Tauf Aleph - Phyllis Gotlieb

This story seems to be a little more in depth than the last, but still enjoyable! Although it has to do with the Jewish religion and uses quite a few words that I am unfamiliar with, I got the feeling that the story pointed back to the origins of language. It talks often about assigning names and there is much deliberation in choosing them appropriately. I would assume that this goes back to early times, before we had language as we know it today. At some point in time, someone had to look up and decide to call those white things in the sky "clouds" and someone else even decided to call our planet "Earth". If we didn't have these words of reference, communication would be near impossible!

For The Sake of Grace - Suzette Haden Elgin

Well I have to say that this story is definitely soft sci-fi. Although it did have sc-fi elements, it had a very earthly feel to it. These creatures were easy to relate to humanity and I was able to very easily visualize the setting. Elements of sci fi that stuck out to me: The com-systems, the fact that it took the father ten months to travel through space to reach home, and the sort of work that he does on another planet.) However, these do not seem to be the focal points in the story. It is more about familial relations and a woman's place in the world. The ideas and ways of thinking portrayed in the story remind me of something that would have been written 50 or 100 years ago. The belief that a woman's place is in the home and that she could not possibly succeed at something such as a poetry competition at age 12 when "even I didn't succeed at age 16" (The Khadilha) is very prominent throughout the tale. I liked the ending because it brought forth the truth that males or females are equal beings. It makes males, the Khadilha in this case, look foolish for assuming their superiority especially in matters of intelligance. Jacinth wins and makes sure that this is known by exerting a sort of powerfulness in her words. I liked this story alot!

Half-Life - Paul Preuss

Although it wasn't one of my favorites of the semester, I think this was my favorite this week. It didn't seem to be sci-fi-ish in my opinion, though. I liked the idea of following Curie throughout her life and learning about her through the experiences that were brought back to life. It was a pretty good read overall, though not something I would set out to read for fun ...

Schwarzschild Radius - Connie Willis

The story is about a theory having to do with black holes .. I didn't mind this one, because I've always found the mystery behind black holes to be very interesting. They seem to actually be inside the Schwarzschild Radius trying to figure it all out. Once again, as in the last story their efforts end in diaster. The theory seems to have been based on little or no actual knowledge ..

I'm feeling very confused this week. The story's aren''t grabbing my attention like they normally do so I apologize for my boring and probably un-insightful (Is that a word?) posts. I don't know if it's just me or if the stories are just extremely dry ....

The World As We Know "T" - Howard Waldrop

Okay so basically what I got out of this story was that there are a bunch of guys from the "Lunatick Society" (They spelled Lunatic wrong) arguging over various scientific matters. Noone seems to be very satisified and after some deliberation they decide to go out to a field to do the Great Experiment. This resulted in the end of the Earth. Maybe this story is essentially about what could happen when we take Science and exploration too far, or become overly curious!

Schrodinger's Plague - Greg Bear

This was an interesting little story! Again, I don't have too much to say but it was definitely a step up from "Exposures." Different concept .. although Im not up on physics, this guy seemed to be angered that people spent so much time worrying about foolish things. The end of the story was pretty ambiguous but it got me thinking anyway.

Exposures - Gregory Benford

This will most definitely be my shortest blog posting yet for the simple reason that I have nothing to say. I dont understand this story for the life of me .. he's looking at pictures (I think?) of some planet that has alot of blue and red jets. He talks about his son at one point, another planet called Sagittarius A and that he'll never have final answers to his questions. As far as the meaning of this story? No idea .. I tried to look it up online but apparently noone else in the world has read it. Or they just didn't care to write anything about it .. yeah, I would assume that's what happened.