Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 12/19/13

**Usually a reader imagines the places being described in the story. Draw a picture of the image you have from this story. What do you usually see when reading a story?
Pages read: 649-693   (Short Stories: "How's The Night Life On Cissalda?" & "Flop Sweat")


Usually when I read a story, I picture the characters in my head, the setting, or both like a movie. "Flop Sweat" featured more setting and character description than the other story I read, so this post will be on FS. Just like usual, I saw the characters and setting once they had been described and the words began to form a sort of movie in my head. FS happens to be about a talk show host for a radio show in LA. The host's name is Terri and she's interviewing a devil worshipper the particular night the story takes place during. The interview also takes place during a time when there was a string of murders in LA, all believed to be connected. So, at this point, the hostess had been described, so I had a pretty clear picture of her in my head. The devil worshipper, Michael, on the other hand, was wearing a domino mask, so the only things the reader knows about him is that he has green eyes, a soft voice, and wears all black with the mask. Also, pretty much the whole story takes place in the radio show's booth, so it wasn't hard to get an idea of what that looked like.

When the murders are first mentioned, they don't seem very important, but that soon changes when Terri begins taking calls for the show. The first call and every call after that come from a person who claims to be the killer of all the victims. At first, the people on the show don't believe him/her (the gender is not specified, as the story says the voice sounded like a male and a female at the same time), but the caller provides them with information about the murders that only the murderer would know. This information was that the victims all had the same pentagram-symbol cut into the soles of their left feet. Since it was such a simple thing to visualize, I regrettably pictured a foot with the bloody symbol cut into the sole. Along with the visualization of the foot, I also pictured a sort of map of the US. When the call by the killer was cut off by the radio show, they get even more calls from him/her, but they were strange. All the calls were coming from different parts of LA, meaning the killer was somehow in multiple places, pretty much everywhere. Because of this, a dark map of the US appeared in my head. I visualized little yellow dots appearing on the map, since I thought it was kind of like the country lighting up with the calls.

Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 12/12/13

** Describe your least favorite character and explain why. Describe your favorite character and explain why.

Pages read: 563-649  (Short stories: "The Deathbird", "Mortal Dreads", & "Jeffty Is Five")

The short stories this week all seemed to have likeable characters-- even the ones that were antagonists or didn't make a very long appearance. That's exactly why it's hard for me to choose a character I disliked and to name one my favorite this week! I tried to make a list of characters from all three stories, eventually hoping to pick a favorite and least favorite from all of them. From that, I managed to count out three characters from my possible favorites: both characters from "Mortal Dreads" and a dog. The dog, that was in a short story inside the short story "The Deathbird", was called Ahbhu and was accompanied by a sad story based on the author's actual dog named Ahbhu. Of course because of this, I had to put the dog back on my favorites list. And guess who's my favorite character after all? If you thought Ahbhu, you thought right.

The main reason for Ahbhu being my favorite character is that he (and his story) actually made me pretty sad. I felt like the story was full of very genuine feeling, which was justified when I found out that Ellison's dog was of the same name and passed away the same way as the dog in the story. I also really liked the dog because of how I was able to connect to him and the story. The main character in Ahbhu's short story is the narrator, so near the end of the story when Ahbhu has to be put down in the vet's room, there was a line that really got me. He had thought, "Ahbhu looked at me and I know he was just a dog, but if he could have spoken with human tongue he could not have said more eloquently than he did with a look, don't leave me with strangers.".  This had been one of the things that made me sad, since it had reminded me of when my family had to put our dog down and I felt like a pretty horrible person when we had to because I wasn't there with her. On a more positive note, Ahbhu was a pretty awesome character since he added joy to the main character's life and the description of Ahbhu while he was alive and healthy was just really heartwarming.

