The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Escape from Furnace (Solitary) 2

         This is my second blog post on the book Solitary by author Alexander Gordon Smith. Since last I posted however, a lot of new themes and issues have appeared. After Alex, the main character, has freed himself of the prison, and is struggling to find a way out of the underground tunnels, he meets the rats. Huge monsters that stalk the bottom of the prison. However, Alex finds a way around them with the help of a mysterious friend who guides Alex and his friend Zee, to the exit. The two are taking the route that was pointed out to them, giddy with excitement over the prospect of being free, when they end up unfortunately running into the warden of the prison, and his black suit guards. To Alex and Zees great dismay, they are sentenced to a month in solitary confinement, a small cell where it is rumored among the inmates that your own fears brought forth by the isolation can bring you to insanity and even death. At the beginning of their sentence, Alex sees visions in the dark, and is haunted by his own nightmares, the work of the truly powerful "Hole" as Solitary has been nicknamed. But knowing that he must keep his mind busy in order to stay sane, Alex decides to try ripping off this grate covering he found in the corner of the room. After quite a bit of work, he manages to release it from it's tough hinges and to his astonishment, hears tapping through  the hole that he has created. It turns out that the tapping is coming from Zees neighboring hole cell. Quickly, the two inmates design a form of code system through taps, betting the system in confinement that has drawn so many crazy.
          After about a week of tapping out messages to each other, and eating the gray mush that is feed to them, also called mush, Alex is take in from his cell by an unfamiliar, person. Thinking that he is one of the wardens evil beings, Alex attempts to beat the thing, but finds that the creature is tough and can easily withstand Alex's feeble assault. Once Alex is brought into an abandoned storage cell. The creature tells Alex that the warden is setting up a sort of system in furnace, where the inmates are transformed into monsters and other bizarre creatures so as to research by. But to the wardens dismay, some of his own creations have turned on him, and he is having to fight them in a war, beneath the prison floors. The creature, says that he is one of the wardens creations, and that he is willing to free Alex so he can have help from to find a way out for him and some of the other beings that are fighting the warden. Alex agrees, and they begin to form a plan.
          The portion of the book Solitary that I have included in this blog post has really made me think about the hope that keeps people alive. In the story, Alex discovers a way to communicate with Zee in the hole, by doing so, he beats the hole. The hole can no longer drive all the humanity and saneness from him, for with communication and sound comes reality of the mind and senses. And since the whole purpose of Solitary is to take such reality away, it can no longer do so with Alex's and Zees ingenious form to contact each other. The same goes for real life, we must keep our eyes on the goals we want to achieve in life, for that is what gives us the will to survive.

Escape from Furnace 2 (Solitary)

        I am currently reading the second book in the Escape From Furnace series, Solitary. In the first book, Alex, the main character is wrongly convicted of the murder of his best friend, Toby. As punishment. he is sent to life imprisonment in one of the worst prisons of England, Furnace. When Alex reaches Furnace, he makes a few friends in a boy his age named Zee, and in his cell mate Donovan. But Furnace is not all about friends, there are many dangerous gangs roaming around, always willing to pick a fight, and Alex has to do his best to avoid being shanked by them as much as possible. There are also many horrors within the Prison that the warden often let's out on the prisoners, some included are a vicious dog who tears apart anyone foolish enough to get on it's bad side, and weird freaks in gasmasks who will randomly at night, inject a sorry victim with a fluid. Once knocked out by the injection, the person will be turned into a monster which will be forced to carry out the wardens demonic doings for the rest of their life. Eventually Alex plans an escape, by blowing a hole in a small crack within an unused tunnel, once this had been done, he found an underground river which took him into a huge subordinate cavern, now he has to face the challenge of finding a way to the surface and away from the nightmares of Furnace.
        The book Solitary embodies the ultimate horrors in our minds, it shows exactly all the nightmares in this one prison,and unfortunately, Alex has to deal with them single handedly. We all have things that we fear, and in Solitary, it embodies all were scared of in one epic tale. While reading this story I though tof all the things I am scared of, and what it would be like if I had to face them just as Alex did so. Wouldn't that be awful for all of us? Facing our worst nightmare.

