1. Fantasy and Sci-Fi – In undergrad, I ate, slept, and breathed British, Irish, and American Lit. I wrote dissertation after dissertation on Catcher In the Rye, Flannery O’Connor, James Joyce, and Thomas Hardy. If you tried to throw your Jules Vern or Frank Herbert in my face, I would tell you to shove your broomstick in your butt. Then I watched “Lord of the Rings,” and at that point my life changed. It turns out the fantasy genre is not all glitter fairies and woodland nymphs! Fantasy has wars and politics and hot hot hot Orlando Bloom on a horse! I converted to fantasy. But I didn’t stop then – then I watched Battlestar Galactica and then I felt dumb for hating sci-fi so hard. I always assumed these niche genres neglected character development in favor of playing god with physics or robots. I believed the plot would bend to the whims of alternate science theories and pseudo-physics and the “writer” would try to make up for it with some “thousands and thousands of light years” nonsense. Battlestar Galactica proved otherwise and how. Battlestar develops characters; they have their good and their bad, and people you love do things you hate and don’t agree with. When President Roslin makes tough calls, you think she’s doing the wrong thing, but then you don’t know, maybe it’s right, but at the same time it is so WRONG! About three episodes from the end, I started having that depressed knot in my stomach you get when a novel is almost over and you don't want to be done reading it. And ohmygosh that show is amazing and I can’t wait to watch the whole series all over again.
2. Horror Movies – I saw The Ring when it first came out and I could not watch another scary movie, or have a television in the same room where I slept, for a long time. Then I got coerced into watching Paranormal Activity and I had so much fun being scared, we went and saw the second one at the midnight show. So fun! But sometimes I still jump into my bed from 10 feet away because I’m afraid there’s a demon under there who’s gonna possess my toes.
3. Zombies – They are super gross, but like the stereotypes of fantasy and sci fi that turned out not to be true, zombies aren’t all gore and braaaaaaaaaaainnnnnnsssss. They’re people struggling to maintain society in the face of an unknown and surprisingly strong enemy. They’re families watching each other die and either standing by someone who is no longer the person you love and might be trying to eat you, or shooting them between the eyes. My favorite zombie things are World War Z, Fido, The Walking Dead (comics AND the TV show), and Zombieland.
1. Eating Things With Weird Names – Pork Belly. Didn’t want to try it, tried it, and now I want to eat it every day, even though it has the word “belly” in it.
I love this post!! I was right there with you on most of this, but during college I read Mists of Avalon (def fantasy) because I was sick, which caused me to be confined to my dorm room, and it was the only thing I hadn't read yet (belonged to my roommate). I LOVED IT!! At the time there were two other books, but since there have been two others in the series... I have my own copies now if you get the itch to read them...
ReplyDeleteIf I had been in a position of being forced into reading a book owned by my college roommate, I would have had to read Anne Rice. If you got to read a book you ended up liking, I say you're lucky in both roommate and literary selection! I looked up Mists of Avalon and I think it looks interesting - I'll have to borrow those!
ReplyDeleteI would just like to point out that is was I who introduced Annie to 3 out of the 4 new things she tried on this post.
ReplyDelete