The character, or rather characters, that managed to become my least favorite characters came from the story "Jeffty Is Five". John and Leona Kinzer are the parents of Jeffty, a 22-year old five-year old. He's supposed to be 22 years old, but he hasn't aged since he turned five. He's not a 22 year old stuck in a five year old's body-- he still acts the same, talks the same, but gets treated differently. Over the years of being five, the people of his neighborhood become afraid of him, the kids won't play with him (as they are afraid of him and hate him as well), and his parents have developed a pure hatred for him. Jeffty's only friend is 22-year old Donny, the narrator. One day when Donny had sent Jeffty to the movie theater to buy some movie tickets for the two of them, Jeffty gets beat to a pulp by two teenagers. This is the reason I ended up choosing the parents as my least favorite characters, because they didn't really care about Jeffty, even in his near death state. In fact, before he had been beaten, the mother had said "Sometimes I wish he had been a stillborn." This is a pretty horrible thing to say, even if she did really hate her son. The parents also end up being the reason for Jeffty's ending at the end of the story. The reader isn't told exactly what happens, but it's pretty easy to get an idea of what happens from the mother's dialogue and Donny's thoughts. And since Jeffty was a really likeable character, the fact that the parents had reacted so coldly when presented with their dying son was just pretty bad.

The Giver: Week of 12/5/13

** Describe the important ideas in this story.
Pages read: Finished

A very important and obvious idea in The Giver is the importance of memories. The book's titles is even based on memories, since the Giver's job is to release the memories to the Receiver and to keep the memories from the past away from the people in the community. Just from that, I think it's easy to tell how important memories are in this story, especially as you read on more. Further on, Jonas' perspective on things changes as he receives the memories of pain and other feelings from the Giver. It was almost like the memories almost made a totally new Jonas since he now wanted to change the way the community worked. He wanted to show them and explain to them the feelings he was feeling, the colors he was seeing, and especially the memories he was experiencing. So, memories are an important part of this book because they're a sort of part of Jonas and the memories he receives really help move the book along with an interesting flow.

An important idea in this book that kind of goes along with the importance of memories are feelings. Jonas gets new feelings like love from the memories he receives from the Giver and they really have an affect on him. Just like the memories themselves, the feelings he received from the memories also cause him to change as a person as the story goes on. When he learns about the feeling of love, he wants to experience the feeling in person with his family unit. When he asks them if they love him and they pretty much give a yes/no answer, he starts to want to make the community a bit more like the memories he was seeing. More full of feelings and color so that everyone could feel the happiness he was experiencing during the memories of love and just happiness.

Another important idea that ties in with the importance of feelings is the idea of perfection that the community has, but doesn't really achieve. The community had everything in sameness, and this was a perfect utopia in their opinion, but they didn't have anything to compare it to. Jonas, once learning of feelings, realizes that what the community has is not perfection since they don't really feel. They feel, and they discuss their feelings at dinner, but they feel very basically, not even feeling the love than Jonas really wanted. And so once Jonas realizes this, a lot of the book is spent showing how the community was trying to grasp perfection with sameness but is far away from it. It's a very important idea because it's an idea throughout a lot of the book. Before Jonas even notices that the community is not perfect, the reader can compare the community to our society and notice that their perfect sameness isn't a world we'd all like.

The Giver: Week of 11/28/13

** Draw 4 objects that represent your reading. Write a sentence for each, telling what each item says about what you’ve been reading.
Pages read: 108 - End   (Blog is only on pages 130-162)

I drew a bush with a kid peeking through the leaves because in chapter 17, kids are playing a game that Jonas realizes is not a good game to play since it's making a joke of death and war.

This showed how sheltered the people of the community are except for The Receiver and Jonas.




I drew two hand prints, one bigger than the other,           to represent Rosemary and The Giver - the larger hand print belongs to The Giver and the smaller print is Rosemary's.

I drew this because really left a mark on The Giver and made him think about how he regretted giving her painful memories and how it might be better if the whole community shared the memories.

I drew a syringe because in chapter 19, Jonas learns about the way people are released (including Rosemary), which is by being injected with a syringe.

This shows the darker side of the community that only people in certain jobs know of. This was also a reason for Jonas wanting to change the community.

I drew the note Jonas left for his parents to find so he could leave/escape the community, following the plan he made with The Giver.

This showed how vain the people in the community could be. Even though Jonas wouldn't return in time for the ceremony, he knew his parents wouldn't say anything because he knew they wouldn't want to be embarrassed like that, even if their son was missing.

The Giver: Week of 11/21/13

**  Explain what kind of reader would like this book most.

Pages read: 1-108

When I first began to read the first two chapters of The Giver, I can't say I found it very interesting. In the first two chapters, I wasn't very motivated to move onto the next chapter but this changed as I moved onto the third chapter and so on. From that part of the book, the book is filled with cliff hangers, mysteries, and every detail provided seems to add to the suspense of the overall book. So, I think this book would be really good for people that like cliff hangers and things to keep you wondering. When I say wondering, I don't mean just wondering about the book. In the world the book takes place in, it's a Utopia in some ways. Well, in a bad way more than a good way. Anyway, the utopian world gets you wondering about how or world would be like if we lived in such a state. Would we like it? Would it be better? And so on.

