Couldn't Get Atwood; Big Fan of Vonnegut.

Slaughterhouse Five

I know that this one wasn't the spotlight novel for the week, but boy howdy did I flip when I saw Kurt Vonnegut as one of the authors that worked under the category of "Literary Speculation". As a huge fan, I decided to take a risk and write my final blog post about a book that I'm truly passionate about that just happens to touch on the same genre that just happens to be the week's topic of interest. If you haven't read "Slaughterhouse Five", I highly recommend that you do so, as I believe it to be one of Vonnegut's very best. Following WW2 veteran Billy Pilgrim, a man who had been abducted by aliens that see all of time at all times towards the end of his life and thusly has gained the uncontrollable ability to warp randomly between points in time of his life, Slaughterhouse explores the strange tendencies of human beings, especially during war time, and the subject of fate.

The aliens that abduct Pilgrim, you see, have developed a very distant perspective on life that I think no human can ever truly understand. Seeing as how they see all of time constantly, when they come across a dead member of their race or likewise come across any kind of unpleasant stimuli, they simply choose to acknowledge a time when that stimuli wasn't so (for instance, when that dead alien was alive). At one point, Billy asks them if they know how the universe ends, and they respond "yes" -- they're well aware that it will be one of their race, who accidentally implodes existence at one point in time in a science experiment that has yet to happen, and has already happened. Since it will happen, and therefor might as well already have happened, they see no reason to stop it, as they can't, or have already failed, yet haven't yet tried, to do so. You can see how their outlook on life is radically different and nearly unthinkable to the average human mind, which can only experience time linearly.

Slaughterhouse got me to ask myself some pretty important questions, and had a huge impact on my life by forcing me to realize, through Billy Pilgrim, that time truly is fleeting, and even if I could go back and re-live what I loved most, it would warp me into a horrible, unfeeling entity that could hardly be considered human at all! I actually owe this book a lot -- prior to it, I spent many a night alone at a computer, and was well over a healthy weight for my age. And now, well, I can definitely say that I'm a much healthier and happier person, with a much richer and more vibrant life, thanks to Kurt Vonnegut. Again, if you haven't read Slaughterhouse Five, then please do yourself a favor and try it. Vonnegut isn't for everyone, to be sure, but I can guarantee, if you sit through the whole thing, that it's an experience you won't forget.

--William Avery

Oh jeez, not Keanu R-- oh, it's a book too.

Johnny Mnemonic.

So as the title of the article might lead you to believe, when I google searched "Johnny Mnemonic", the first result was a movie. This lead me to a movie trailer and, eventually, Keanu Reeves. This... did not make me very enthusiastic about delving into the tale. I was saved, though, by a youtube comment that wondered how the movie had ruined the book for him. "A book, you say?" I wondered to myself. "I'll take it." Thus began my short trip into the world of William Gibson and the Sprawl.

First impressions walking away from it: I definitely enjoyed what I saw, and am looking forward to reading more into "The Sprawl Trilogy" at a later date. Cyberpunk isn't a genre that I frequently get into, but I'm not really sure why that is. I normally enjoy what I see, and it's quite often a refreshing change from my normal regimen of contemporary fantasy and space operas. One of my favorite shows, actually, is arguably of the Cyberpunk genre, and its similarity to Gibson's universe is certainly one of the primary reasons that I enjoyed it so much.

The show, Batman Beyond, was something that I regularly looked forward to when I came home from school as a child. And while the protagonist wasn't a traditional Cyberpunk heroine, being a troubled teenaged boy with Batman's arsenal at his disposal, I think that you could pretty easily qualify it as a work of the genre in question. The first similarity that I noticed was the commonality of body modification amongst the public. Also, the story took place in a future that felt more like a warped, gritty, and immediate future like that of "Johnny Mnemonic", as opposed to a distant and fantastic future like that of Star Trek. And strong female characters? Sheesh, I can't actually think of a female character in Batman Beyond that wasn't strong-willed and just as important (much more so in some cases) as any male character. Hell, there's even a woman with a monomolecular sword in Batman Beyond; paired with the fact that its wielder is a woman, I could argue that said monomolecular blade is even more Cyberpunk-y than Gibson's yakuza assassin.

Anyway, all in all this story turned out to be an eye opener for me. Not in the sense that I had an epiphany on what I should do with my life, but just an interesting realization about what I appreciate in the world of fiction. It was thought-provoking to imagine that just days ago I couldn't tell you Cyberpunk from Space Opera, but now I see I've been appreciating the world of Cyberpunk from afar for far longer than I'd ever thought!

--William Avery