There are three individual words I would use to describe the month of May thus far.
Tired: This month has found me sleeping less and staying up longer. Due to both AP tests and finals, I have had to do more work and study more. I have been extremely tired and have not been able to feel up to everything I want to do. I predict that this will get better after checkout day and my theater final.
Stressed: I have been in danger of failing for several different classes and have not been able to study for my AP tests as much as I want to because of this. I have been focusing on makeup work over the past month in order to pass my classes so I can graduate. This has led to me being very stressed as well as tired. Just recently I have improved my situation significantly however, and the stress is lightening up.
Hopeful: Despite being both stressed and tired, I have gotten a high-paying job for the summer and have set up my plans for the fall at Hartnell college. The future is looking better every day as I improve my situation. For these reasons I feel hopeful about the future ahead of me. I think that I can succeed in my future even though I have failed in the past.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Short stories: "Men of Greywater Station" and "The Hero", by George R. R. Martin
Before George R. R. Martin wrote his famous A Song of Ice and Fire book series, he wrote a long series of short stories, and collected them into a volume, called The Thousand Worlds. The two I am going to compare and contrast are "Men of Greywater Station" and "The Hero"
Men of Greywater Station is a dark tale about a group of scientists on a faroff planet. All of the animal and plant life on the planet is occupied by a parasitic fungus that takes over the creature and bends them to its will. The station is under constant attack from various fungus infected creatures who try to breach the walls. The men in the station see a troop transport crashing to the planet, and realize that the fungus will soon take over the heavily armored soldiers and assault the station. They kill most of the soldiers before they realize that they were never taken over by the fungus. The story ends with the main character getting infected by the fungus.
The Hero is a story about a very skilled soldier deciding to retire from service and go to Earth, a planet he's never seen, and live out his life on his war pension. His commanding officer tries to convince him to stay and keep fighting. The soldier does not agree, and when he leaves the planet he is murdered on the ship out on the commanding officer's orders.
Both are similar in their subject matter and genre. The Hero is about a military invasion of a city and a specific soldier fighting in it. Men of Greywater station is about a group of scientists being attacked and them trying to fight it off. Both have significant science fiction themes and concepts within them. Both works also have what could be considered tragic endings. The Hero's failure to recognize the more sinister works of his Commanding Officer as well as the scientists failure to recognize that the soldiers lack of infection were both tragic failures that led to disaster.
The two works also differ in considerable ways. The Hero's main character is cock-sure and confidant about all his decisions, whereas the Scientists consider deeply every choice they have to make. Oddly, both approaches lead to failure. The Hero focuses only on one character, with a few others as supporting characters. Men of Greywater Station follows exactly that: a group of men. One of them is slightly more focused on than the rest, but it's still pretty equal.
Overall, I think Men of Greywater Station is the better of the two. It's a little longer and the characters are a bit more developed. It also considers slightly deeper themes and asks more important questions, for example, when the scientists are deciding to go and rescue the soldiers before they get infected, they literally have to ask the cost to benefit ratio of saving lives vs letting them die.
I like both of these stories, and find them to be very well written and developed.
Men of Greywater Station is a dark tale about a group of scientists on a faroff planet. All of the animal and plant life on the planet is occupied by a parasitic fungus that takes over the creature and bends them to its will. The station is under constant attack from various fungus infected creatures who try to breach the walls. The men in the station see a troop transport crashing to the planet, and realize that the fungus will soon take over the heavily armored soldiers and assault the station. They kill most of the soldiers before they realize that they were never taken over by the fungus. The story ends with the main character getting infected by the fungus.
The Hero is a story about a very skilled soldier deciding to retire from service and go to Earth, a planet he's never seen, and live out his life on his war pension. His commanding officer tries to convince him to stay and keep fighting. The soldier does not agree, and when he leaves the planet he is murdered on the ship out on the commanding officer's orders.
Both are similar in their subject matter and genre. The Hero is about a military invasion of a city and a specific soldier fighting in it. Men of Greywater station is about a group of scientists being attacked and them trying to fight it off. Both have significant science fiction themes and concepts within them. Both works also have what could be considered tragic endings. The Hero's failure to recognize the more sinister works of his Commanding Officer as well as the scientists failure to recognize that the soldiers lack of infection were both tragic failures that led to disaster.