Personally, I'm not a very eager reader and I don't have as much time for reading as I would sometimes like or need. The good thing about The Giver is that it's a rather short (but satisfactory) read. In the past two or three days, I've already read more than half, but it feels like I've gotten much more out of this than some much longer books I've read. Even though I don't like reading that much, I really like this book because of the fact that it's a quick read. I spend a lot of time at clubs and doing homework, so reading is pushed out of my day sometimes. In this book, the chapters are shorter and the book isn't very long, so I think I get a lot more reading into my day with this book. So, I think this book and other shorter books like it would be great for people that don't have a lot of reading time in their day. It may be short, but it has just as much entertainment as any larger book!

In the sci-fi genre, there are quite a few books or short stories that present a much different world to the reader. In this book, the fact that the utopia is very different from our world is very obvious. People that like to read about these different worlds would definitely enjoy this book because of the utopia and the rules/laws it has created. I'm one of those people that likes to read about this different worlds because they give you an idea on how our world could have turned out had something been different-- for the better or the worse. In this case, it can be considered horrible or great depending on how the reader feels about it. The book gives you a lot of differences between the utopia and our world, so it's more thinking for the reader to do on how they would feel about this place if it existed today. Overall, I think it'd be hard to find a person who didn't enjoy this book. I mean, there are a lot of things that could appeal to different people all in one book. You have the characters, the place, the plot, and so many other things! Even though I'm only a bit more than halfway through, I think I can say that this is going to be one of my favorite books.

Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 11/14/13

** List the personality characteristics of the main character (feelings, interests,

behaviors, etc.)

Pages read: 538-563  (Short stories: "Adrift  Just Off The Islets Of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13 " W")

 

The character of the short story "Adrift" is Lawrence Talbot, a man who cannot die. For some reason not explained, Ellison refers to Talbot as Moby Dick in the first few pages into the story, but then switches to Talbot suddenly. The first sentence happens to be, "When Moby Dick awoke one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed of kelp into a monstrous Ahab."  A few pages later, Moby Dick becomes Lawrence Talbot and we move onto the rest of the story about a man looking for a way to die. In the beginning, I got the picture that Talbot was a very sad and miserable man because of the way he and his actions are described. Somehow, every action Talbot is described as making just comes off as horribly painful and not worth it, but that changed later on in the story.

 

A bit further in, Talbot makes a deal with a man that promises to give Talbot a way to die. Or rather, a map with the coordinates to Talbot's soul on it. With that, Talbot figures he could find his soul and maybe die a peaceful death from there. The reader of this story can tell that Talbot was pretty desperate to get his soul because he contacts an old scientist friend of his to hopefully help him out. It turns out, they don't really talk anymore and the scientist, Victor, kind of hates Talbot. When I read the part featuring Victor's and Talbot's conversation, I didn't really understand why Talbot was trying so hard to convince Victor to help him since you're not provided with a lot of information on why Talbot can't die or how long he's been alive, so his actions aren't as clear as I wish they were at times.

 

Victor actually agrees to help Talbot finally rest, so a large portion of the story takes place in Victor's high-tech lab in Serbia. While in the lab, the reader is introduced to another rather mysterious character called Nadja. As soon as Talbot sees her, a bunch of memories come crashing down on him and he is filled with pain. He calls the now frightened woman mother, so she asks for Victor's permission to leave, as she is one of his staff. Talbot is now in tears because he's pretty sure it's his mom, but he doesn't understand how it could be her. This makes Nadja kind of mysterious because the reader (again) isn't provided with information about Talbot's mother and his history with her. She appears later in the story and is part of a plot twist, so I won't bring up her second appearance! When you're sort introduced to Nadja, Victor is already pretty far into solving Talbot's problem-- meaning he knows how to get to the coordinates provided to Talbot. Another way the reader knows that Talbot is eager to die is the fact that he decides to carry on even when he finds out where the coordinates lead to.

