Daniel’s Comments (group member since Sep 28, 2014)

Daniel’s comments from the Dystopian/Sci Fi group.

The Road was a book that took me a while to get into, not because the writing was bad but mostly because the format it was written in was a strange one for me.

I just want to say that this is the first Mccarthy I have ever read and I have to say his writing is amazing! I probably be checking out his other books.

If I had to describe The Road as a color i'd have to say this book is very grey. way more then 50 shades here. This book has no chapters so it is just a story that pretty much moves on from one problem to the next. It almost had a pattern to it: walking on the road, rummaging for food and items, some kind of conflict, escape and then repeat.

The characters are nameless so they are called the man and the boy, they are described at all. which let my mind wander and make up there faces I felt that was cool.

There were a few happy moments in the book. Them sitting on beach is my favorite. The book did not really tell the story of how the apocalypse occurred but instead decided to focus on the main characters and how the survived from one day to the next.

overall I rate this book a 4 out of 5. it was well written and the last 70 pages were so interesting I could not put the book down.

I will recommend it to my friends and keep the funk ringing

I have to say that I loved this book.

The book was very Tarantino-esque, with its time jumps. I was excited to go from one chapter to the next to find out who's story would be told.

At the beginning of the book its kind of hard to follow who the main protagonist is,but you soon figure out that it's Arthur. Which is even more strange because he dies in the first chapter.

After a flu strikes the world the story travels forward in time and begins a tale about a traveling symphony and a crazy prophet. this future setting brings up questions like: who is the prophet?, what do the knife Tattoos mean?, where is jeevan?

Mandel uses flashbacks to answer these questions throughout the book. The flashbacks can go as far back as to Arthur in his late 20's to five years before the symphony meets the prophet.

The writing in this book is amazing. It had action,romance, mystery, and to top it all off a graphic novel is turned into an almost bible like relic.

I give this book a 5. This book was totally bringing the funk. I highly recommend it.

and remember life without the funk is insufficient.

From Amazon.com:

Bo Jinn is a minor philosopher, Doctor of Laws, self-professed man of letters, social critic and a passionate long-time writer of fiction, living in Central Europe. His main legal interests include the law of armed conflict and humanitarian law. His main philosophical interests include contemporary analytic philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of mind and theology. Owing to an abiding belief that anonymity is an ally to the pen, the author has chosen to limit all additional information about himself to that which he chooses to disclose in his written work alone.


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"I have the Conch!"

I actually enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. It was sort of boring at least in the first chapter, but after a while it just kicked in. every chapter got more insane than the next.


The main conflict between Ralph and Jack was the most interesting part of the book. Ralph wanted to keep a some what normal society so the boys would remain civil. The fire would be the main focus of Ralph's society kind of a symbolism for hope because if they keep the fire burning they can smoke signal any ships that pass by.

Jack on the other hand wanted a society that focused on hunting. Jack felt that hunting was important because it would keep the "tribe" fed. I feel that the real reason jack wanted to hunt was not to benefit the tribe for food but to satisfy his blood lust. He got kind of a thrill from his first encounter with almost killing a pig.

All of the boys struggle with their humanity once they locate a dead body which they think is a beast. This causes a split in the tribes. It also cause Simon to hallucinate and go crazy.

Simon does learn the truth of the beast and goes to warn the others but is murdered while the others are caught up in a fit of blood lust.

I could probably write a whole essay on this book. I enjoyed it almost all the whole way through. anyways I give it 4. The story was great, it was well written and had lots of symbolism.

let me know if you agree or disagree peace and let the funk rain out

I had my doubts about this book before I even started reading it. I just don't like H.G. Wells. I remember trying to read War of the Worlds when I was a young sci fi fan and I just could not get into. The same is true of The Time Machine.

This was the longest 100 pages I read in my life. I felt like I was reading some college graduates dissertation. This story is definitely more Science then fiction.

The book wasn't all bad, The theory of time being the 4th dimension is something I have heard before but never really grasped until this book. Also his theory of humans de-evolving because intelligence is no longer necessary (most likely because of technology) was pretty interesting. The Time Traveler discusses this in chapter 10 when he says, " It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is compensation for change,danger and trouble ... there is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change"

overall I give the story a 2 out of 5 while the scientific theories were interesting the main story just felt flat and boring.

peace and keep the funk moving.

Station Eleven is a dystopian novel written by Emily St. John Mandel. It follows the interconnected lives of the main characters from the present to the future. It has a kind of positive outlook toward the future which is diffrent from most dystopian novels. The novel was on the top of many "Book of the Year" lists toward the end of 2014.



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Lord of the Flies was written by William Golding in 1954. It is about a group of children who end up on an uninhabited island. Their attempts to Govern themselves end up with disastrous results. Lord of the Flies was Golding's first novel. Although it was not a success at the time it eventually went on to be a best seller.



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