The Island

I've read up to chapter 13 in The Island of Doctor Moreau, and so far, I'm not getting a real "sci fi" feel from it. I guess the only thing that can be classified as science fiction is the weird body modifications, a topic we've discussed several time in class already. But other than that, it seems more like a weird horror but not horror (like a Goosebumps book I used to love as a kid). That's not to say it's a bad book, because it's definitely not. I was kind of intimidated at first because of the fact that it's so old and usually old book are really hard for me to grasp just because of the way it's written sometimes. They don't have that modem flair of telling you what's right there. But I wanted a challenge, and I'm pleasantly surprised.
The closest thing I can imagine to the weird beasts on the island are the chimeras in (bear with me here and I'm sorry) on the manga/anime Full Metal Alchemist. In one of the first volumes, they meet a scientist who transmutes his daughter and their dog into this weird and horrifying hybrid. That poor child. But I'm assuming Dr. Moreau isn't using just regular people for his experiments. Considering he was caught last time and it was the reason of his fleeing England, he's probably started using bums or orphans or whatever. People that won't be missed. Which is just as bad??
But I had some things to say about the characters, namely Edward Prendick. the poor rando who just gets caught up in all of this because of a ship wreck, I really feel for the dude, I do, but come on, does he have no sense of self preservation? He immediately freaks out and bolts when he finds out what's going on in the island rather than pretending that everything's okay and waiting for the next boat that might arrive (which given is not for awhile). But no. He dips into the forest that he has no idea how to navigate through or survive on (all without eating breakfast again. Tragic.) Montgomery clearly wants to keep this guy alive which is why he's there in the first place, while Dr. Moreau doesn't care, so what's to stop him from using Prendick in his next experiment? (perhaps with the puma? who knooows) It be completely valid because no ones missing Prendick in the first place, everyone believed that they all died in the wreck, and if Prendick escapes he would very obviously blab about the events on the island to everyone. So, sorry, but I gotta side with Moreau on this one. Also, how did Prendick not realize what was going on sooner? I mean the people that live there aren't very subtle about hiding their body modifications, as well as Montgomery and Moreau aren't really hiding what they were doing. The only part that kind of annoyed me was when Prendick was like, "hey I just saw someone with cat ears?? explain??" and Montgomery was just like "sorry my dude. you're crazy." Like clearly Prendick knows something's up at this point if he noticed cat ear guy over there so why won't Montgomery come clean with him? All he has to say is "dude. don't freak out, but we might be creating human animal hybrids though. please don't freak out and run away and create all this drama."

Why I stayed away

If I had read Craphound outside of class, I probably wouldn't have labeled it as science fiction. I mean, there's aliens, but it's kinda a casual thing. Like oh it's just everyday Canada and by the way, there's aliens here. Everything else seemed kinda normal. But what I kind of realized in that interview, more things are scifi than what we realize.

I read all of the Hunger Games and Divergent books series (and one or two of the Maze Runner one), and never once thought it was science fiction. I put science fiction on kind of a pedestal, something that only men could ever really touch, which is already a backwards way of thinking. Why did they get to have this all to themselves when we have to share everything with them? Even recent science fiction movies, like Interstellar or The Martian were too far away for me to grasp because it wasn't something that was made for me. Like a lot of things it was made for men, by men. I don't think I ever truly understood that there are many different kinds of science fiction, we just only ever really see of the super popular tropes like space travel and the apocalypse. There's also science fiction for everyone, that it doesn't belong to a certain group of people just because their voices are the ones that are the loudest. Reading the interview made me appreciate the women in science fiction more because I finally got to hear their voices. Just like the men they have different opinions on topics and on the genre, and I think we often forget that. I think we often lump women together, especially those that work in a men field, as either rare jewels held in the highest regards or something that isn't even given a chance. You shouldn't stay away from something because you're confused by it, if anything this should compel you to pursue it. However I never chose to pursue more science fiction because it felt wrong for me, like I wouldn't be able to find something in it because it wasn't made for someone like me in mind. But this is wrong. There's always something out there for us, we just have to find it and bring it to the light.