 

Since Victor is a high-tech scientist, he assures Talbot that he will be able to get him to the coordinates and that Talbot can definitely end his life if he still decides to. It just so happens that the coordinates lead to Talbot's pancreas, and Victor has the perfect way to get Talbot there. Since this was a longer story and since it was a really good read, I'm not going to reveal any of the ending, but Talbot does end up in his pancreas. After that, there's a lot of describing of his inner body (which is described as a dry cave) and then the pretty cool plot twist with Nadja and another new character. Other than that, I thought it was pretty interesting to notice how Talbot changed from a depressing person at the beginning of the story to a pretty eager and actually kind of happy person at the end. Even though I think this is the longest story in this book so far, it was really worth it and I might even read it again!

 

                                              The story ended up winning a Hugo award

                                                     and getting published in this book.

Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 11/7/13

**Discuss why you like or dislike what you are reading.

Pages read: 501-538  (Short stories: "Rockgod" and half of: "Adrift  Just Off The Islets Of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13 " W" That is literally the title.)

If I was asked if I enjoyed the book Dreams With Sharp Teeth and then asked if I liked the particular stories I read this week, the answers would be different. I am definitely enjoying the book in general, but there are some stories (like a story this week) that I really don't like. I'd like to say that it's kind of hard to answer the question of  "Are you enjoying this book?" because the book is just short stories. So when I have to answer that question, I have to think to myself, "Am I enjoying these stories?". This is another difficult question for me because then I have to wonder, "Which stories? Which stories from which book?". In any case, I'm enjoying almost all of these stories, so I am enjoying this book!

The stories I'm not taking a liking to all seem to have one thing in common, and it bothers me as soon as I notice this one thing starting to form in a short story I begin to read. Sometimes, it's like he isn't really going anywhere with his story. For example, he'll have his wonderful introduction and first few pages, but then it goes downhill from there. It'll start to not make sense and before you know it, the character is hundreds of years in the future, in a dream-like dimension, experiencing dreams and fears, and going from dimension to dimension or from world to world all in the space of about one page. That pretty much happened in one story. Of course, not all of his stories are like this. I'd say only about three or four Harlan's stories have been like that and left me thinking, "Well what was the point of that?".

Although, one of the stories I read this week was like this. The story "Rockgod" wasn't as confusing as the story I described was, but it was pretty close. It took the place in the lives of multiple people, in multiple time periods, all with different everything. So it got pretty confusing and I felt barely any joy or point in reading it. The other story that I read with the super long title was pretty good though. It's a longer story, so I've only read a bit more than half of it right now, but it's really interesting so far. I'm going to call this story "Langerhans" since writing the whole title is so inconvenient. Anyway, the plot so far of "Langerhans" is really interesting and I can't wait to read the rest. It deals with the problem of a man who wants to die but being unable to. He talks to a person that promises he can find a way for this man to die however and whenever he wants as long as he signs a contract. So far, they haven't revealed what the deal was or how he can die, but he knows. He goes to a friend and discusses this problem with him. That's how far I've gotten right now, and I'm really liking it!

 

Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 10/30/13

** Do any of the characters feeling change as you’ve read? Explain why or why

not.

Pages read: 463-501 (Short stories: "Paingod" and "Ernest and The Machine God")

At the beginning of the story called "Paingod", the God in  charge of giving people pain, Trente, is feeling no concern over his job. He doesn't really care, as he sees it as his duty. Although, inside, he sometimes wonders about what happened to the Paingods before him. He wonders what happened to them and why they were not able to hold their place as a God of pain. You're fast forwarded a few hundred years and Trente has contracted a sickness, of sorts. After the many, many years providing people with indescribable pain, Trente was beginning to care. I think he finally began to care after hundreds of years because  it had been son long. He was finally realizing that he was causing people pain and anguish, so he was beginning to care about the people who didn't care about before.

The concern he was feeling was now turning into guilt and curiosity later in the story. He remembers the last man he caused pain to, and he goes for a walk in the man's shoes. For a night, he experiences the pain of Pieter Koslek, an overweight and overworked man with no life ahead of him. He was an alcoholic, and a very obvious one. He looked like it and he smelled like it so much that it was hard to tell if he was an actual person or not. The night that Trente decides to live the life of Koslek, he dies in the bar he was drinking in. Trente moves onto Colin Marshack, a man with hands that just won't stop shaking. While in his body, Trente realizes that he was the cause for this man's horribly painful hands and the cause of this man dying inside. instead of making Trente want to stop his duty, this makes him want to cause even more pain. He says, "I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain there can be no pleasure."