The two works also differ in considerable ways. The Hero's main character is cock-sure and confidant about all his decisions, whereas the Scientists consider deeply every choice they have to make. Oddly, both approaches lead to failure. The Hero focuses only on one character, with a few others as supporting characters. Men of Greywater Station follows exactly that: a group of men. One of them is slightly more focused on than the rest, but it's still pretty equal.
Overall, I think Men of Greywater Station is the better of the two. It's a little longer and the characters are a bit more developed. It also considers slightly deeper themes and asks more important questions, for example, when the scientists are deciding to go and rescue the soldiers before they get infected, they literally have to ask the cost to benefit ratio of saving lives vs letting them die.
I like both of these stories, and find them to be very well written and developed.
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Speaker for the Dead Review
Speaker for the Dead is a novel by Orson Scott Card, written in 1986. It concerns the tale of Ender Wiggen, sometimes called the Xenocide, sometimes called the Speaker for the Dead. He is called the Xenocide for his instrumental role in the defeat of the Formics, an alien race perceived to be an existential threat to the human race. He is called the speaker for the dead for his creation of a spiritual religion centered around his book The Hive Queen and the Hegemon. However, Ender the Xenocide and Andrew the speaker are not know to be different people, as they lived hundreds of years apart from each other. Ender has effectively traveled through time by traveling at relativistic speeds, so that time slowed down outside his ship.
The central plot is that of Ender coming toy the Catholic colony planet of Lusitania. The planet is under a specific charter from the starways congress to be a Catholic colony and have complete religious autonomy. They are, however, not allowed to forbid the coming of a Speaker for the Dead, who they consider him to a religious perfunctory. The Speaker for the Dead is requested by a young woman to speak at the funeral for her husband, and to tell truly of his drunken abusive ways. Through the telling, and resolving other conflicts on the planet, the whole town comes to learn a higher way of living, and are healed from their many psychological wounds.
I really enjoy this piece because it deals with very complex issues about religion, moral relativism, and the healing power of truth. The Catholic bishop tells his people to ignore and scorn the Speaker, but the truth he speaks and the peace he brings are too powerful for the people of the colony to ignore.
The people of the colony live with the only known sentient alien species, called the Pequeños. They are small, pig-like creatures in a tribal state of development. They, over the course of the novel, murder several of the people of Luisitania in a ritualistic manner. It is revealed near the end of the piece that they believed that killing them would move them into the next life as trees. When they find out this is a trait unique to the piggies, they cry in shame and horror.
Overall, I really enjoy this piece. I like the plot and the characters, as well as the overall themes and ideas. I would highly reccomend it to people who enjoy the sci-fi genre as well as religious themes in writing.
The central plot is that of Ender coming toy the Catholic colony planet of Lusitania. The planet is under a specific charter from the starways congress to be a Catholic colony and have complete religious autonomy. They are, however, not allowed to forbid the coming of a Speaker for the Dead, who they consider him to a religious perfunctory. The Speaker for the Dead is requested by a young woman to speak at the funeral for her husband, and to tell truly of his drunken abusive ways. Through the telling, and resolving other conflicts on the planet, the whole town comes to learn a higher way of living, and are healed from their many psychological wounds.
I really enjoy this piece because it deals with very complex issues about religion, moral relativism, and the healing power of truth. The Catholic bishop tells his people to ignore and scorn the Speaker, but the truth he speaks and the peace he brings are too powerful for the people of the colony to ignore.
The people of the colony live with the only known sentient alien species, called the Pequeños. They are small, pig-like creatures in a tribal state of development. They, over the course of the novel, murder several of the people of Luisitania in a ritualistic manner. It is revealed near the end of the piece that they believed that killing them would move them into the next life as trees. When they find out this is a trait unique to the piggies, they cry in shame and horror.
Overall, I really enjoy this piece. I like the plot and the characters, as well as the overall themes and ideas. I would highly reccomend it to people who enjoy the sci-fi genre as well as religious themes in writing.
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