Patricia Lettis- Lit of Horror, Fantasy, and SciFi

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin has three major themes that I would like to talked about, gender, love and ‘The Other’. (That sounds like a good YA novel title.) The world created was from one proposed question, what would a world without biologically sex be like? This also posed a question on gender identity and the culture status of love without our heavy handed catholic ideas on it. Some Critics of the time that the novel contained more male presenting aliens than androgynous ones. (Cummins) This is completely misguided but, can serves as an example to what objects and traits we gender. This assumes that there are positions that are gendered and that the unbalance between sexes are nature and that trans and non-binary people are not real. Which is enraging to me. There an idea about love here also that is now visible in the queer community that was no back then. That is non sexual, romantic love. That is a very important idea because even when sex is everywhe...

Like last week with Urban Fantasy, I would like to spend some time talking about the author of this novel because he is what drew me to read this for this week.   The book that I read was Foundation and I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Isaac Asimov reads to express his views and life. He uses sci-fi as a more appealing way of talking about modern problem that he would like people to be more aware of. It’s time to talk about the novel and book of short stories and Asimov himself. Isaac Asimov lives as a Jewish boy in Post World War One Europe and under the rule of the Soviet Union. He later moved to the Untied States where he aided the effort for World War Two. He bounced around a few jobs while writing. (asimovonline.com). He was a smart young man who knew about the world around him.   In Europe, he saw all the post war madness that had been mirrored in the US naively. When dangerous ideas are posed with out looking at the harmful things that could come out of it. One of the onl...

Neil Gaiman is a man who has become the face to this genre. He has also updated and growth the genre singlehandedly. Molding it to children books, graphic novels, and adult fiction. The interest in genre has expanded the growing culture difference between countries. He expanded his stories that happen in the Americas and in Africa. Having characters from diverse places and backgrounds. I read American Gods for this week. American Gods is a book that is purely American to a point that American writers can’t (or have not) reached. Many writers stick to writing about where they are from even if they make the choice to write about a far off place, they kept the little regional quirks that they don’t realize are regional. The production of American Gods was a road trip across the United States every area in the book including the roads and side attractions are based on the true nature of the micro-culture in a state. How the micro-cultures interact is also a thing that he explores ...