Mrs. Brown you have a lovely daughter~

I did think the reading had some really excellent points. Chiefly the point that sci fi is not taken for literature, in other words "real writing" I get the point of Mrs. Brown and understand the idea behind her, but don't honestly know if Le Guin's theory of her is correct. (Although that last bit of the essay was hysterically funny) I also found it objectionable when she said American's don't/can't write novels of any kind, but that is another post.

Sci fi as a genre reminds me much of the so called "Horror" fiction genre. No one really takes horror seriously, most see it as schlock and mindless entertainment. Stephen King's work is a good example of this. Yes, some of his writing is schlock, but if you have read The Stand, or The Dark Tower series you know there is much more to King as a writer than people assume. (and you know what happens when you assume right?) If you only read for pleasure, or only read for education you miss out. King's work as well as some of the great writer's in Sci Fi have been vastly underrated in my estimation. To tell a story and to tell it well, to be able to spark someone's imagination and cause them to perhaps look at things differently, or understand something differently, is what being a writer is all about. ie: The fight between light and dark, left and right. To be able to have the balance of Yin and Yang in a work of art, speaks to the entire human experience. To show how those things are needed to balance each other is for me one of the best things about a good novel, whether it is Sci Fi, Horror, Fantasy or a plain old Auto Biography. It seems to me that it is the writer's goal to teach this to us, to show us both Yin and Yang, Left and Right, Shadow and Light. Mrs. Brown may not want to go to the stars, but I bet she wants to learn about them in clean little boots-

Bloodchild

This is a story that left me wanting more, and with many questions. The relationships between T'Gatoi and her humans are very complex and also very simple. The duality of those relationships are what made me want more of the story.

Lien the mother of Gan and Qui, seems to not only love T'Gatoi but to also hate her and her place in the lives of her sons. Resentment radiates from her through out almost the entire story. With the exception being when she takes some of the egg and T'Gatoi stings her and holds her to "comfort" her. Lien seems torn by her love for her children and her childhood love for T'Gatoi. I believe she still craves the closeness she had during her childhood with T'Gatoi, but is terrified at the thought of her son bearing T'Gatoi's children. She knows it's a terrible process which can lead to death, and while she uderstands that in order for the Tlic to continue as a species it is necessary that their eggs be incubated in a living body, she does not like it. Nor does she seem to want it for her children, as much as she may care for and love T'Gatoi.

Gan who does love T'Gatoi, also loves his family and has all the usual feelings associated with having siblings. He loves his brother Qui and sister Hoa, but also does not understand either one of them. Qui because of his anger over what the Tlic do to humans is an angry young man, while Hoa wants to be used to incubate T'Gatoi's eggs. Gan after seeing what happens to Lomas becomes afraid of what will happen to him, and refuses to be a carrier, telling T'Gatoi to use his sister as she wants to be a carrier. Once he realizes it will be that night that the eggs are implanted he changes his mind yet again and consents to being "seeded." We talked in class about how it was perhaps Gan's desire to be in first place with T'Gatoi that prompted this change, and while I agree with that to a certain extent. I also believe he was horrified that his sister might suffer as Lomas had, and might die of it. So selfishness and love both prompted him to allow himself to be used.

It was at this point I wished there were more to the story, being left hanging and not knowing what happened to Gan, his family and T'Gatoi's children was for me frustrating. It was also rewarding, I love a story that let's your imagination fill in the blanks and complete it. Our imagination's are a wonderful thing, and being able to complete the story in my head and fill in how the people and creatures look, speak and act makes me smile.