Jillian G. Keifer

  It is ten years from now, the holiday season of 2030.  You are thinking about a present you might be getting for the holidays.  What is it?  Talk about how you did your holiday shopping,  What is your job and how are you doing it?  What is your living situation and what are the major issues of the day?  Please make these questions relevant to any appropriate holidays you celebrate.   I am living in a Seattle apartment with my partner and cat, shopping online for Christmas presents. I’ve been home from my job as a narrative designer on a videogame for a little. Most of it I could probably accomplish from home, but I enjoy heading into the studio to speak with people face to face. I’ve had enough of quarantine and so has the rest of the world. We’re still careful though. Only a select amount of people can be in the studio at any given time. There are still naysayers. A lot of folks have tried moving past the virus and have contented themselves with pretending things are fine. They are

  Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy begins with a pretty funny parallel between Arthur Dent’s house being torn down for a bypass and a voice warning Earth that virtually the same thing will happen to them as well. Throughout the rest of the novel, more obsessively dark but hilarious moments ensue presenting that life is essentially meaningless and that seeking an answer to everything just ends up depressing people.  Adams’ opening description of Earth sets the tone for the rest of the novel.  Most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. Already, he’s outlining the rest of the novel. There are things that will not be explained and trying to do so will just ruin the fun of it. The joke of Deep Thought is th

  “All At One Point” by Italo Calvino condenses the Big Bang theory into a moment of pure love. Calvino places us into the point of view of Qfwfq and their recollection of the moment that made space. There’s no grand novum that shakes the familiar or speculates something from our future, its just pure character voice recounting a particular moment that has stuck with them since the beginning of time-literally.  Calvino plays with the idea of a collapsed universe through Qwfq’s retelling of the neighbor situation. Humorously, because these people are so close they refuse to really associate with one another. They do speak to each other, but only a select handful. Qwfq’s choice of company is that of “Mrs. Ph(i)Nk0, her friend De XuaeauX, a family of immigrants by the name of Z'zu, and Mr. Pbert Pberd.” Calvino aggravates the interactions between these folks and makes it pretty obvious that, while humorous to the reader, the petty interactions between them are really unenjoyable. Th

  Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series chronicles the relationship between a devastated humanity and the Oankali, an advanced alien species hellbent on evolution. Throughout the three novels, readers experience each major event that establishes some new facet of the Human/Oankali hybrids. Each new development poses new questions on sexuality, race, and gender which shake the reader into thinking above and beyond what it means to be human.  “Dawn” begins with Lilith Iyapo “alive! Alive...again,” after surviving a nuclear war that has wiped out humanity. She’s been held captive by something for an unknown amount of time and has slowly been piecing together the truth of the matter over the course of her imprisonment. The truth, of course, is that the Oankali arrived on Earth just in time to round up the surviving humans and have begun the process of ‘trading.’ Lilith has been awakened 250 years after the fact and is tasked with learning about the Oankali and then conditioning the othe

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read? My initial reaction is a similar desire to that of Gan’s elder brother, Qui, in that I want each Terran family to be free of the Tlic. While the relationship dynamic between Gan and T’Gatoi is endlessly fascinating, it’s hard not to feel disgusted by the portrayal of the Ntlic and what essentially boils down to child grooming by T’Gatoi towards Gan. This story is eerie in normalizing this new facet that humanity has adopted to survive. The first couple paragraphs of this story read more like a typical family gathering instead of an alien visiting the family she is responsible for keeping imprisoned or ‘safe.’ It’s genius, but it leaves my stomach in knots- which is a sign of a great story.  2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect? I connected a lot with Gan as someone who is not entirely innocent of what is happening but is certainly naive. Just like a

  William Gibson’s “Johnny Mnemonic” proposes a future in which nearly everyone has been augmented in some capacity to fulfill a job or sense of purpose within themselves. Be it Johnny’s implant, Molly’s razors, or even Jones’ completely inhuman appearance, every augmentation serves them in their pursuit of cash. It is a cold, harrowing reality that is normalized in their world and shows the extent to which people are driven to survive this new future. Specifically, the story draws heavily on eastern influences. Johnny is pursued by the Yakuza because of the information stored in his head most likely taken from Ono-sendai, a major Zaibatsu in this world. The only way to escape the assassin sent after him is to disappear alongside Molly in Nighttown and enlist the help of the Lo-teks. Here, people have shed the need to augment themselves to serve a particular purpose. They’re more inclined to natural scarification, tattoos, and teeth growth to express their personal style rather tha