if i were to read All Tomorrow's Parties on my own and not for any course i probably would not pick up on half the messages or underlying ideas of this book. i would read it on the surface and walk away mildly entertained. however, after going to lecture and listening to Professor Ogden, i have taken so much away from this book. Gibson's satire on today's society really hits home, i think. he makes so many soft, indirect criticisms on today's society, that i think everyone should hear. if we keep on going the way we are, we very well could end up in a future similar to the one painted by Gibson. and that is scary. i for one wouldn't want to live in that world. the sad thing is though, that in today's society people aren't taking the time to read works such as this. or if they do, they could just do what i said i would have done if not in this course and read it for pure entertainment. this causes the message of the satire to get lost. and what i think is especially sad about this is if a high-budget movie were to be made of this movie, millions of people would see it and instantly pick up on the satire (people are always searching for hidden meanings in movies. more so than books i think). i hate that we are so technologically oriented today that a movie would be able to affect more people than a book...but that is the reality of fiction today.

Prophetic Fiction

The idea of prophecy in fiction was mentioned in lecture and there are examples of it in a few of our assigned readings. Vancouver Short Stories begins with The Prophetess which introduces the idea of the possibility of prophecy in regards to an Indian wild woman/oracle who predicted the Vancouver fire. The real teen violence that is escalating in the Vancouver area that was mentioned on the course fictionandreality blog and as was pointed out by Dr. Ogden in lecture, matches Coupland's vision in Hey Nostradamus!. All Tomorrows Parties is also presenting a prophetic vision of the future in regards to the technocratic consumer society model that the majority of the planet is emulating. The three English writers consisting of Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and H.G. Wells are also extremely prophetic in regards to both the utopic and dystopic descriptions of the future. These writers all posited visions of the future that have all manifested themselves in a number of ways and frames the idea of the various prophetic truths that can be found in a work of fiction.