Science Fiction & Fantasy class essays: Grimm's Fairy Tales

I took an online class on Coursera, Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World. Each week we read a different book or some short stories and had to write a short essay. This is the one I wrote after reading Children's and Household Tales, a translation of Grimm's Fairy Tales into English by Lucy Crane with illustrations by Walter Crane. The above link isn't the online version I read but I can't find it because the class is over and I can't access any resources :(
I did okay with this one; I don't remember my classmates giving me too much criticism.

“The Three Spinsters” and “Rumpelstiltskin”

“The Three Spinsters” is a tale much like the better-known “Rumpelstiltskin”. Three women with unusually large body parts (those used most often in spinning) take the place of the eponymous gnome, and they simply spin flax quickly, rather than spinning it into gold. They save the girl twice: from having to spin three rooms’ worth of flax, and from ever having to spin again. The spinsters meet a happier end than Rumpelstiltskin; they are fêted at the new princess’ table as her cherished relations. It struck me how female-centric this version of the surrogate spinner(s) is: the girl’s mother lets her go with the queen who offers her son to the girl (rather than the other way around!) as a prize for spinning the flax which the spinsters save her from. This is a marked contrast to “Rumpelstiltskin”’s sole girl being at the mercy of men--father, king, messenger, and Rumpelstiltskin. The only male in “The Three Spinsters” is the prince-prize the girl marries, who is rude and impertinent, controlled by his mother and duped by his wife and the spinsters. This female-centeredness makes sense, as the story revolves around spinning flax, traditionally a woman’s job (especially unmarried women, hence the modern definition of spinster). The “Spinsters” women are portrayed as softer and more moral than the “Rumpelstiltskin” men: the mother lies from embarrassment rather than pride, and the queen is more merciful, as she doesn’t get angry when no thread is spun after three days and doesn’t threaten the girl with death if she fails her task. The spinsters ask only to be honored as family, rather than for jewelry or the firstborn child. In the end, the mother is freed from her lazy daughter, the queen gets spun thread, the spinsters get honored, and the girl gets her prince and out of spinning forever. Might the moral of the story be that everybody wins when women run the show?

More flash book reviews--science fiction & fantasy class

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells (July 8)
A mad doctor moves to an island where he can practice turning animals as human as possible through vivisection without society's censure/interference. This was pretty bananas. I felt bad for the animals and didn't like the narrator either. 3.5/5
I also read most of The Invisible Man but didn't finish it (I've read it before). The theme of Victorian sci fi seems to be "science men are the worst".

A Princess of Mars by Edward Rice Burroughs (July 18)
A sci fi action movie adaptation was made of this a while back, John Carter, and it did not do well. I didn't watch it, but I read a review/article about it where the person (was it Roger Ebert?) said that that was because it felt too "done", too same old same old. A hero ends up in a new land, fights the natives and comes out on top, is lauded as their leader and gets the native princess. Last of the Mohicans, Dances with Wolves, Avatar, etc. But, the writer pointed out, this is because A Princess of Mars was first and influenced all these stories that came after it. It is the first story in this vein, and we are too used to it now. So I read this for my class, and it was entertaining. I can see why it was so popular; ERB knew how to spin a tale (he wrote Tarzan too). John Carter is hilariously perfect at everything, a total Gary Stu. 3.9/5

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 18)
A trio of male dumdums with varying levels of sexism (benevolent, most dissuadable by reason, and Trump Status) find a country that has been populated entirely by women for centuries. The women reproduce asexually and have bred and engineered everything to be as perfect and useful as possible. The main thought I had while reading this book is I WANT TO GO TO THERE. That, and SEXISM RUINS EVERYTHING. Herland is such a utopia and I firmly believe that it reflects how a country run and populated entirely by women would be. I cannot believe I'd never heard of this book before this class! The story ends abruptly with one dude staying in Herland with his wife (benevolent sexism dude) and the others going back to America (reasonable dude with his wife and Trump Status dude because he was exiled forever for Trumping his now-ex wife). There are sequels and I must read them. 4.9/5

