CyberSteam? Would that work?

Cyberpunk and Steampunk are augmented realities.  Meaning that they are existing realities with a twist. Kind of like vanilla oreos.  There normal oreos, just with vanilla.  It follows the rules and laws of the base and then adds upon or tweaks to get something familiar yet different.  Thus making it easier to latch onto and enjoy faster.

Now steampunk is all about steam powered equipment.  Everything from your cars to your toaster.  Just throw some coal in it, wait for the water to heat up and BOOM, opera  Now this is a fantastic setting to getting the future closer to the now.  What I mean is like it was a way to get all the ideas of the future into the now at the same time.  Its not necessarily viable, but it’s the fact that it can happen.

ting machinery.

Cyberpunk is more in the future, lots of tech gear and physical augmentation to the body.  This is like a viable steampunk and it provides for some interesting ideas of the future.  It doesn’t take place in the future per say, but it is close.  It’s like we have the technology of the future now, but not the ideas.  So in a sense it’s the opposite.

Both of these themes dictate what the reader could expect.  For instance, the steampunk novels will have lots of overly complicated gadgets that get the job done, but at the price of time and money.  Cyberpunk will get it done in a flash, but your problems will be tough ones. So both of them provide interesting reads and watches but also have a structure of guidelines both in and outside the story that will provide barriers to what could happen in that setting.

Valuable Ideas

Knowledge is the most powerful thing that we have as humans.  It has given us all of our advancements and has brought us closer together as a society.  However it’s a double edge sword, our knowledge has led to wars and the murders of million upon millions of people.  It hold no tangible value and can be faked, yet it is valued by so many people. 

This is reflected in many books and stories in past society and today’s society.  There are many stories on how ideas are dangerous and that they should be censored.  There are also many stories that have the theme of ideas being the solution to their problems.  I watched the required movie Fahrenheit 451 and it convinced me to pick the book up again.  This being one the book I was forced to read in high school, it meant a lot for that to happen.

I started reading it, and although I didn’t finish it (I plan to finish it when I get the time to),  it was like a brand new story for me.  I loathed reading this in high school and opted just to read the spark notes to pass the quiz the following class.  Now knowing the value of ideas and critical thinking, it’s much more engaging.

In these stories ideas are seen as the bad force, they need to be purged.  They are the bringer of all our problems and if we just stop thinking differently, we wont have these issues.  This is kind of true in the real world as well.  As we find new things, new ways of life, they threaten the old.  There is no positive change or negative change, just like evil refers to the nation that lost the war.  Knowledge is a dangerous weapon but it is something that must be pursued.

Can you sing in space? Then why opera?

I have and always will be a fan of Star Wars.  I owe this to my dad who is a huge Star Trek and Star Wars fan.  I was about in Third grade when I began to take an interest in what my dad was watching.  I had no idea what was going on but it looked cool and they had laser guns.  Well my dad thought it was a good idea to introduce me to Star Wars seeing that episode one was coming out in theaters at the time.

            Now the western and the sea story structures all have a big part of them about the grand spaces of the unknown.  Unknown possibilities lie for those who come to explore.  The great sea has unknown lands waiting to be conquered, and the west has the promise of fame and fortune.  Well is you apply this to the final frontier, space, you can get some incredibly interesting settings.  If each world has its own ways of life and untold riches how can you run out, its like the ultimate ocean and unexplored territory.

            It’s not surprising that many people love these series.  I attribute a lot of it to the fact that these settings allow for people to come up with their own stories.  They’ve created a giant sandbox that anyone can use to create their own ideas.  You know you have something good when people are able to take what you have and create close to an infinite amount of things from it.

It’s not all about exploration though, Starship Trooper gave it more of a human survival kind of thing.  For our knowledge of space travel, we have to now defend ourselves on a bigger scale.  There are so many things you can do with a good setting and all of this was brought upon by a adaptation of another theme.

Myth Busted?

