Assignment Week 12: BloodChild by Octavia E. Butler and The Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (8 points + 5 points)

1.    What is your reaction to the text you just read?

Bloodchild was a very interesting read, I must say. You don’t really have much to go off of in the beginning on what the story is or who the characters are. However, once you continue it becomes more clear that this is a alien host story. Where humans are no longer the superior race and aliens roam. There still were questions I had however, after reading, who were the alien species? (all we really get are names a their physical appearance).

What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect?

There weren’t many connections to other movies or books to connect this to, all I really thought of was the host, the 5^th wave, and Alien. However, the connections I made from the book about experiences in reality are far greater. The main thing I made a connection with were how the aliens are birthed vs. Bot flies. Another connection I made from that was the fear of human birth itself. For some kids who had to watch that I can be horrifying, however when I thought about this. I thought about the author and her outlook on childbirth. One thing I noticed about the theme however was different than most alien host books. The books gave a kind of romance about the two characters as well as a coming of age story.

What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you choose; what changes would you make?

If I were to make this story into a medium, I would choose a movie. However, there wouldn’t be much that I would change. The creatures and people all play a role in this book. Even though I may be weird to think about at first, I have seen worse. I would try and expand the world a little to make the length proper, however I would try not to change much, for I feel as though the book had a lot of social questions for society and the unknown. I would however, make the movie PG-13 or rated R.

Are there elements of this work that you would consider afto-futurist?

The social struggles of the book really reflect on Africans struggles when others started and colonized there. Butler woven in the truth about the position of black people throughout history with these sci-fi concepts and constructed hierarchies. Considering them as lower and hosts for their young, even when they talk about the lavish cars vs. the humans and that have to walk, just proves this intertwining. She seems to have inspiration from African American history to explore how different races might survive and evolve together.

 

The Unkindness of Ghost by Rivers Solomon was another book I read for this week. This book really caught my eye due to the fact it was a interstellar sci-fi journey, but still had the upper and lower classes of the titanic. The normalization of this supremacist ideology is one of the main themes of the book, showing how Matilda went about her days in the lower class. The Generation Starship also shows that in the case of earth being no longer livable and no other planet humans could go to, this is what they live on. However, what happens when a whole civilization is on a enclosed ship? What's interesting about this book is that it shows the possibility of reverting back, hitting reset and living in a society where slavery exists again.