Lit. Horror Science Fiction, and Fantasy

The Windup Girl is a biopunk story that portrays a world where global warming has increased the sea levels and bioterrorism is an imminent threat with mutations happening all over the globe. It takes place in Thailand and its main character is a economic hitman and one of Thailand's representatives. This ultimately leads to the death of one of the main characters, Emiko, and her DNA will be used to engineer a new race of fertile people.

Writing in genre versus simply using the elements of a genre and having it be completely literary is a very tough question in which both sides can argue valid points. Personally, I believe that you cannot use the elements of a genre without making that book or story that genre. Oryx and Crake explore this in that it combines certain elements of science fiction, but also does not seem entirely like a science fiction book. I argue however that because it is written with the elements of science fiction, that makes it a science fiction book. I don't however believe that it is important to make this distinction and that the reader should make this based on how they felt the book was written.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy satirically mocks the end of the world by putting it in the context that its destroyed to make room for a galactic highway. This book is science fiction satire at its finest and shows that although the end of the world had just happened one shouldn't panic because theres nothing you can do about it anyway. In the book Arthur Dent is the last human in existence because he hitchhiked with an alien he saved from being run over by a car. He thought the car was an advanced life form and wanted to court it. It displays a satirical look at politics in that the president of the galaxy is an idiot who kidnaps himself and signed for earth's destruction because he thought someone wanted his autograph.

For this section I read The Left Hand of Darkness. The main idea that the novel plays with is the idea of gender identity and gender roles and is displayed through  Ai and Estraven (the main characters). The implications of this dynamic is that a woman can lead a government and doesn't need a man to do it for her or to help her do it. That she is perfectly capable of doing it herself. This idea is shown today by the fact that women  politicians are holding many positions of power in government.

The Martian takes place in the year 2035 and features a lone astronaut stranded on Mars and he must use what little he has left to survive until his rescue. This book plays on many science fiction and lone surviver tropes such as he's a trained engineer and botanist so he can build and grow what he needs to survive if stranded, yet he's injured so it makes survival that much harder. This is of course until NASA discovers he is left stranded and puts together a rescue team to go save him. This book is filled with many more of these tropes. In the end he survives and makes it home on the ship Hermes and then recalls his tale to the team who rescued him.

For this selection I have read American Gods. This plays on many mythological pantheons of gods brought together by Neil Gaiman all trying to protect Shadow from the New Gods. It changes the myths it presents by giving the gods alter-egos such as Odin the All Father being Mr. Wednesday and the Egyptians gods running a funeral parlor in Illinois. This brings a more modern take on these myths because it shows in a way that the gods of the Old World are for lack of a better term, retired and that the New Gods are the beings who are most active in the modern age. And even still the old gods fit into the context of the story very well for example Mr. Wednesday acts fatherly to Shadow because he is the All Father and the Egyptian gods run a funeral parlor because the ancients believed in an afterlife and practiced mummification for the afterlife.