I have always looked at myth and legend as one in the same with slight differences..  A legend is more of a story that everyone knows to have been passed down from person to person.  Its contents are assumed to be exaggerated and it’s purely for entertainment.  A myth however is some kind of story that everyone assumes to be false but still makes sense, just has a lack of evidence.

You’ll see a lot of this in fantasy and I don’t mean medieval fantasy.  All fantasy carries this little quirk and it is what they do with it that makes their story stand out.  Neil Gaiman’s Ananzi Boys touches on this in a very interesting way.  It is always very cool to see the juxtaposition between the real world and the “before world” or “super world”.

            Here we see someone who is coming across another plane of existence that he has never seen before.  We aren’t talking about just physical planes either.  Charlie stumbles across something that is far greater than himself.  He ends up meeting his brother, who then starts messing with his life.  Then they both get sucked in further when Charlie looks to get his brother Spider out of his life.

            Charlie stumbles upon old ones and supernatural creatures and age old rivalries.  Now I know some people would love this to happen to them, but I think I would react in the same way.  I would really just want everything to go back to normal.  One could go insane from all of this happening at once.  However there’s one point that sticks out.  It doesn’t matter what time you’re in, the myths always seem to apply everywhere.  It just has to adapt to where it is currently.

WIZARDS

This week was over magic, wizards, witchcraft and everything in between.  What was also part of this is the way the characters mature through the problems that they face.  Now every story has it’s own quirks and tales that make it unique but one thing that is the same across them all are the trials.

            I guess one of the most literal piece of a young adult going through trials as he or she grows up would be Harry Potter.  The whole book is based around the multiple years of training and knowledge gathering in this world that they’ve just been introduced to.  Right off the bat I can say there was a definite difference between people of other age groups and the people who shared the same age as the character but that goes without saying.

            Although Harry was in an “alternate universe”, all of the problems are issues that someone would have to challenge in real life.  Meeting new people and forming new relationships, learning from others, both your peers and older.  Overcoming personal demons, and dealing with things that are outside your control.  All of these “fantasy” problems aren’t really fantasy at all.  They are always solved the same way that they would in real life, albeit the execution of the solution may have magic.

            For example when there was a troll loose in the school, Harry and Ron went to go save Hermione because she didn’t know.  Although it was school rules to leave they were rewarded for their bravery and how the three worked together to overcome the obstacle.  In real life if you exceed people’s expectations you are usually praised for it.  They want to teach you to hold your own future and to make your own decisions.

Aquatic Uncle

1. Are there any prominent symbols in the story?  How are they used?

Well there are many themes/symbols in Aquatic Uncle.  One example is the symbols of aquatic life and terrestrial life or more specifically, the land and the sea.  They use dry land here as like the new frontier that people are now getting used to while they used the sea or ponds or lakes etc, as the old generations living area.  Everyone in the new generation sees that being on land and evolving past what they were as moving forward while the Great Uncle N'ba N'ga will defend his position say that there isn't necessarily wrong with aquatic life and though it has its problems, it isn't behind in any sense of the word.  It's just different.

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

I was able to connect with this story due to my own prejudices.  It made sense that the newer generation would view the past unfavorably and even I dismiss the past's way of life as being outdated. Lll questioned it though.  She was trying to make sure that what she was living was actually in fact better than what she had.  She came to the conclusion that it wasn't better.  Perhaps the progress we see today is really just an illusion and that we're actually stunted, and it takes reflecting upon the past to help up actually progress.

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use?  What changes would you make?

I think most of the changes would be to the setting.  The symbolism holds very well and only the face of it would need to be changed.  For fun, let's make it a romance.  The Sea would be the nerdy girl/guy that has a crush on the main character.  The Land would represent the hottest girl/guy in school that the main character was chasing after.  Although the land seems to have unending appeal, the Sea has to persuade the main character that what they have to offer is more than enough, not with out problems, but still could be considered ideal.