A Star Falls Review

Recently I read a short sci-fi post on dailysciencefiction.com titled A Star Falls. Basically the story is about the encounter between an unhappy single mom and an Alien from outer space. The Alien is handsome and understanding and the lady feels herself compelled to reveal all of her most pressing concerns like how her husband left her for a "cocktail waitress." After their conversion the Alien leaves the lady by herself. She decides to follow through on one of the things she talked about. She left her kids at home alone and started a completely new life as a new person far far away where no one knew of her past.
The story uses good word choice and description so the reader can create a good image in their mind of what the setting looks like. You are also able to somewhat relate to the narrator. However, I wasn't that intrigued by the plot. Overall I'd say that it did a very good job of developing characters given only a couple paragraphs and it was worth the time it took to read.

April 2000: The Third Expedition

Today we will be reviewing one of the stories in Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, which, by the way, I like infinitely better than Dandelion Wine. The chapter I will be reviewing is the 6th chapter, "April 2000: The Third Expedition." In the chapter the third rocket carrying humans is sent from earth to mars and the crew finds themselves on martian soil, only it looks exactly like Earth from the early 1900's. They grew suspicious and begin to look around but they are soon taken aback as they notice that all their dead beloved family and relatives are found within the small town they are in. They take it as a miracle and each crew member follows his/her family into their houses. Unfortunately for the crew, the family members they are seeing are only telepathic mind tricks by martians and each and everyone of them is killed in the night.

On page 32 the novel states "Around the rocket in four directions spread the little town, green and motionless in the Martian spring. There were white houses and red brick ones, and tall elm trees blowing in the wind, and tall maples and horse chestnuts. And church steeples with golden bells silent in them." Which gives the reader a little idea of the looks of the place in which the rocket has landed. It also brings up great mystery as the reader will wonder how there is a place on mars that looks exactly like Earth in the past. The passage occurs in the beginning, just after meager background information is given about the rocket's trip through space. Ray Bradbury uses the setting to comment on the conflict in the story. This is because the setting is part of what is used to deceive the astronauts into thinking that they had landed in a friendly and welcoming environment.

Ray Brabdbury Article Response

The article I am reviewing is titled: "How Ray Bradbury's 'The Martian Chronicles' Changed Science Fiction (And Literature)." The article basically said that Ray Bradbury changed science fiction immensely because he was able to merge the genre with literacy fiction. Before that science fiction was thought of as being written with poor prose and on the basis of an optimistic imagination but after The Martian Chronicles many future science fiction stories took a pessimistic view of the fate of humanity and they focused less on science and more on characters and character interactions.

Here's the article if you want to learn more: https://tylermillerwrites.com/2016/09/14/how-ray-bradburys-the-martian-chronicles-changed-science-fiction-and-literature/

Also the article sucks because of spoilers.

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Back at it again with those Dandelion Wine Reviews

Yay, now I get to say whatever shit I actually think about the book! It felt like you were reading a story in which the author was constantly jacking off to metaphors and 5 syllable words. Keep in mind that I have nothing against using uncommon words or poetic devices such as metaphors. But fuck, it gets annoying when it's every other sentence and it completely limits your ability to understand and grow attached to the actual story (especially as 9th graders) because if you are constantly trying to understand what a sentence means literally, it is generally very hard to translate that into what it means in the context of the story, or it's deeper meaning. I also noticed that it seemed to change topic very suddenly throughout each chapter, for instance one time the book was describing the interaction between Douglas and Mr. Sanderson, the owner of the shoe store, and he only went on for a few sentences before saying "There was a sound of growing thunder." Which, by the way, added nothing to the story. And this brings me to my final point, the book constantly refers to or ends chapters with a very detailed description of the setting. Again, this is not a bad technique to use once in a while, but it seemed like it was used constantly throughout the book.

On the brightside, this book has taught me not to use the same writing techniques over and over throughout a 300 page book because it annoys the shit out of all audiences under the age of 15. 

Dandelion Wine Analysis

In my opinion, Dandelion Wine is boring as the shit. However, that doesn't mean it's written poorly. A few of the stories that I "liked" (relatively) were the story of the happiness machine, and the story of the Witch ladies. In the story of the happiness he successfully described how true happiness resides in caring for other humans rather than in a computer like machine. He describes a man who seeks to build a machine that can make anyone happy. But, while he is creating it the machine wedges it's way between him and his loving relationship with his family. Also, when people enter the machine they feel happy at first but then they feel sad because they realize that all things displayed in the happiness machine will be unattainable to them in real life. This causes the inventor, Leo Auffman, to realize that true happiness resides in family. This is a brilliant way of describing the human condition in which we seek out love and the need to care for others. He also describes the scene taking place using very descriptive and poetic language.
Another intriguing story written by Ray Bradbury was the story of how Elmira Brown thought that Clara Goodwater was a Witch. In this chapter Elmira Brown believes Clara Goodwater to be a Witch and when she goes to the Honey Suckle Ladies Lodge in order to become the head of the organization after a vote, she is beaten nearly unanimously voted against and Clara Goodwater ends up as the leader, only for Elmira to fall down the stairs and miraculously survive uninjured and she is allowed to become the President of the organization. This story was well written because not only was it described in great detail and poetically, but it showed how humans are so easily deceived by outside appearances and how we sometimes ignorantly fail at being able to empathize for and understand others.

An Awkward First Kiss

Aren't they all?
Cold wind whipping at my
half zipped coat.
Or half unzipped.
We both stand there shivering.
Dinner is over,
gifts have been exchanged,
and now it is time for the thought
that has been prying at the back of our minds
for 4 months.
I move in for a hug.
But this hug is different,
This time our heads face each other
and our eyes pierce one another's skull.
We lean in and..
No.
It is not right.
We stop, midway.
5 minutes of silence ensues.
Feet inch closer and closer together,
people walking by,
unconcerned of the event moments away from occurrence.
Shadows dance with the moonlight
as we gave up into the night sky;
there are no stars,
just an infinitely vast black blanket
caging us all inside.
Regardless of the blanket we are still shivering.
We try one more time.
This time it feels right.
We reach in, heads facing, but...
Our heads turn away yet again.
Oh! But it is too late.
The hug is inevitable and has begun to take place.
And I can feel the weight of all of my friends and family
and they say do it.
And I listen.
Some may call it a peck
but a first kiss,
no matter how awkward,
is still a first kiss.

My favorite writing genre is Science Fiction. The reason why Sci-Fi is my favorite genre to read (and write), is because I find it very immersing and interesting writing about a possible future world that seems impossible but if given the right causes, could be very believable. I like these types of stories because it puts characters in situations unheard of in the real world but still allows them to react the same way people would today. I generally like science fiction where "getting the science right" is a very big factor in the book, like in the book The Martian by Andy Weir (although Mars' atmosphere wouldn't be powerful enough to create devastating dust storms, or at least the type of dust storm described in the book.) However my favorite book of all time, by far, is the Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams which is Science Fiction but is also extremely comical.