Author Archives: Jake Shapiro
Acknowledgements in the Second Person
“Blood makes noise.”-Suzanne VegaImagine you are Peter Watts. Blindsight is your first novel-length foray into deep space–a domain in which you have, shall we say, limited formal education. In that sense the book isn’t far remo… Continue reading
Portal is Metroid
My last posts were about how similar the beginning of Portal is to Lilith’s Brood.As I got to the end of Portal, I realized how similar it is to another important work of sci-fi: Nintendo’s 1986 Metroid.Metroid is notable for being the f… Continue reading
One last note on Portal & Lilith’s Brood
After I posted my piece on the incredible similarities between Portal and Lilith’s Brood, another thing hit me:Neither Chell nor Lilith can exit their prison cell. They must wait for their captors to open doors or walls for them. Eventually, their… Continue reading
Lilith’s Brood through the portal of Portal
Alive!Still alive.Alive… again.Are these the opening lines of Lilith’s Brood? Or are they lyrics from iconic Portal theme song “Still Alive”? As I opened the book, all I could think about was Valve’s sci-fi masterpiece. Little did I know th… Continue reading
Sep: Yes, the model on the cover looks slightly si…
Sep:Yes, the model on the cover looks slightly similar to Lilith, but it's not exactly the depiction I'd have in mind if I were Butler and wanted Lilith on the cover. Do you really think it's a good design?It's the literary equivalent o… Continue reading
Crappy romance novels and Lilith’s Brood, or Why Book Covers Matter
The first thing I heard about Lilith’s Brood was a disclaimer: don’t judge this book by its crappy romance novel cover. A naked woman covering her breasts with her hands, under white sheets.But this is a classic science-fiction trilogy, I thought to my… Continue reading
Violence in We3
I love violence. A list of my all-time favorite movies would undoubtedly include such family-friendly classics as Battle Royale, 28 Days Later, and Kill Bill.But the violence in Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s We3 bothers me. It seems unnecessa… Continue reading
In medias res in Neuromancer
William Gibson’s 1984 Neuromancer is pretty dense. It begins right in the middle of things, and never explains the science fiction world’s background. We the readers must piece it together on our own. Initially, main character Case seems like… Continue reading
Comment on Blame Shifting by Jake Shapiro
How do you think theater audiences in 1982 would’ve reacted to The Thing if the Norwegians weren’t there? If we as Americans had to deal with the notion that it’s our fault we opened Pandora’s Box?
In 1938, Franklin Roosevelt was president. World War II was about to happen, and the U.S. was an up-and-coming world power recovering from the Great Depression.
In 1982, Ronald Reagan was president. America was going through its “new conservatism” phase as an established power fighting off the evil Soviets. In this time period, Americans are more… American. It couldn’t possibly be our fault, right?!
Perhaps I’m reading too much into the political side of this. But I think it’s incredibly telling that even though the U.S. was much more progressive in the ’80s than it was in the ’30s, Hollywood felt a need to avert American fault for the Thing. Continue reading
Frankenstein vs. Of Mice and Men
The story of a smart man and his gigantic, burly, innocently-stupid companion who unwittingly kills people. It ends in tragedy.Is this Frankenstein or John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men?On the surface, these two novels have a number of similari… Continue reading