and read, that is. I didn't get a chance to read Coraline yet but I've watched the film multiple times which I love. I've heard the book is much darker than the film, so this actually makes me want to read the book even more as I thoroughly enjoy dark and creepy things, hence my previous mentions of my adoration of the horror genre. When it comes to the story in general, I had never seen or heard anything like Coraline before I was first introduced to it. The concept of this "other mother" who entices children into her midst by granting their simple wishes and fulfilling their dreams for a happier life is intriguing, and I can understand why children would get sucked into all this. Children and young teenagers can be pretty easily tricked and made to believe false promises. Th...

Like I mentioned in class, the Harry Potter works, both books and films, are some of my favorite things to read and watch. Unfortunately even with this class I still don't read nearly as much as I should, partially because I don't have a lot of free time here at Ringling but also because I use my free time to do other things, luckily usually still creative things though. Anyways, I have read books 1-6 of the Harry Potter series and seen all the movies multiple times. I still intend to read the 7th book but I think I might go back and reread all the others from the beginning to re-familiarize myself with the books since it's been so long since I've read them. Every time I watch these films and think about the books, well maybe this is more in the movies since I haven't read the books in so long, but I noticed in the movies that the main two houses they seem to focus on are Gryffindor and Slytherin, they don't really cover or show much of Hufflepuff and Ravencla...

I have an obsession with knights, dragons, and high fantasy content, so Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, are my bread and butter. I have yet to read the books unfortunately, and I really want to, I just have so little free time and what little free time I have I always end up dedicating towards working on my own stories, but I have every intention of reading them at some point. In the mean time I LOVE the movies. I feel bad that I can't compare them to the books, and therefore I kind of feel like I'm not a true fan of the series, but I try my best. I know The Lord of the Rings movies are highly regarded and widely loved, I have all three extended versions myself, but unfortunately a lot of people don't seem to be as into the more recent Hobbit movies, which is a shame because it's all the same universe and part of the same storyline, just before Frodo's story. I've only seen the first two Hobbit movies, I have yet to watch the third one, Battl...

I've seen The Wizard of Oz film many times but I had never read any of the books. In fact, I didn't even realize there was a whole series of Oz books until last year when we had to choose one to read for my Children's Literature class. I know, I must live under a rock, haha. I actually have yet to read the first one but I've read the second book in the series, The Marvelous Land of Oz.  Since learning these other stories existed, I've wondered why more movies weren't made to cover them, after all the other stories seem to be just as rich in content as the first one. Most people love stories with magic and witches, and I'm sure there were good reasons not to make the other books into movies, perhaps they didn't want to ruin the magic of the first one that was so successful by just piling on more. I personally would enjoy the other books as movies as well, if they're done well of course. As for the book I read, it jumps into the conflict with the wit...

I read The Unnamable and What the Moon Brings. I must admit I found both of these short stories pretty difficult to read; I'm better at reading things that are much more straightforward and less up to the imagination. I do have a very active imagination, I've just found that when I'm reading I certainly don't mind if not prefer when things are described in very in depth detail so an image is drawn in my head that I don't have to fill in all the blanks. I suppose both of these stories are pretty creepy, at least that's their purpose though it's pretty hard to legitimately creep me out or affect me with something scary enough to give me nightmares. I think I could've been more creeped out if I had been able to tell what was going on more. I feel like that's ironic because I think the lack of clarity and fear of the unknown is supposed to be the kicker and scary factor, though for me it didn't seem to work very well, I just ended up confused and t...

There are a couple things I want to talk about; The Enigma of Amigara Fault and Parasyte , the anime/manga series. I've read Enigma multiple times and I've watched Parasyte through once, both I enjoy very much though I like Parasyte better. Enigma was very unique to me when I first read it, mainly because I had never read anything like it, but also because I realized how different the idea was. It doesn't seem too terribly scary while you're reading it, after all it's just a bunch of human-shaped holes in a rock face, right? If anything it mostly just comes across as creepy, but it becomes scarier when some of the characters realize there are holes shaped exactly like then, meaning those holes are theirs. It gets worse when the people start going into the holes and can't seem to stop themselves, like the holes are calling to them and the call is inescapable. This story gets to us because it taps into that innate fear we all have of something we don't un...