I love the ocean. I love it so much that before I wanted to become an artist, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to explore the deep sea and discover all the weird and disgusting creatures that lived down there. I even got my scuba diving license at 11 years old- that's how committed I was. Of course, that plan didn't pan out the way I had anticipated when I was younger, but reading Gyo brought me back to that time where I was a wide-eyed girl with a serious passion for the sea. For many people, this work would absolutely deter them from ever taking another trip to the beach, in fear of some fish scuttling up to them on spindly limbs. But we know that won't happen, since the legs that the fish were using were machines that were made during WWII. Obviously, the Japanese made no such invention during the war in our world. But I think what makes this manga extra scary is how it plays into our innate fear of the unknown. According to ...
Oops. After reading a good chunk of Mona Lisa Overdrive and STILL not understanding the world and the people in it, I eventually relented and googled the book's plot, only to find that it was the LAST BOOK in William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy. No wonder I was so confused. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one confused, which was why I could fully relate to Kumiko Yanaka and her story in the novel. Kumiko was basically thrown into the story with zero knowledge of what was going on around her. Her father shipped her off to England while he dealt with some Yakuza business, leaving her all alone and alienated in her new surroundings. Fortunately, she meets Sally Shears (who I read was actually named Molly Millions from the first books... which I SHOULD'VE read...), who drags her around London to meet with people with weird names. Even in her chapters, Kumiko feels like an outsider looking in, with Sally feeling like more of a star, most likely because...
1. What is your reaction to the text you just read? Holy crap. This story only took me a few minutes to read, but those were some of the most uncomfortable minutes of my life. Stuff involving pregnancy unnerves me a little bit, so you can imagine that reading about a dude who was pregnant with flesh eating larvae that were slowly killing him sent some chills down my spine. It left me feeling very uneasy, and if that was the intent, then congratulations Octavia Butler! You did it!! 2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect? I'm happy to say that I don't live on a planet with weird life-forms that have more limbs than normal, so I can't relate to that. However, what I can relate to is being manipulated into thinking that something is right when in reality it's severely detrimental to yourself. In the story, Gan and his sister wholeheartedly believe th...
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