I don't really understand why you can say that pain is the most important thing in the world. But this is what made Trente change his feelings about his job. He wants to do it more than ever and he was inspired to cause much more pain. He also realizes why the other Paingods no longer held their positions: they had been overcome by concern. Trente knows this now, so this is what made him want to send even more pain out in the world. His new goal to send out pain makes him feel like a humble and kind person, but also the person with the highest rank in the world. He felt this way because he was Paingod, and this meant he was sort of automatically believed in by everyone since everyone experiences some sort of pain. He saw himself as a kind person because he believed there could be no pleasure if there was no pain, so he saw himself giving people pleasure rather than pain. I chose to write about this story because I think that the main character in this story changed their feelings more than any of the characters in the other story. I mean, in this story Trente goes from feeling no emotion, to feeling concerned and guilty, and then all the way to wanting to give people more pain. In the other story, the main character went from scared, to angry, to happy, and then dead. Not a very dramatic change, so this story was better to write about, and I think a better story in general.

Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 10/24/13

**Describe what makes an interesting story or poem.
Pages read: 407-463 (Short stories:  "The Face of Helene Bournouw"   "Bleeding Stones"  "At The Mouse Circus"   "The Place With No Name")

When I read story or book that I find interesting, they seem to always have the same things in common. For the 40 book challenge, I've been reading Dreams With Sharp Teeth by Harlan Ellison, of course. And for all the short stories I've been reading in this book, I think I've found the majority of them interesting and /or fascinating. One of the stories I read this week is now a favorite of mine because Ellison included a lot of the things I love to find in a story. "Half-drowned, he had plunged his body into the lean, fire-blackened slit and descended into the darkness of nonthinking." As you may be able to tell, I like it when an author is very descriptive and creative with his or her words. Ellison is very creative and descriptive and this sentence is a good example of how descriptive and creative he is. This sentence was about the main character walking through a narrow passage way into a what he thought was a mountain, but was actually a volcano. So if you go back and read that sentence while keeping in mind what it was about, you see that he was so creative with his words. The passage way was not just a dark and narrow passage burnt from the lava, it was so much more when Ellison described it.

Another thing Ellison shows in his writing that I love is an interesting plot, and who doesn't love interesting plots? Again, I'd like to use the same story I took the last descriptive sentence from as an example. The story, "The Place With No Name", had a very interesting plot. He starts off introducing our main character, Norman. And very bluntly, he states that Norman is a pimp (I have no idea if mentioning this is school appropriate) and a drug addict. Through a series of events, Norman ends up losing his business and spends the rest of his money in a few weeks. For a last resort, he attempts to rob a woman but he fails since she happens to know self defense. Here's where it gets more interesting. He ends up beating her to death, but he's seen by the cops. So what does he do? He runs, of course. He runs by a shop with a tempting sign in the window. It says, "ESCAPE INSIDE", so he takes his chances and goes in. He's confronted by a small old man in the shop. He tries to walk back but the door is gone. The old man asks Norman if he would like an escape or if he would like to be caught by the police. Obvious answer, he escapes. At his choice, the old man thanks Norman, and Norman begins to fade away, waking up in a South American jungle. I found this very interesting because of how the old man is described and because of what happens after this. Ellison includes two immortal figures, Prometheus and God in this story that started with a drug addict named Norman. This thought brings me into a third thing I love when reading a story.

The short stories I read this week all have an interesting or twisted ending, especially "The Place With No Name", and this is awesome for me since I love it when endings are interesting or have some sort of twist. A lot of the endings in Ellison's stories usually leave me thinking, "Huh. Woah. Never would've that of that.". Although, the endings of the stories this week left me thinking, "Oh! I get it now." or they were so interesting I didn't have anything to say. The ending of "The Place With No Name" was one of the stories that left me speechless while thinking, "Oh wow that's...Wow." if that even makes sense. Ellison manages to incorporate creative ideas into his stories, eventually making the ending of his stories really interesting or even powerful. I feel like I don't get to read a lot of stories that leave me thinking about the book later on-- they don't leave an impact on me or I don't find them creative or very interesting. So reading Ellison's stories is really cool because so many of his endings and plots are so interesting. So far, I can say that I'm really enjoying this book.

                                  This is pretty close to what I imagined the jungle to look like.

Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 10/17/13

**Describe the setting – when and where what you are reading takes place.

Pages read: 370 - 407     (Short stories: "Shattered Like A Glass Goblin" and "Delusion For A Dragon Slayer")

I chose to draw out the setting for "Shattered Like A Glass Goblin" because "Delusion For A Dragon Slayer" didn't really have a setting. Anyway, the beginning of the story begins with the description of the house it takes place in. This story is about Rudy, a war veteran discharged for medical reasons. He comes to this house to find the fiancé he had before he went off to war. While in war, he received a letter from Kris, his fiancé, that she was moving in with a friend at this house called The Hill. Some of The Hill's looks can be visualized from what Ellison tells you, while some can be seen by the reader's conclusion. 

The Hill was pretty much a house that was used by Kris and her drug-using friends-- housemates more than friends. The house has an ornatly carved front door, so I tried to ad a sort of pattern to the door. It is also described as an ugly gothic house, leading me to add cracks to the building. When Rudy first walks up the path, he sees a baby carriage laying on its side in the middle of the path to the door. In the yard, he sees an old rusty lawnmower in the middle of the messy field. It has uneven grass like someone just gave up on mowing the thing. To The Hill itself, Rudy sees the windows have been covered up with cardboard, so I shaded out the windows and added some cracks to add to its ugliness. Also, while drawing this, I had to keep in mind that the people living there were all drug addicts, described as never going outside. This meant that now only would they have uneven grass, but they would weeds growing since they didn't care for The Hill or its lawn. I drew a few weeds and some ivy growing on the corner of the building from this one idea.

 

Even though I drew the outside of The Hill, drawing the inside would have even more detail. The different floors and some rooms are described in a lot of detail, making it super easy to visualize the inside of The Hill. The house is described as being really dark all the time, making Rudy sensitive to the light when he ventured outside The Hill for errands. They live in poverty like conditions, but they do have money. They just spend this money on rent, food, water, and drugs of course. One of the reasons I really liked this story was because it provided you with so much detail, so you had many chances to picture this ugly house known as The Hill.

Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 10/10/13

Analyze how your feelings change as you read this story and why.

Pages Read: 326-370 (Short stories: "Pretty Maggie Money-Eyes" & "Corpse")

"Pretty Maggie Money-Eyes" was a much longer story than "Corpse" (which was only 11 pages long), so I'll mostly talk about the money-eyes story.

This short story first introduces a man named Kostner, currently using the last of his money in Las Vegas. His divorce has left him depressed and quickly running out of money in the casinos in the city of taking chances on machines and cards. On a game of blackjack, he loses the last of his money and begins to wonder on what to do as he prepares to leave the casino. "Kostner now had his choice: he could bum his way into Los Angeles and try to find something that resembled a new life...or he could go blow his brains out through the back of his bead." So it's obvious that things weren't looking to good for him, and you kind of have to feel bad for the guy. He's divorced, money gone, and preparing to make a life changing decision.

But as he outs his hand in his pocket on the way out, he feels a single coin. A silver dollar coin. He decides that if he's going to end this, he might as well end with a bang and some chance taking. Kostner manages to find a machine that still accepts these coins--a machine called The Chief. The reward was two-thousand dollars, a pretty good deal. He inserts the coin and pulls the lever... During this period where Ellison describes the slot machine turning and turning, I felt anxious about what he was going to get. He might win the 2K, because that seems rather predictable in a book. Then again, he might not win the 2K. Ellison has written stories with pretty bad things happening to the main character, so why wouldn't he have Kostner lose that dollar coin?

Ellison also introduces Maggie, a prostitute. While reading her backstory and description, I was thinking she must actually be a nice lady. I was wrong. She turned out to be rather mean and so I disliked her. Her character was interesting and her connection with the slot machine was also pretty interesting. After getting paid one day, she takes her reward of 800 dollars and hits the same machine Kostner is using, but six weeks prior. She had a stroke while playing it and died then and there. I then felt pretty bad for her because she didn't lead a very bright life and she ended up dying while using a slot machine. Not a very nice ending for her. Although, she desired all the money the slot machine could offer. In a negative way, he wish was granted. When she died, her soul was trapped inside the slot machine as a sort of limbo. And now Kostner was playing the machine.