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (July 24)
Myth and frontier exploration/colonization wrapped up in a Martian sci fi veneer. Lovely but sad and angry-making due to the colonization of Mars by humans. Wonderful book. This was my first Bradbury (shocking, I know). 4.5/5

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin (late July-early August)
You know how Herland was so great because it showed how good a women-only country would be where men couldn't mess things up? Well, TLHOD approaches the male problem by doing away with gender altogether. No one on the planet of Winter has a sex or gender, only during their mating seasons (they can take either male or female form). An Earth man is on Winter to try to convince the planet to join the space federation of other planets, but there's a lot of cultural barriers to overcome. It honestly made me wish we didn't have genders on this planet either, since we're so liable to exploit and mistreat them and see one as better or more worthy than the other. Lots of fascinating Tao influence as well. I have to read her other books too. Can you believe this is the first LeGuin I've read? 4.8/5

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (August 9)
Continuing a theme, my first Doctorow. This is actually free on his website as a PDF, which I did not know when I borrowed it from my library. Supersmart hacking teens, terrorism on American soil and the subsequent national fear and stripping away of liberties, government surveillance and oppression, protests and rebellion in response. Good but hit too close to home, as someone who was old enough to remember 9/11 and the period following. 4/5

I wrote short essays for these for my classes and will share them, one by one.

Flash book reviews because I am super behind

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge (May 10)
Til We Have Faces meets Pandora's Box meets Howl's Moving Castle meets Rose Daughter. I LOVED THIS WOW. 4/5

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton (May 31-June 6)
Thrift store purchase because it had a pretty cover. Gothic novel told through flashbacks, journal entries, letters, etc. set in WWII and present day (1990s). Well-written, atmospheric mystery. Initially sucked me in but in the end I sort of hated it due to the difficult, controlling, messed up family situation and unnecessary deaths. No one in this book gets to have nice things. 3.9/5

Dracula by Bram Stoker (mid June)
I read this for the fantasy & science fiction class I enrolled in from Coursera. I know it's a classic, and upon reading it I can see why, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It's surprisingly religious and Mina is pretty awesome, despite how Perfect Victorian Woman she is. 4/5

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (June 17)
I've been following Noelle Stevenson on Tumblr for years now. This was originally a webcomic, and I had read all but the last chapter or so since I got busy with school and work. It's a sort of steampunk (not Victorian or much steam, just knights who fight with mechanical lances and mad scientists researching magic) graphic novel about a "villain" and his mysterious sidekick trying to overthrow an oppressive government. This was wonderful and I enjoyed it. The feels. 4/5

Here There Be Unicorns by Jane Yolen (June)
This was such a favorite of mine growing up. I used to read it from our public library all the time. I had some credit in my Amazon account so I bought this. It's such a weird experience rereading a book you loved as a child and haven't read since then. It's always much shorter and less impactful, less substantial, in a way. You're a different person who has learned and grown a lot since then so it doesn't affect you like it used to. Still, I have a lot of love for this book. I was kind of amazed that  I loved it that much as a kid, since the stories/poems are pretty advanced and open-ended/vague rather than having happy, tidy endings, and I was a lot less used to sad, philosophical stories back than than I am now. 4/5

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (late June)
I guess I see why this is a classic, as this is the first science fiction novel (written by a teenage girl, so take that, sexist nerd bros who think SF is only for guys), but I kind of hated this. Victor is an idiot, tons of unnecessary deaths, and no one is allowed to have nice things. Just misery. Also, I downloaded a random free ebook from the Nook store because I was feeling too lazy to connect my Nook ereader to my laptop in order to download the version supplied by the instructor of my SF/F class and it had the worst formatting I'd ever seen. Whole paragraphs, pages, were jumbles of letters with symbols. Terrible. 3.5/5