Blog Set 8

The Culling 

After being left off my seat from the ending of part one where Lucian’s family member Cassius sentenced him on stage and basically humiliated him I finally got to read how things turned out. A new character comes in which is their trainer named Slade, off the back she is an evil person. She hurts poor Ophelia the first day of training just to show the others that in the actual trails no one will help you. She also made it so that she could see who were in an alliance together. The five of them spent a lot of time together in the pre-trials, which were the three phases they did. They got to know more of each other and a lot of things that I thought wouldn’t happen actually happened. At the beginning I kind have hated Cypress but then I actually got to know why she is the way she is. My favorite part in part II of this book is when they are all around a campfire eating all telling scary stories. That’s when I started to get to know Cypress more. The Fallen Five was about five recruits that just disappeared and was nowhere to be found. Cypress made sure that everyone knew that they were real and not just some kind of myth. Everyone else didn’t agree but Cypress seemed like she knew what she was talking about. Then later on when I found out that she was one of the Fallen Five’s incentives I was shocked. It all made sense now and Lucian figured it out. When Cypress left them on the first trial with the raft I hated her because everyone else was all about teamwork but her. Now she’s one of my favorite characters, I guess we should never judge a person on how they are before you know their backstory. Her story was just so horrible, how he brother was part of the Fallen Five and disappeared. They ended up splitting the adults and children when all five recruits disappeared. Cypress never saw her mother again and hated her brother. I also like this part because this was when everyone opened up and actually bonded. Now Ophelia has such an amazing personality, she’s in the worse situation right now and she still has the ability to think positive and laugh all the time. One thing that Digory said caught me eye, he said, “Once you think something is impossible then I will become impossible”. Its actually try because you already started with a negative mindset and see yourself failing so now in your head you have the failing mindset. Having to get to know everyone of the recruits is probably one of the worse parts I say. If you all didn’t have to actually sleep, eat, and train together then you wouldn’t feel so attached to them. Now if they didn’t see each other till the trials then it would be way easier because you would barley know them and you wouldn’t care much about their loved ones and see each and every one of them fight for the people they care the most. Digory and Lucian got way closer but Lucian cut it off and they didn’t talk for weeks till the next phase. Now what I wasn’t expecting was that there’s another conflict rather than the trails and the establishment. “The Fleshers” which are creatures who also survived after the Ash War other than the establishment. These monsters even had Slade scared, which was shocking because she is so tough. When they reached land they had to find evidence to prove that the patrol group was either dead or alive.  Something in the bones grabbed Lucian and it was an old recruit named Orestes which was part of the Fallen Five aka CYRPESS’S BROTHER! Now the part where they were on the ladder, what happened to Orestes? I know he dies but how? I didn’t understand that part. The most horrible part was when Cassius came on Graduation day. He just loves hurting Lucian, which isn’t fair at all. First he didn’t even get to see Cole, he finds out Mrs. Bledsoe is dead and he also sees that Digory has a husband. Now that Digory and Lucian don’t have one other incentive they are now each other’s. Next… the trials begin.

Day Million

I love the tone and organization of the author on how he tells the story. He first introduces both of the main characters and the environment they live in. He predicts what happens in the future.

The future back home where she loves to be.

consists of people who live over hundred just like Don who is a hundred and eighty-seven years old. Also, people from other places besides earth like Dora who is from Day million who looks like a girl but is actually a boy genetically.  Dora was a dancer as good as the black swan. Don worked and traveled in interstellar spaceships. A line that stuck out to me was when the author referred to Don’s job as something that gives purpose and meaning to his life and to keep him from going off his nuts with boredom. The author really speaks for us readers like when he says, “But you guys don’t care about that, lets talk about what you really want to know”. Dora and Don are an example of love at first site. They got married after meeting each other and their relationship blossomed but Dora ended up going back to Day Million.

When It Changed

In the beginning the main character talks about his wife, but when I read it I felt the compassion he had for her because he knows her inside and out. They live in a place called whileaway where men haven’t existed in six hundred years. They finally meet some and Katy doesn’t trust them at all and tries to kill one of them. Later on we learn that Janet is a women and not a man since we find out no man lives there. Janet stopped Katy but she regrets it later because Katy’s instincts might have been right after all and the men are actually trying to control their world. I think it’s amazing how an all women society learned how to survive and reproduce without men.

Update: There were many different opinions and views that I didn’t notice when I read Day Million. When I read about Dora being a dancer I had more of a ballerina in mind. Others thought she could have been an exotic dancer. Since Dora has gills it also shows that many things might have changed in the world. People might have evolved and grew gills to be able to breath under water. Also Don was over a hundred years old, which isn’t even possible for humans to be that old. He also has body parts that were attached to him. It was like some type of robot who you just keep putting in different parts into to replace the old ones. Their love story was not a typical love story that we all have in mind. We have an automatic idea of an love story, they usually fall in love and blossom then they get married, have kids, and stay together forever. This love story is very different, Dora goes back home and when they miss each other, they just watch clips or holograms of one and other. Most people usually go see the person they miss in person rather than seeing nonrealistic things of that person. In when it changed the woman made it seem like the men were aliens. I think they saw the men like aliens because they have never seem them before. They made it seem like the actually needed these men but in reality they didn’t. If something isn’t broken then why try to fix it? They survived without them for many centuries and to me that seems like they don’t need them at all. Things should stay the same way because when the men did come they didn’t like them at all because they were so demanding.

