The Golden Compass [Novel 5], Narnia, & Harry Potter & Inkheart

The Golden Compass 

Even though this book was written from a younger age group than myself, I still enjoyed it. The fact that it was easy to read meant that it was easier to get lost in the story much quicker. There were so many interesting ideas brought up in this book. 

My favorite being the daemons that the human race had. It's like everyones' soul was out in the open, there was no hiding it, there was no getting away from who you truly are. I think the author made a good choice in having the daemons in an animal form. It's something that is easily related to, we all have heard or been asked the question "what kind of animal would you be?". Philip Pullman could easily answer that question in behalf of his characters. 

I also like how he decided to use places that are actually in our world and places that he creates. It gives it a more on earth idea but still gives us the other world, it's like he's letting us have the best of both worlds. 

I have to say that I enjoyed the movie as well. The only thing about the movie is that at the end I felt like they just cut off the storyline and there was no sense of closure. I could have maybe let that feeling pass if they had/or planned to make the next two books into movies. 

Narnia

My favorite, fantasy place. I first saw the movies. Prince Caspian is probably my favorite movie. When I first saw the Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. I was shocked at how much I liked it but it really was a great story, in my opinion. The world was so intense, and to know that a world like that could be in something as simple as a wardrobe [which I found out later from reading the books that it wasn't just simple]. I defiantly loved the acting as well, as a whole the movie was presented well.

After watching the movie I wanted to read the books, so I did. I really liked The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, & The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Maybe I just liked those four stories the most because they tie so well into each other. The one big difference between the books and the movies is the religious point-of-view. The Religion part is much stronger in the books. At first I didn't realize all the ties into religion that the stories had till I read the books. Also it amazed me how short the stories are. The movies have a lot of details that were not mentioned in the books.

Harry Potter

It wouldn't be a true fantasy talk if I didn't talk about Harry Potter. Again, I watched the movies before I read the books. Though I did attempt to read them after the first movie came out but I started with the fourth, which is strange even to me now because it was, at the time, the longest book. I finally got around to reading them a little of a year ago. I really enjoyed them but it also made me see how much the movies were leaving out. 

I do indeed love the world of Harry Potter that Rowling created. It is a special place and I think all the growing characters is what gave her idea the special quality. 

Inkheart

I just wanted to briefly talk about this book, which is now a series by Cornelia Funke. This was my first favorite book, and the movie wasn't too horrible but it was no where near the experience that I felt with the book. I really liked the whole idea of the book. That there was this daughter and father loved books. Their whole world was based off their love for books. The father's job was to repair books and their entire house was just cluttered with books. Then we come to find out that when the father reads out-loud objects and characters can appear in the real world and something from the real world is put into the book's world. But the story is about the daughter, Meggie, and she finds her special power and goes on this adventure in learning the truth about her family, herself, and the world around her. 

The Hobbit [Novel 4]

This was the first time that I have read something by J.R.R Tolkien. I enjoyed reading the Hobbit. I get really wrapped up in fantasy books, novels, stories, movies, and tv shows. There's just this idea that the fantasy subjects give off, the idea that there is something more. Something more to keep fighting for, something more to learn, something else out there. I feel like the genre of fantasy makes me hope there is something more out there than the every day to day life. Of course I don't expect that something to be as extreme as a world like Lord of the Rings or Narnia. But one can hope.

I enjoyed the Hobbit because I like the adventures they go through and how he was so against the idea of going on an adventure because "hobbits don't have adventures" but found himself going anyway. After every new obstacles he kept thinking he wanted be back in his warm hobbit hole. Yet in the end even though he was glad to be home, his life changed a lot from his adventure and he found that he loved that as well. It's pretty interesting that the dwarfs and Bilbo have this adventure but Gandalf seems to tag along but also directs them along the way. He's a little bit of a guide to them as well as a protector because he constantly is the one to get them out of their troubles. I don't mind that the book starts out a little slow, actually I don't really this it starts out slow, I think the beginning events and the lots of detail is necessary because for some people J.R.R. Tolkien's world is new to them, but I also think having loads of detail is unique because author's are afraid to give too much.