Hunted Past Reason

Currently I am reading the novel Hunted Past Reason  by Richard Matheson. It is definitely one of the most interesting and hard pounding books I ever read. The story starts when two friends Doug, and Bob go on a hiking trip in northern California so that Bob can gather information on the book he is writing about backpacking and wilderness survival. At the beginning of the hike, the two friends get along well enough, with a few arguments between the two about Bob's slow walking pace leaving them behind schedule, and Doug treating Bob as a minority. But as the days go by, tensions start to rise. Doug begins to show signs of jealousy toward Bob's successful writing career, and even makes it seem like it's Bob's fault that his life his headed for the worse and his son died. Doug begins to bring up anything to argue about, even comparing his fairly conservative view on government to Bob's liberal one, and bringing up his biased views on different races and religions. Eventually, Doug shows his true evil jealous self toward the world and Bob, which he has been hiding for years. Deciding to take all of his anger out on Bob, he proposes a game, that if Doug reaches his cabin which is their ultimate destination point, he will let him live, but if Doug catches Bob before so, he will kill Bob, hide his remains, and attempt to get Bob's wife Marian to love him. And so Bob's epic race to get away from Doug's insanity in order to live, and protect his wife.
         While reading this book, I learned a lot about the true nature of people, and what lies beneath the fake facade others create to hide their true personality. This was the case with Doug, and his abrupt outburst toward his life. For many years, he had been treated unfair as a child while his father beat him, and his mother was a drunk. When he grew older, he often had hard times finding work in the theater business, and making ends meet. His son even died from a drug overdose. With all of this anger toward his life, career, and family issues boiling inside him, he finally let it all erupt toward Bob while the enforced isolation exposed this true anger.
        Although this is only a fictional piece of work, this same "emotional" explosion that Doug had experienced can also happen in today's actual society. People will let out their anger on innocent people just to get it off their minds and be free of their worries. We are often reminded of this in history as scapegoats have been used for just such purposes. One example of this can be seen in Hitlers genocide of the Jewish people, and also of modern day bullying in school from possible mistreatment at home. This is why some of us need to learn how to express our anger in appropriate manners and not let it out on others.

The Call of the Wild

      I just recently started the classic book "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London." It's a novel about a group of sled dogs in the northern arctic, who are put to the test of brutality, when they face extreme temperatures and and are pushed to the end of their wits. While following these dogs as they go through there northern journeys, it is quite interesting to note how quickly their personalities change from that of a civilized house pet, to savage creatures stripped of all decency and kindness due to the fight for survival. I wonder, if the affects would be at all similar on a human? Would a man at all be pushed such that he would steal and kill just to make it by? Obviously there would be some variations in how the main emotions would be portrayed. But what about the main reaction? I believe that it does not make a difference. Either man, dog, or any other species for that matter, every animal could be put in such conditions that survival is the one key thing in mind, it is your goal, and you will even kill to keep yourself alive. Such traits might be shown in many different forms, and the ways shown in "The Call of the Wild" are going to be much different from others, but the main element is there, savageness.

The Source of Magic

       A lot has happened since the beginning of the story. Bink has set out on his quest to discover the source of magic, he has met friends along the way, and has encountered countless enemies in battles, to which he has prevailed. And now finally he has come to the end of his quest he has come to the true source of magic. Which is actually a demon, who has been exiled to this magical land for failing to abide by the rules of a game he was playing. The demons code name is Xanth, which is way this region has come to bear that name. The magic has been emitting from his body, creating all of the magical spells and transforming regular creatures into that of magical creatures, such as centaurs and dragons.
      Now Bink comes to a decision, should he let the demon Xanth stay, and let the life of magic continue; or will he free the demon in the name of justice as his ethics persuade him to do. He eventually comes to the decision to free the demon and let him live his life again.
     I believe Bink's decision to free the demon Xanth represents the good beliefs in us all. We all have a conscience that tells us the right decision to make, and to not take the wrong one. Possibly Bink's decision in his case was destiny, for eventually the demons exile would have to end, and Bink is only the source who frees the demon by chance. For demons are much more powerful creatures then humans, a mere man might only act as a prop in the demons game. And so now the land of Xanth is completly void of all magical spells or creatures. It is now lost all of it's uniqueness and speciality. But something told Bink in the end to free the demon, so hopefully his decision was guided by his good will and wisdom. Or maybe it actually was destiny that chose Bink's decision. Whichever way, Xanth will never be the same.

The Source of Magic

 The book The Source of Magic, written by Piers Anthony is a truly bizarre and fascinating book. It is written as a comedic-fantasy novel, where the main character Bink, embarks on a journey through the magical land of Xanth to find the source of magic that makes Xanth so specially unique. I believe that the book, resembles the different hardships we as individuals have to face to eventually achieve the goal that we are after. In the stories case, Bink has to face many setbacks on his journey to find the source of magic in Xanth. Some included are, an angry sea monster, and a group of excited woman who have been with out males for a long time. All though these complications can be quite fictious, once again they are resembling that of the problems actual men and woman face today to gain our goals in the end. And as always, real or in a story, there is one main evil force that is balking the hero from his end purpose. In this stories case, it is the Mysterious enemy, who from the beginning of the book attempted to stop Bink by using various means to kill him. Another roadblock that the hero usually faces in his story would be the shapeshifter, in Bink's case, it is the character Trent. Trent is a magician who accomplishes Bink in his quest, but is often quick to disagree with Bink or to not help in troublesome situations.
        These all make for great disadvantages in the real and story world. But the hero usually prevails in the end.