The Start Of The End Of It All - Carol Emshwiller

Wow I loved this story! Definitely my favorite so far. It struck me as odd that the old woman did not describe her experience in such a way that conveyed shock and disbelief to the reader. Either the aliens have been there for a really long time or the lady has been severely drugged and/or brainwashed. It's funny because it almost made me less shocked to find out that these invading aliens had impregnated the woman with minnow-like spawn.

It's interesting to note that this woman warmed up to Klimp, whether it was by her own choice or because she was drugged/brainwashed, with the expectation that he would be nothing like her ex-husband. He doesn't leave the toilet seat up and he squeezes the toothpaste from the bottom of the tube. The story also says that these Aliens only pair up with divorcees ....

So it seems like she is out to get revenge at the end of the book when she tells them to go live in the Love Canal. I like that the story is portraying a woman who, in the end, takes charge of a situation by seeking some sort of vengeance for the wrongdoing that she has experienced at the hands of a "man". (Not really a man persay, but man-like)

Overall I thought the story was great. I found it to be a relatively easy read in terms of deriving a point and making sense of the situation. I'd like to read more by Carol Emshwiller if the rest of her work is anything like this!

Kyrie - Poul Anderson

So far this week, this has been by far my most difficult read. It's not that Im not understanding what Im reading, but that I'm having problems in distinguishing how it all fits together to form a story. A story that I understand anyway.

Im trying though .. What I've gotten out of it is that it begins on Luna (The moon), Eloise Waggoner being a Special communications technician on the Supernova Sagitarri expedition. As I continued on with the story, I did get a sense of what goes on as they carry out their expedition, but I have yet to derive a point or theme. I mean it's obvious that Eloise is a very boring, monotone typish person who has embarked on this journey in the hopes of finding some excitement. But beyond that .. I don't see how everything fits.

Im assuming, though, that Poul Anderson wrote the story with some sort of intention. He must have been trying to convey SOMETHING. I have to say Poul, I don't think you did a very good job ....

When I was Miss Dow - Sonya Dorman Hess

I guess the first thing that I should say is that I really loved the way that the story begins ..

"These hungry, mother-haunted people come and find us living in what they like to call crystal palaces, though really we live in glass places, some of them highly ornamented and others plain as paper".

It really made me think "Okay, this opening must be giving a general idea of what this story encompasses". And it really does. The hungry mother haunted people are humans. The humans are exploring a planet that is inhabited by Protean aliens.

This male alien is given the task of transforming into a "she" and going to work for Dr. Arnold Proctor as a way of obtaining money. The Warden of her group transforms "him" into Martha Dow, a thirty-something year old lab assistant.

I think the story is interesting in the sense that it seems to be suggesting that we can only "become someone else" for so long. Then we have to go back to our core identity. As I was reading, I was hoping that Martha would stay Martha. But she didn't, and I think that might be a main point in the story.

All in all, I liked this!

How Beautiful With Banners - James Phish

Well .. this was interesting! I didn't mind reading this story at all, mainly because it was exciting to see what kind of crazy scene was going to unfold next.

I basically took from the story the idea that Dr. Ulla Hillstrom (with a slash through the "o") is entirely consumed with her science career, alotting zero time and/or attention to anything else. Her marriage has ended, she doesn't have much esteem and is avoidant of all things intrusive to her career driven life.

Ulla seems to be romantically tied to her bubble. She almost seems to personify it as she "pushed the cozy bubble away from her breasts and tried to stand up". If you didn't know she was talking about a bubble, you'd think she was talking about her lover!

So while she is outdoors in her virus suit (This being the first time anyone has ever done this for more than five or ten minutes), a flying cloak came to investigate this strange thing. Her bubble couldn't withstand the conditions (or maybe it just couldn't withstand her) and took off.

I think the story suggests that while it's good to have other interests, you should always take some time for yourself. Maybe James Phish is saying that it can be very easy to end up with nothing if we get lost in everything but our own well-being.

I also noted that Phish used a couple of metaphors throughout the story which really made the absurdity of Ulla's situation come to life. Although I think that I understand the main elements of the story, Im definitely looking forward to some further clarification in class!

Homelanding - Margaret Atwood

This story, especially at its description of caverns and prongs, had me laughing for the first page or two. At first, well until the end, I knew that I loved the story but I didn't exactly know how it would be classified as science fiction. But then when I realized that the woman (Shes a cavern, remember) is describing life on earth or maybe life as Canadians to an alien, it all came together.

Then I got thinking about how her description is so very accurate yet seems so odd! It's never occured to me that maybe the life that we take to be so ordinary and natural would be absolutely ridiculous and silly to someone or something from another planet.

I really enjoyed this story. It put life into perspective in a pretty humorous way and allowed for the realization that life as we know it may only be "normal" to us because it's all we know.

Strange Wine - Harlan Ellison

Again, I really liked this story. The phrase "The grass is always greener on the other side" is what really jumps out at me after reading this. Willis Kaw is aware that he was not to born to the planet Earth and is convinced that he comes from a much better place. A place with a bright green sky and birds that do not fly, but instead skim surfaces. He thinks that he comes from a planet that does not have to deal with "bodies that decay and smell bad and run down and die (pg.353). He is sure that the anguish and the torment that comes along with being a human being is a punishment that he has been given for an unknown crime that he committed on his home planet.

While he is on earth, he dreams of going home to his planet. He has lost his daughter, his son has been crippled and he's in a loveless marriage. Once he succeeds in returning to his home planet, he realizes that life on earth was a gift to him. Life on his planet is actually much worse than on earth and Plydo falls asleep dreaming of his life as Willis Kaw on the planet Earth.

This just goes to show that we should be thankful for what we have. While it's true that life is not perfect, life could be worse. This seems to be the underlying message that the story drives home.

I do have one question though. Why "Strange Wine" ? It doesn't seem to fit in at all ..

The Mountains of Sunset, The Mountains of Dawn - Vonda N. Mcintyre

Although parts of it were gross (ie. when it describes "the old one" ripping apart the animal and crunching its bones for marrow and brains), I feel like this is essentially a beautiful story. It deals with real-life concerns such as the transformation from child to adult, dealing with death, and how to or if we should pass on values and traditions to the younger generation before we die.

I think it is interesting that these aliens were depicted in such an un-human physical way but with distinctly human thoughts and ideas. When I think of these creatures, I think of a furry bat/human/bird. Almost like an extremely furry bat with a humanish face that has the flying capacity and wingspan of a bird.

The fact that the old one speaks in old English, saying things such as "Wouldst thou have me .." while the young one speaks as we would today reinforces the generational difference between the two aliens. The way in which the old one helps to turn the young one into a man is a little bit disturbing from a human point of view, but the fact is that these aliens are not human. Maybe sex to them is differernt than our sex and so it wouldn't be gross or disturbing at all. Just a thought ..

I picked out a lot of common human concerns, such as how to deal with the loss of a loved one. Just like the young one, we often don't know how we are going to go on without this person in our lives. I drew similarities between the old one and our elderly population today. Most of them, by the time they reach the end of their lives, are no longer interested in progressing further into this rapidly advancing world. They want to retreat back into their own versions of how the world used to be.

I really enjoyed the story. I think it's wel written and put in such a way that the ideas are really driven into us through the personalities of the characters. I think that there is a little bit of these aliens in all of us !