Novel Responses

Nalo Hopkinson's Tan-Tan and the Rolling Calf isn extremely interesting piece. Taking place in the Caribbean it encompasses traditionally African folklore, specifically the tale of the trickster story teller Anansi. The way the piece is written is also a point of interest as the entire thing is in a specific dialect. The thoughts and actions of the characters, not just the speech, maintain this accent. This really helps to ground this piece and the people in it to the place they are and the shared kind of mindset that the people have. What I found really interesting was the robber speeches at the end of the piece that change accents little. When Tan-Tan begins to tell her true tale almost tint he from of a robber speech she is even heckled because it is in her normal speech rather than the almost eloquent style that the actors and actresses were using. This is the only time the piece that this is broken.        Not only this but the piece does something v

    The Belonging Kind is a discussion of what makes us human. The man who thinks of himself as out of place in every scenario- who's clothes are always wrong and off putting stalks a normal woman. She is clearly not human, she does not need to eat, does nothing but go to bars and clubs, and can change form. Even though the main character sees her as the most normal person, she is in constant change. The obvious thing to take from this piece is that she is the opposite of human and as the main character fits in more and more into her world-becomes more natural and more human- he physically becomes less human. To  make this accomplishment he must entirely abandon his old job and way of living. Everything about him literally changes to appear  human.         What I find so interesting about this cyberpunk piece is that it is set in a modern- or at least very average everyday world. Where the things that go wrong are overlooked or avoided or accepted as a

     James Tipree Jr's And I Awoke and found me here not he Hill's side takes place in a loading/unloading area with a bar in it- in a future where the universe is riddles with all different and communicated Aliens and Alien planets. The older man in the story appears to be an older version of the main character. They discuss the amount of work it takes only to get this far out into space. How much education, money, work, and degrees it takes only to clean and do maintenance in a relatively close section of space. It seems humans in this world put all this effort and money and time into these degrees to get these jobs just so they can see aliens. It almost seems as a drug or an addiction- as if someone could be addicted to something without ever having even seen it before. They talk about humanities need to capture everything different and yet the argument is that its too much. That all of the aliens are so different that its overwhelming. That humans no longer have anything s

      What I find so intriguing in the Witchcraft comics is the all powerful woman goddess rebels against some stereotypes and society-derived attributes of women, and some they claim to inhabit. At one point the three who are one appear in a building or home that seems to be their’s. Whether imagined or not, the room they appear in is a kitchen. They are their coven are of medicines and foods and beauty. While there may be an argument for medicine, as long ago herbalists and naturalist feminine doctors were seen as mystical and powerful, and therefore evil and dangerous. The field itself considered risky. While now, medicine interpreted as doctors and scientists is widely dominated and controlled by men, has no negative connotation whatsoever. However, all three of these, medicine, food making, and beauty are not so naturally feminine icons, as much as they are things expected of women. I found it interesting that the goddess embodied and embraced these realistic attributes and no ot