Bloodchild

 

1.What is your reaction to the text you just read?

At the beginning of the article, I "confirmed" that this story does not seem to be a story about humans, but more similar to a family of insects or arthropods. But as I continued to read it, I found that the setting of this story has become a deformed aesthetic after aliens occupy the earth, and it has the "Eusociality" of the insect world.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect?

  In the story, "egg" and "fertility" seem to be constantly emphasized. This also highlights the contradiction of the article, that is, some people have been brainwashed as a fertility tool since childhood, but they still have personality and self-thinking. This may be an exaggeration in real life, but the status of women in human society, especially in the East, has been a tool-like existence attached to men in the East; they are not allowed to participate in social activities, but only in In life wholeheartedly raising the family and helping the husband, and being encouraged to have children, and even some places have developed the "deformed aesthetics" mentioned in this article-people think that the larger the pelvis, the more beautiful women, and more in terms of fertility There are advantages. This abnormal aesthetic and the materialization of women are the people's thirst for labor caused by the excessive social productivity, and it is transformed into the worship of fertility, which is somewhat in line with the human beings who have been a fertility tool since childhood and their concepts in the article. inner relationship.

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you choose; what changes would you make?

I think this short science fiction with social thinking can be adapted into a movie, and in the movie, I think that some background should be added to the beginning part, which will help the viewer to quickly enter the scene and let the viewer be behind The long dialogue of's set the background.

4. Are there elements of this work that you would consider afto-futurist?

Yes, this highly imaginative article does construct a not-so-good future world, but the author also uses the future world he created to bring thinking and enlightenment to our current real society.

Cyberpunk

 

Dark, cold, apocalyptic tones

    The first manifestation of the postmodern quality of Count Zero is its bleak, cold, apocalyptic tone. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner concludes with a memorable line: "I have seen things that you humans cannot imagine. On Orion's flank, the attacking starship burns, and next to the Tanhauser gate, I see C rays gleaming in the darkness. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain." This line seems to predict the general, revealed the human society that magnificent and bleak "future". William Gibson was deeply influenced by Blade Runner, and his future world is dark and strange. Count Zero, for example, is an overgrown, dirty, rain-drenched, gothic junkyard. There are some descriptions in the book, "The table is peppered with candle tears and wine stains. Grotesque imprints intermingled in a dark mass, and the dark burn of hundreds of cigarette butts "; "Crooked aisles extending from the area in front of the coffee kiosk, kerosene lamps hissing white flames... Toshiba monitor robot whines through corridors, dragging scarred plastic carts." The writer's style is a perfect mix of dark rhapsody and retro, with a sentimental touch of new Wave poetic realism. The flood of material, the decrepit, damp buildings, the eerie lights, the foggy streets, the listless, zombie-like crowds make for a gloomy, desperate, and wondrous doomsday. The urban forests created by the cool colors drawn by the author show us the grotesque wasteland in the post-modern era, reflecting his anxious reflection and deep questioning on the excessive development of material and the future technological world.

   

    Fragmentation

    The third manifestation of postmodernism in Count Zero is the fragmented narrative feature in the work. There are two dimensions, one is the constant switching of reality and virtual, the other is the constant switching of narrative perspective. "Cyberspace implies a computer-generated dimension, where we move information around and we look for ways around it," says philosopher Michael Heym. In Cyberpunk literature, most stories take place on the Internet, in digital space. The line between reality and virtual reality is so blurry that it often uses a direct connection between the brain and a computer, hence the name "digital science fiction." Count Zero is a perfect example of "digital sci-fi." It's fast-paced, information-dense, and often as quick as a movie shot. It's also full of slang, headless phrases, and constantly changing reality and fantasy as it goes. For example, after that Mary meets Varek in "The Matrix", "the night is like wings, sweeping the Barcelona sky like a flash of a huge, quick press of a door, dark and The Quire Park both disappear, and she finds herself back on the leather stool". Turner "slips into the shallow sea of dreams, the images spin, and fragments from the Mitchell archive blend into his own life. He and Mitchell drove the bus through a cascade of glass and into the lobby of the Hotel in Marrakech.” This kind of transformation of reality and dream is very visual sense, wonderful. In addition, the transformation is reflected in the change of narrative perspective, such as the following description, which uses the ingenious structure of third-person - omniscient - second-person - third-person："Bones, gold circuit boards, dead ribbons, white clay balls. Mary shook her head. How can one simply arrange all these bits and pieces, all this garbage, in such a way as to grab your heart and dive into your soul like a fishhook? But then she nodded.” The fully mature, freely switching narrative perspective reveals the protagonist's limited perspective, complex emotions, and the author's critical attitude. These two fragmentary narrative features combine to construct a kaleidoscopic cyberpunk world.