David Black's Tremendous Spectacular Wonderous Short Story Reading Class Sixth Hour Blog W/ Dr.Obrei

     In Octavia Butler's Bloodchild, we are put into a world that at first glance would seem to be an incredibly unfortunate circumstance. Humans are no longer the creators of their own destiny, but rather a lower class that only exists in preserves and as hosts for the Tlic. The Tlic control the government and all positions of power, and put into place laws that control and weaken the remaining Terrans (humans) on the planet. However, this is the only way for peace between the two species to exist. Throughout this blog, I will explain both halves of the argument before giving my own thoughts on the morality of the situation.     To begin, let us set the scene. We know that humans came to the planet of the Tlic at some point in the past, and fought against them. However, as the Tlic are by far the dominant species, it is clear that humanity lost this battle. Despite this, the Terrans do not seem to be living in terrible conditions. The Terrans are given eggs, wh...

 In Ray Bradburry's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains," by far the most immediately compelling detail is that of the setting. Anybody who would pick up this book would immediately think about what exactly caused this doomsday scenario. Through this post, I hope to convey to you what stood out to me, particularly about this story's doomsday setting which resonated with me so profoundly.  The story opens with a device called a 'voice-clock'. To us as readers in 2023, this is not at all something that we find surprising. Many of us likely already have devices that can do this and more sitting in our pockets at any given moment. This may seem like a nitpick, however I think this is important to contextualize the story. This was written in 1950, only a few years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and furthermore World War two. On every reader's mind was a fear that a third World War may break out, with every country being armed with these unfath...