When the machine finishes spinning, the three bars read, "JACKPOT". Kostner could see they said the bars said "JACKPOT", but his eyes replaced the words with a blue eye in the center of each bar. Just a blue in the center, no words naming his victory. This was kind of strange and creepy because Maggie was described as having beautiful blue eyes. Maggie eventually begins to speak through Kostner through the machine, so the blue eyes are confirmed to be hers. Maggie turns out to be letting Kostner win. She was the machine, and she wanted out. She let him have a bunch of jackpots, too many for normal luck. He's checked by the casino staff to see if he's cheating, but he's clean. They check the machine itself multiple times, but that's working fine.

The staff is suspicious of him still, but they don't have to worry for long. After pulling the machine a third time, Kostner returns to hopefully win the jackpot yet again. He inserts his coin and pulls the lever. Maggie talks to Kostner about how much she loves him, how much she wants to be with him. And Kostner also agrees he'd like to be with her. So this time when he pulls the lever, he unknowingly takes her place. He dies, but not in a specified way. Ellison describes what he feels, and it's hard to say if he also had a stroke, but the main point is that he was now in the machine. This left me thinking about how good of a story this was, and just how descriptive and creative it was. It had a very interesting last line in my opinion. One of those lines that leaves you thinking, "Woah." It was: "Three brown eyes."  Although it was such a simple last line, combined with the rest of the story, it was pretty good.

Eyes of Envy (Rewrite of "The Lady Or The Tiger")

I knew this would end badly for me. One door hid a magnificent but starving tiger ready to pounce in the blink of an eye. The other door, made of the same wood and metal of the first one, held a much slower and loving death. A fair lady, who would be married off to me despite of my love for the princess. The barbaric princess...Who had come to see me die. What kind of love is that? I wonder who is behind the maiden door. Someone loving, and caring, who would rather die than see her love die a death from a beast as horrible as a tiger. Someone...unlike the princess. 

I shook these thought from my head. I could not abandon my princess’s love, she must have been forced to come to the arena. They must have told her, “Why, you must go! You must learn to watch these judgments, as you will one day take your place in this throne.”  

I felt like the eyes of the princess would help me decide on my love for her. My true love? Or puppy love? And this...This would help me know what door I might choose. So I shot my dearest a look of questioning. Two questions, one for her and one for myself. I asked her, “Which door?”. 

Also asking myself, “Do I love her, and does she love me?” 

She looked at me right in the eye and waved to the right. When I saw her face and hand I felt a melancholy and guilty feeling wash over me because I knew. I knew which door consumed what in darkness. The king had talked to me prior to the trial to give me a test on my love for his jewel of a daughter. A dirty jewel...

“Child, the door to your left is a lady, and a pretty one at that. The door to your right is the beast. If you choose the left, I’ll know you never actually loved my daughter. You will know you never actually loved her. And all this would have been for nothing. Now choose the door to your right and you will die, but with faith in your love.” he had said while gliding his hand over his raggedy beard. 

He stopped and smiled, yellow teeth illuminated by the nearby torch in the dungeon cell they held my in. “Either choice is rather bad for you in some way. Why don’t you let her choose?” 

Suddenly I was back in the arena and my heart dropped like a stone. She wanted me to die, now would I give her what she wanted?  I started slow at first, one foot at a time. The rocks and sand crunching beneath my shoes, the only sound to be heard in that moment. Then I walked, and jogged, and ran. Soon, my hand was on that oh-so cold metal of the right door. With my free hand, I sadly brushed the tips of my fingers against the handle of the left door. 

Both of my hands were now on the right handle, and they gripped that handle harder than anything I’d ever gripped before. All I had to do was open the left door, and I could live. But no, I held on to that handle for dear life even though that handle was taking it away. I breathed, and I pulled it open slowly. For a split second I saw eyes of green envy, and I knew this was my end. The tiger crouched, jumped, and I fell to the rocks underneath.

Dreams With Sharp Teeth: Week of 9/30/13

Pages Read: 303-325  ( Short story: "Basilisk")

The story introduces Vernon Lestig, a Lance Corporal in Vietnam during World War 1. He steps on some pungi stakes, sharp bamboo stakes usually coated with excrement so the person stepping on them becomes infected. Vern steps on one and is captured by the Viet Cong  an organization that fought against the US. He ends up losing his right foot and end up with partial blindness. His captures torture him, and it makes you wonder just how much people can be affected by traumatic events. He spills the beans about the militaries' plans, but he is still tortured. Eventually he ends up back with the US, but was taken to court for treason. He was honorably discharged and paid for his foot and blindness.

