FEATURED POST: Blood Child and Aliens

When it comes to science fiction, there is nothing I love more than aliens. Perhaps it is because I grew up fascinated by animals, creatures, monsters, and reptiles. The biggest impact on me was the actual alien, from the movie Alien. I remember as a little kid thinking that it was the coolest looking creature ever and playing with the alien toys. To me, aliens are really the pinnacle of science fiction. Often what will sell me on a work of science fiction is the inclusion of aliens. They just have so much potential for variation, in appearance, intelligence, evolution, you name it. They can be essentially monsters, like in the Alien movies, or more humanoid and intelligent, like in say, Star Trek. even more interestingly, they can often be a combination of both- like the very alien appearing creatures from the film District 9, who are still quite human when it came to emotion and intelligence. Or, the insect aliens from the short story Blood Child, by Octavia Butler. These aliens are extremely alien; they are essentially giant bugs. Multiple limbs, claws, mandibles, everything. These creatures could easily be mistaken for some B-movie horror monsters. But they are more than that. They are actually intelligent beings, with emotions and awareness of their surroundings that matches that of a human. Even more interestingly, in the context of the story of Blood Child, they are actually the superior species, holding humans in what you could call controlled captivity. It is quite interesting how humans and these insect aliens interact in the short story, living together almost as a family. The dependence of the aliens on the humans also adds another layer to the strange relationship between species. These aliens need humans for hosts for their young larvae newborn. Without humans, these creatures would have a hard time multiplying, so they keep humans almost as cattle. It is interesting that the humans go through with the process, though they do not seem to have much of a choice. Part of the reason these insect aliens interest me so much is that their method of using other species as hosts is literally straight out of the movie Alien. In both cases, humans are used as the hosts, the newborn aliens living inside the human body. The difference being that in the movie Alien, humans are unwillingly used as hosts by the monstrous aliens, whereas in Blood Child humans accept this relationship and often expect or even volunteer to be hosts for the, somewhat at least, more caring insect aliens.

Existenz

This is an interesting film to go back to. I watched it many, many years ago and when I was much younger. I really enjoyed the movie back then, mainly because I am just a hardcore video gamer. So it was interesting watching it again in class today and having a new, more mature, and refreshed perspective on it. I have to say that seeing it again it seems extremely cheesy. But that is in a good way. The movie is extremely unique, with a much grittier world than a movie like the Matrix- which ironically came out the same year. That goes to show you how popular the virtual reality theme was back in the later 90's. The movie definitely has a lot of gross out moments when it comes to the organic controller that plugs into the user's spine. The one thing I remember the most watching this as a kid was the gun that used human teeth as ammo. There was something disturbingly cool about that. Again, seeing the gun now when I'm older, it looks very weird to say the least. Not to mention the functionality of the gun is almost entirely lost which breaks my believability a bit. I mean, how does it operate and actually manages to shoot? But hey, this is supposed to be a game after all. Well, a game within a game. Actually, a game within a game within a game. The ending of the film was definitely a disappointment, however. I remember thinking that as a kid, "Really, that's it?" I guess they did get lost in their own plot line since they did not know how to properly end it. The end just seemed contrived, like they ran into a wall or something. So they just resolved it by saying the whole film was a game, so they did not have to try and figure out how to get themselves out of the mess they got in from the whole movie. Oh well, the ending is not what I remember the movie for, not in the least. It's the tooth gun. Crazy awesome. And weird too.

BloodChild

Bloodchild has something that instantly grabs my attention when it comes to sci-fi. It has aliens. Aliens are definitely my favorite part of sci-fi. Ever since I first saw the movie Alien, I've just loved them. I do prefer the more animal, monster type aliens to that of the more humanoid ones. Granted, humanoid aliens can be just as aweseome to me. Mass Effect, one of my favorite games, is a great example of a universe with humanoid aliens with high intellectual capacity- however they are very different in appearance. A giant bipedal lizard with an angry mindset but still has the ability to reason and an intelligence to match that of a human... Now that's what I'm talking about.

Bloodchild is interesting then because it does in a way combine both the monster type alien and the humanoid intelligent type alien into one entity. The insect like aliens of the short novel are definitely alien in appearance. Described as large insects with multiple claws and limbs, you could easily look at these creatures as movie monsters. Yet they are clearly intelligent, even to the point of having dominance over humans. They can be looked at as very human in nature, aside from their appearance of course. They actually remind me of the aliens from the movie District 9. They are very alien in appeance but human in nature and intelligence. Of course, the first thing I thought of when reading BloodChild was the movie Alien. Humans are used as the hosts for the alien newborns in both stories, in very similar ways. The primary difference here is that the aliens from Alien were pure animalistic and monsters in nature, wheras the insect aliens in BloodChild were more relatable to humans when it came to the ability to reason, having personality and emotions, etc etc. I was surprised at the idea reading through this story of a more sympathetic alien species that implants its young into humans. Perhaps its because the movie Alien has already engraved into my head the idea that it is clearly "bad". Or maybe its human nature to imagine that getting implanted by insect aliens would be a bad thing. Personally, whether the aliens are "good" or not, I find that something that would not be good at all. Assuming that was real, I know I sure wouldn't ever want that to happen. But bottom line of the topic is really that I love aliens. They are awesome.

Snow Crash...

This novel is somewhat of an odd one to me. The plot is quite strange and has some unusual layers of depth from what I've read. The whole idea of the virtual reality-esque metaverse is, while interesting, a bit flat to me. While this is definitely a very cool premise and world, I can't help but feel it's a little generic at this point. This perhaps is not the novel's fault though, as it was released in 1992- long before many movies, games, and other series adopted the virtual reality premise. This arguement is actually very similar to my opinion on The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit being somewhat generic to me at this point. While those are generic fantasy, Snow Crash falls into generic sci-fi to me. Movies like the Matrix have delved into this subject matter before. So many games I've played deal with stories of vitual reality and simulators, such as Perfect Dark and Mass Effect. Especially games like World of Warcraft, which I've never played, have practically brought the term 'avatar' into the mainstream... James Cameron's new movie, entitled Avatar, just goes to show you show mainstream and overexposed the whole virtual reality concept is at this point. So I can't help but feel a little burnt out or put off by Snow Crash, because it shares its premise with something so overdone to me.

The one more interesting aspect of the novel was the idea of the drug itself, snow crash. More specifically, the idea that the 'drug', so to speak, has some kind of paranormal ability to affect users both in the metaverse and in reality. This reminds me of the game novel I read not to long ago, Mass Effect Ascension. In that novel there was a drug called red sand, which gave its users temporary biotic abilities, such as telekenesis. The idea of drugs granting these abilities or affecting the user in a more uncommon way such as these two novels is an interesting notion. It gave Snow Crash a bit more flare for reading to counter the somewhat blandness of virtual reality for me.