Empire Star, Bladerunner

When deciding whether to read through Babel 17 or Empire Star, I decided to go with Empire Star. It seemed like a more interesting read. One particular draw was the idea of the novel being narrated by an "alien" so to speak. Ok, whether or not the narrator, Jewel, is an alien or not I am not actually sure of. But the way the character is described and presented definitely in my opinion makes Jewel seem other-worldly. Which is of course true anyway; being that Jewel is one of the two individuals rescued from the ship wreckage by Comet Joe. I find it to be quite a clever and intriguing way to have a narrator for the story. As opposed to simply having a non-existant character be the narrator, the narrator is one very close to the hero character Comet Joe. And the ability for the narrator to know so much about the story to be able to tell it is actually justifiable in this novel's case; being that Jewel, in the crystaline state, is able to see multiple points of view. Aside from the narrator, the story itself is interesting. While the story is essentially a coming of age tale for Comet Joe, I do personally enjoy stories that span large amounts of time, or even an entire character's life. I enjoy seeing that character evolve and change, going through "character arcs" as we say in Computer Animation. This is what kept Comet Joe as a character, for the most part, engaging.

I was quite excited to discover we were watching Bladerunner today in class. I first saw this movie back in June this year, and liked it quite a bit. I guess I like cyber-punk, although in all honesty I didn't know what cyber-punk was before it was brought up today relating the Bladerunner. It just makes up a really cool setting. The reason I first watched Bladerunner was actually because of many video games I've played in the past, such as Mass Effect and Fallout 3. Both games have references to this film, and since I loved that games I took it upon myself to watch the movie. I was not disappointed. There are many facets of this movie that are really good, but my favorite would simply have to be the dark, grungy, yet still futuristic setting.