Blog Set 7

Could you imagine waking up and finding out everything you thought was real was really all a lie? What if you found out that your so called love of your life was trying to kill you? What if you didn’t even know the difference between what was real or what was fake? Doug went through all of this and I couldn’t even imagine going through that in real life. Having memories built inside of your brain isn’t a good thing. I think that the memories that you have now, is what makes you as a person. If in reality we could actually mess with our brains for memories just like people do with plastic surgery then we truly won’t be the person we are suppose to be. There would be many benefits for people who have memories that traumatized them and they don’t want to remember those moments. I think the casting decision was good because Arnold Schwarzenegger did a good job playing the part. He acted just like Douglas does in the book, he couldn’t even believe that he was actually on the bad guys team at the end. The adaption for the movie is that they added more things to it to add more suspense to the story. In the book it didn’t really show his “wife” actually working for cohaagen but that had us shocked when we did find out which is what a director wants an audience to feel. Most people say that the written version is way better but I think I liked the movie better because it actually explains more to me. They changed many things from the short in the movie. The wife in the short story name is Kristen and to me she sounds so mean when she talks to her husband but in the movie her name is Lori, she acts all nice in the beginning but ends up betraying Doug. I thought it was crazy when Doug found out that he wasn’t who he was. They wiped out his whole memory to input a new identity and personality. I bet it felt horrible to know that your whole life is a lie and the person that you really are is evil. In my opinion I think that your memories can never be fully erased. Just like when Doug kept having dreams and obsession over Mars and how Melina was in every dream. Those were signs of who he really was, so I think even though they erase your memory, you will always have some type of remains of what once was. I hated when I found out that the Taxi Driver was actually on the bad guys side also. I really didn’t expect that, he came off as a really good guy who just wanted to help but then he killed Kuoat and was trying to kill Doug and Melina. In the book it said that if Doug died then the aliens would come back on earth? I didn’t really understand that part. I really liked both of the stories, reading it had been interesting and watching it was an even better experience.

Blog Set # 6

Burning Chrome By William Gibson

Bobby Quine and Automatic Jack are best friends and are also hackers. Bobby is a muscular guy who loves woman and is a software expert. Jack is more of a slimmer guy who is a hardware specialist. They have been trying to create things to make money but they haven’t been very successful. Bobby loved girls but Jack never really had any interest in them. Bobby met this girl who caught his eye at the bar named Rikki. When he brought her home, Jack didn’t mind her watching him work like the other girls Bobby brought him. Jack was actually attracted to her and liked her. Bobby wants to become wealthy to impress Rikki and Jack has this plan to take this Russian device that can break into security systems and take Rikki with him. He was debating if he should tell Bobby about it since he wanted Rikki. He ended up telling Bobby about it and they made a plan to break into Chrome’s system that handles money transfers. Chrome is a girl who handles criminal money transfers. They achieved the mission and emptied Chrome’s bank accounts. Jack had some guy named Miles look after Rikki and he found out that Rikki was working for Chrome. Rikki ends up buying eye implants for herself to go to Hollywood.  Jack calls the airlines and cancels her ticket. Bobby and Jack both were devastated and never saw Rikki, the girl they both loved so much ever again. 

Computer Friendly By Eileen Gunn

This story was actually pretty cool because of the fact that people can control things with their brains. It started off with a seven-year-old girl who went to school to take many different tests with other children. She ends up meeting new friends named Sheena and Oginga and having fun. Just like any other child at there age, they just want to play. I know when I was seven I wanted to play with my friends all the time. Every time they would play, they got in trouble and were told to be quiet and to settle down. Elizabeth got perfect scores on all her test but her friends didn’t do very well. Sheena also told Elizabeth and Oginga about the Asia Center which I guess they aren’t supposed to know about. Elizabeth did everything in her power to save her friends so she asked for help. She ended being taken to the Chicken heart, which is the original program. She ended up saving her friends and now is named Lizardbreath which was what Sheena called her when she first met her. She is going against her father’s rules and wants to be on the same level as her friends and her dogs so she made it all happen. If it wasn't a child's point of view, the story would be way to descriptive and you also wouldn't experience seeing how their life is from when it starts at seven years old. 

Update: After discussing this in class, our discussion made me realize how great of a writer William Gibson is. I know it was difficult for many of us, including me, to read. This story was meant to be read with a big imagination. For example, he describes something that has to do with a computer to a castle of ice. He describes flies and dust as a fur coat. His description to everything is hard to get into but once you understand it’s really amazing and beautiful. He can make something so disgusting seem so wonderful. Now for the story “Computer Friendly” I have also learned many things. Even if the story was awful I really didn’t pick up the dystopian part of it. I think its because it was told by a little girl who loves to be different and everything else didn’t distract me. Now I definitely see that they do live in a dystopian environment where every living thing’s brain is controlled by computers. Also, the Asia Center is where they kill innocent children that don’t fit their environment? I think that’s a horrible thing that they do. I don’t think its fair that kids can’t enjoy their childhoods because they have to prepare themselves for tests so they won’t be killed. Sheena and Oginga have a mindset that a child their age should have. They way they played around in the cafeteria when they were spitting and fooling around is how a kid should be. But to the monitors and everyone else in the society they are trash so they just kill them. Another thing that I thought was weird was the fact that the dad always forgets many things after work. He forgets how to even get home, but the love for his daughter is always there.