I would defiantly like to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy after reading the hobbit because I like the characters/ creatures, personalities and world that Tolkien developed. I've seen the movies and they are really intense and I enjoyed them much more than I thought I would. I really had this idea that they would be kind of cheesy but I was wrong.

A Wild Sheep Chase [Novel 3]

I wasn't really sure what to expect from a book about a sheep chase, but I was surprised how the book was. Since I have never read J. horror before, I think this book showed me a little bit about what J. horror is about.

The horror genre for American culture is much different than Japanese horror. I have never really been into the horror movies that came out here. But seeing the two movies we watched today in class made me really like how Japanese horror is set up. I like that there's this slow build up so that we find out about the characters in everyday life, how they view themselves, and get along with others, rather than how they just act when something strange is going on, or when they are facing their death. Which is what our horror movies are mostly like. Our horror movies are pretty typical and it's not that the horror industry no longer scares me, because they do, but I just don't enjoy the type of horror that they put on. Especially in the recent years.

A Wild Sheep Chase was very much like the movies we watched today, slow moving but we found out who the main character was internally. We also discovered a lot about the events in his life as well as the people in his life and how they effected him as well as his life.  Since I only read half of the book, and from what I heard in class the book starts to pick up and I would defiantly like to finish this book because I want to know how the main characters actions and decisions affect him at the end of the book. Like was mentioned in class, I liked how the author didn't use name in the book. It sort of opens it up so that we can believe this persons life could be anyones. Which from what I read his life was fairly normal. What I also like about everyone being nameless is that we have names for everything, for everyone and it's shocking and interesting that someone can write an entire novel taking away what is part of everyday life.

Van Helsing [Movie 1]

Since I didn't get around to reading Interview with the Vampire for this week, I decided to watch Van Helsing and comment on how it connects with our theme for the week which was Vampires.

I've seen Van Helsing once before, but it has been quite some time. As I was watching it what I noticed was how the movie tied many different horror characters into the story, the beginning mostly. Such as Dr. Frankenstein as "the mad scientist" and his monster. Also Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde made an appearance.

While watching the first few minutes of the movie and watching the part that implied the story of Frankenstein. They didn't use the book version that we read for the first week of class but the Frankenstein version that most people know. This movie made me remember what I thought the book Frankenstein was going to be about. A mad scientist that creates this monster. Then the monster mourns over the death of his "father" because people thought that he was mad and made this crazy invention that is his monster. 

Of course I knew that Van Helsing was more than just a character in a movie so I decided to look up where the character for the movies came from. I didn't know that Van Helsing was a character in the book Dracula. I found that kind of interesting because it made me realize why the main vampire's name was Count Dracula. 

This movie also brings up an interesting subject; what kills a vampire? One thing that I have really noticed about vampire movies and tv shows, since I don't really read many novels with vampires in them, is that in each movie and show their are different ways to kill a vampires. In Van Helsing, one of the characters make a special bow and arrow invention. But in most shows it's usually a stake to the heart. I just find it so interesting how many different shows and movies play-up what effects vampires in different ways, such as the sun or being killed.

For example:

twilight:

• can go in the sun but becomes glittery
• has marble-like skin
• pale-skin
• special power

true-blood:

• can't go in the sun
• has a drink called trublood that they can drink as a substitution
• has to be invited into a house each time they want to enter
• is much more organized; with sheriffs
• can control people

vampire diaries:

• some can go in the sun with special rings, most cannot
• has to only be invited into a house once
• can control people

vampire knight:

• can take tablets for blood substitution
• has a hierarchy
• has vampire hunters
• vampires who are not noble turn into different creatures called level E's
• sun hurts them but doesn't kill them
• all have special powers

I think the idea of a vampire really is just the idea that they suck human blood, but their always is a sort of substitute, wether it's animal blood, a tablet, or a drink. Also what I think makes a vampire is their strength, speed, and are affected by the sun in some way. The fact that there are so many different elements that can be played with makes vampires popular. Their a monster in human form, some have to fight their nature, which is a struggle I think even most people go through, some just love to go with it. Vampires are extreme but also capable of emotion. 

