Crosley Spelman

 The year is 2070.  The fourth Industrial Revolution has come full swing. Technology went from being just in its toddler years at the beginning of the century and now it is an essential aspect of every part of your life. Many industries have either been wiped out and the ones left have adapted to the new technology driven civilization. Jobs such as driving trucks of goods and other transportation based jobs are now 100% automated by AI, even planes! Cashiers, food preparation, construction and many other everyday jobs are now run by AI. The ability to produce digital art has never been easier for the average person to participate in. AI has progressed so rapidly that these systems have been programmed to be given any amount of reference and then take those and produce an original piece of art inspired by those references in minutes, no two the same. While many growing up in this age know nothing different, I who was born in the year 1999 remember a time when all this technology was onl

 This was my first time reading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and I very much enjoyed it. It was a nice refresher due to the unpredictable nature of Douglas Adams. By this I mean the absolute satire of the situation I found myself in as a reader throughout the coarse of reading this book. Such as the earth being made the new computer to determine the answer to life and other big picture questions of the universe being blown up and destroyed at the beginning when it was only minutes away from determining the answer. That gave me a laugh. I was not sure how I would like the style of Douglas Adams in the sense that the story takes so many turns and the overall plot does not have much structure to it other than many random strange encounters along the way of exploring the galaxy. And despite liking it in the end, I certainly found myself having to go back and re read certain parts due to the absolute absurdity of them.  But overall, I greatly enjoyed Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and l

 My reaction to Bloodchild varied throughout the text. Going into it I did not know what really to expect. Once I grasped the power dynamic between the humans and the tlic, it certainly only got more bizarre as the story progressed. The idea of in this universe the men being the ones forced to bare the children for the tlic was something very different and the details that went into the birthing scene that Gan was exposed to was very graphic. I always find stories involving the coexistent of aliens and humans to be interesting and usually offer a variety in how the plot is told. And Bloodchild is certainly no exception to that!  The parts that I was able to connect with was the reason behind Gan going through with agreeing to have the child for the tlic. This motivator is a pretty common theme in a lot of stories across many different genres. That being the main character is faced with what seems to be an impossible task in order to save the lives of their family and loved ones. This t

 Going into this week's reading topic of cyberpunk had me excited as I have been exploring the cyberpunk visual style/aesthetic in some of my recent motion design work. More specifically the aesthetic of a very grid like and machine part filled textures and surfaces mixed with bright colorful neon lights such as the style you see in Tron. So going into reading Snow crash, I had high hopes for experiencing this genre in a new way than what I am accustomed to.  The concept of a dystopian universe where countries no longer make up the structure of the world but instead large corporations do is certainly a concept that I have personally thought about before and quite frankly can see some potential truth in such a prediction. The largest corporations today and the billionaires that run them have increased their wealth and their company's wealth/power drastically since the COVID lock downs began. Most people look to these large corporations on a daily basis either by choice or by hav

 I found Babel-17 to be both captivating and thought provoking. Samuel Delaney introduced a plot to me through this story that I had never come across in science fiction. That being how instead of fighting a war with who has the biggest bombs and military might, but rather engaging in warfare through the power of language.  One thing that has always interested me growing up and learning world history, is how countries have utilized certain strategies and tactics in war. More importantly, how they have evolved in such a short time. For much of civilization, it usually came down to who had the most men ready to defend the kingdom, and those wars were brutally fought hand to hand with a high number of life loss. Now, when we think of war between nations, the idea of two large countries fighting a potential great war by using hand to hand combat seems so foreign. We would much rather see the use of a nuclear arsenal being the weapon of choice and maybe even used as a deterrent against pote

 I saw the move The Martian back when it came out in theaters. I greatly enjoyed the movie and found it to be one of good pace and kept me interested the whole way. I found similar results after having read the book.  One particular thing I found in my reading is that unlike other sci-fi stories we have read and other genre specific books, this one did a great job of having a simple concept that did not push the genre cliches to the limit or included any crazy out of this world concepts. The Martian on the other hand was very successful in developing a story that seemed believable and life like. A NASA astronaut/biologist gets stuck on mars and must survive until he can be rescued. Pretty simple concept to understand without any additives. I found it to be believable by the amount of scientific detail included in the book. Explaining all of these lucrative scientific details about mars was something I did not expect but found to be a great addition to the book and added to the "th