Maria Caraballo: literature of horror, fantasy and sci fi.

The Oceans at the end of the lane This took me a really long time to finish, BUT I MADE IT! I personally love the overlapping of magical realism and contemporary fantasy. I’m less knowledgeable of Anglo-Saxon literature, than I am of Latin American, Spanish and European works. At my school we would read a lot of magical realis, works like 100 years of solitude and Isabel Allende. This book is kind of a mixture of magical realism and the classic fairy tales. The story is set in a more “believable setting”. Unusual things are happening to seemingly normal people. It’s when he meets Lettie that things start getting weird. The classic fairy tale elements are the different creatures like the fleas and varmints. The real part is the disconnect the protagonist has between his childhood and adulthood. It is suggested that his heart was eaten by the hunger birds, and its slowly growing back. This symbolizes the loss of purity and innocence when leaving childhood. Although The oceans at t

This story is more of a conglomeration of moments than a regular narrative, it weaves together a spirit of memory and the contrast between reality and recordings. The tone of the story is very peculiar. The main character has just gone through a breakup, his girlfriend just left him and he finds a hologram rose, a postcard and an “Apparent Sensory Perception” tape. He breaks the postcard into pieces and then watches the tape, which has mostly been wiped out. This little short story reminded me a lot of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless mind. Mainly because we are living the memories of Parker, but through a more lens-y kind of view, instead of being there as a character. The whole memory erasing is very similar a concept,  it made me realize how some parts of that movie might fall into some sci fi genre codes. This part particularly stuck with me “Thinking: We're each other's fragments, and was it always this way? That instant of a European trip, deserted in the gray sea of wip

I've read Phillip K Dick's work beforehand, and this is classic sci fi, throwing the reader into the story with no previous exposition. Phillip K Dick’s work tends to deal with hallucinations, group projections and the authenticity of humans. In Android’s we see this present in the humanity of the replicants vs the humans. What makes feeling and conscience exclusively human? While in this piece the struggle seems to be what is a real memory and fantasy. I like that without having to lift a single finger he is what keeps Earth safe from an alien invasion. His lifelong childhood fantasy manifested in his psyche and became a reality. I love how one act of kindness makes all of his past as a secret agent seem meaningless. Quail's childish thought of mercy made the aliens feel mercy in turn. The message seems to be a commentary on the senseless violence of war and how it fades away and moral solutions endure. The slow reveal of Quail’s past is also part of sci fi genre code

What an awesome read. I decided to listen to this one, since one of the recordings had Olivia Colman in the cast. Dirk's own profession is reflective of this too, a holistic detective, he refuses to discard any possible scenario that could've led to a crime. His attitude towards how everyone perceives him is oddly positive and he seems to remain calm whenever he encounters someone who questions his job. Like the cyberpunk pieces, we get thrown into the world without experiencing much exposition of worldbuilding in the introductory chapters.  I was also left wondering where this fits in the sci fi genre, there's fantastical characters like Thor and Odin, yet nobody believes they're real. I guess this is the aspect where the time period is less important than the present moment that’s occurring in the piece. They’re present in the modern world, there are gods in the Heathrow airport, goblins chasing down executives. I really enjoyed this aspect of this piece, I kept laug

 A Clockwork Orange.  I read it with a little background information on it. I saw the Kubrick movie when I was about 15. What stuck out to me the most was the themes of choice, and also the controversy of the last chapter. Alex DeLarge is a violent young man, he gets chosen for the Ludovico experiments specifically because he killed a man. The violence and rape is very shocking and hard to read, since Alex and his gang are not the only nadsats partaking in the old ultraviolence. The question the book presents about authority and violence is very hard to answer. Is taking away choice from evil? Would the Ludovico treatment ever work? Alex represents humanity's the right to choose even if its a twisted choice, if we take away the right to choose then what are we? an organic machine, but is that better for  the good of society? I particularly enjoyed the Nadsat. It takes an interesting approach when it comes to slang. Combining two languages and creating new words, this happens very

15 years: Honestly I am an irresponsible optimist. For me things are great now, but I come from one of the worst places on Earth, so whats great for me could be bad for a first world person. I hope everything will be great. I believe in humanity and the power of technology, and hey, maybe we could fix things. Most of the people I know are environmentally responsible, so I have hope things will be better. I hope the entertainment industry changes, that women are more represented. I still think we are far away from the classic cyber-human adjustments.. Stuff like Neuralink does freak me out... No thank you.  I hope by that point in time dictators will be gone, they just ruin everything. I really hope  we find a way to make dogs live longer. Electric cars will be the norm at this point, it won't be a luxury anymore. 50 years I hope my constant use of sunscreen pays off when I am 70!. I wonder how architecture would look like at this point....Phones, animals, laptops will l