I think Vampires are the extreme of what humans could be, that's why I think they are so popular.

Class Notes for 9/8/10

Vampire variants:

dracula

buffy

van helsing

underworld vampires

trueblood

vampire diaries

vampira

nosferatu

daybreakers

vampire knight

blood +

class vampire variants/class convo.:

blade

trueblood – southern gothic vampires

sesame street “the count”

spiderman vampire

anime vampires

I am legend

twilight series

30 days of night

from dusk till dawn

blood & choc.

Mercy Tomson

lost boys

Monster Island by David Wellington [Novel 2]

This was my first time reading a zombie novel. It's not that I don't like zombies, I've just never gotten into reading about them but I was surprised that I liked Monster Island as much as I did.

I had a feeling I would like the book because the title is pretty intriguing but I liked it much more than I thought I would. The story was very well developed and I find it so interesting that he wrote the book as a blog. I think it'd be quite challenging to write an entire book, and series, in the form of a blog. It just seems like you type out all of your ideas and then go back and read the book as a whole to make sure it makes sense. Since he did each chapter separately it's quite amazing that the story flowed so well.  I enjoyed how the chapters switched off between the two narrations, but perhaps that worked for his benefit since he wrote it as a blog. Where one chapter would be about the main character and the next would be about the main zombie character. For most books this type of format would be distracting because it wouldn't follow the story as nicely but I think it worked for this book because the chapters were on average about 4 pages in length. Every time I came to a new chapter it didn't feel as if I was confused but more like I was moving to a different place in the city of New York, where the main action takes place. I know someone in class mentioned that it felt like they were reading a scrip which in some aspects I can understand that. Since the chapters were short and they switched characters it felt like in a movie when the scenes change.

I enjoyed the story of Monster Island. This idea that the most civilized places would be the first to be overcome by an epidemic is interesting. It's defiantly a new take on aspects and zombies. Such as the Gary who is highly intelligent but is still a zombie. Or the teenage females who protected the adult males. This book had a lot going for it when it switched up how must ideas are viewed. I would really recommend, and have already, to anyone who is of course into zombies or people who like adventure, or suspensive stories.






I think the biggest theme for this novel is survival. Even though the characters didn't have much left to fight for they continued to try to do what was necessary to survive. For most of the characters we never really found out what they were fighting for. Especially when considering the younger girls who were trained to fight since they were even smaller. It makes you wonder what they felt they had to go on for. We know that in the main character's case he had a daughter to keep living for, other than that maybe he wouldn't have thought life was worth fighting for anymore. Considering the doctor who turned himself into a zombie, he did it for survival as well. He knew that with such a decline in the number of people surviving that his chance of ever being saved were slim. Then being one of the few zombies with a brain he decides it's best to team up with another smarter zombie to rule over the other zombies. Which if he had that power is a really smart idea when considering how your going to keep going. It meant that he would always be fed before the others.

Class Notes for 9/1/10

Why are zombies so popular?

I think zombies have become so popular because of the idea that people rise from the dead or that they can not be killed. We always hear that people are afraid to die or afraid of death so I think the idea of zombies, since they are dead but as in monster island they are the “living dead”, then that threatens the living because they have this hunger for meat. Which then makes people fear for their life even more than before and as the zombie population grows the more people hide away and the more fear people have. Also I think zombies are easy to relate to for people because in ways they make zombies feel like our own human race. They experience feeling of hunger and of course they don't really have the brains but we still understand their desire for food.

Ideas from class

• endless supply of something to kill
• the idea that something like zombies is more possible now than ever before with illnesses and crisis, like a test for survival
• fascinated with the idea of bring something back to life