Court could be considered a reproduction of telling the Vietnamese the plans, but the real trouble hits him when he heads black to his home town in Kansas. His girlfriend married, his parents moved away, and his sister married to rid herself of the Lestig name and she doesn't understand why he did what he did. The other neighbors simply hate him for what he did. A gang of guys come and attack Vern, but he manages to get away because something protects him. The hate from the town seems to corrupt Vern, but he just wanted to go back with his family who doesn't want to be involved with him any longer. He meets with his sister in an old, abandoned church at night, hoping to find out where everyone he loves has gone. She explains she loves him, but she doesn't want the trouble from the townsfolk. This shows how the views of other people easily effect the things a person normally would care for. She would have continued on caring for him had the townsfolk not expressed their hate for Vern. She leaves him there alone, but not for long.

He hears creaking of the floorboards, so he reaches for the glasses that help him see. While reaching for the glasses, he knocks down the cane he uses to walk. He again is attacked by men, but he is overcome by a sort of power similar to the powers of basilisks in mythology. It is said that basilisks can kill by simply looking at a person, and their breath is very toxic. Vern looks one of the men in the eye. The man's face begins to rott away in disgusting handfuls. He thinks of all the torture he went through and kills are the men with his toxic breath and burning look. Vern was now very angry and was going to take it out o the rest of the people hoping to get rid of him. The neighbors look for him in the dark of Kansas, on a mission to kill the monstrous traiter.

They find him at dawn, in their mall on their monument for soldiers and sailors. They try to get at him, waving rifles and flaming weapons at him, but he's not worried. He kills the first few men that challenge him and kills the women who try to run away. Vern tells the people to crawl towards him, in reference to all the crawling he had to endure with only one foot in the days of his torture. In the middle of the crawling blob, a woman sits up and shoots Vern in the collar bone, causing him to drop his crutch. He wasn't able to get up again, so the townsfolk take this time to kill Vern.

This story made me wonder how people really would've reacted to a traiter in war. I understand that this was an important war, so would people totally freak and decide to kill the traiter? I think if someone actually betrayed the US military during WW1, people would definitely be angry, but I would think they would keep the law in mind and not decide to go and hunt this guy down. Even though it was WW1, I would hope that people would have the decency to respect this guy's right to live. They could've totally shunned him and let him be on his way, but they went straight for the killing option. Even the family members seemed to be rather vain, trying to count him out of the family so they wouldn't be judged for showing they care for him. This story had a sort of example of the things we do because of the influence of others.

My Favorite Book Of All Time

Picking a favorite book can be hard for some people, but extremely easy for others. For me, it's rather hard to pick. If I had to choose, I'd say my favorite book is I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison. Even though this book is meant for adults more than kids, I really enjoyed the stories. I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream has quite a few different stories in it, something I like when reading. The stories are a mix of sci-fi and horror, sometimes mystery.

One story in particular was my favorite in the book. It was called I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (hence the title). Although all the stories in the book were wonderful, this was definitely my favorite. It's told from a man's point of view and is about a group of people kept alive by a machine/computer. They called this machine "AM" and it has kept them alive for hundreds of years. AM tortured them, but would not let them die. It altered each person in a different way. For example, he turned one man into a monkey and human mix. It was very dramatic yet interesting, and showed how computers might think of humans if they developed emotions. Ellison imagined AM would absolutely hate humans.
If I had to pick a favorite book quote, the quote would come from this book. In the story I've mentioned, the main character talks about AM and why he was doing this. It was a very interesting quote, but seems more like an excerpt instead of a quote.

Another story in the book is about a man named Sam. He was tall and worked as a circus entertainer, but he was special. He could teleport, and he was looking for someone. When telling about his life, he mentions a girl whom he was supposed to marry. She dies, and Sam is left alone. So he wanted to find a heaven of sorts so he could again be with this girl. One day while traveling with the circus, the group is asked to perform at a king's castle. After their performance, a beautiful woman is brought on stage. Sam recognizes her as the girl he loved. A man steps behind the girl holding an axe, ready to swing down when... The ending is for you to read! Although the ending seems obvious, it has a bit of a twist. I have to say these were my two favorite stories, but I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream is still at the top.