Reviews for Social Psychology-text

The average rating for Social Psychology-text based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-28 00:00:00 Peter Barmby Tiger, Tiger, a young-adult novelization of The X-Files episode titled “Fearful Symmetry,” is a poignant story that follows Agents Mulder and Scully as they investigate the trampling death of a federal construction worker by an escaped elephant—an invisible elephant, as witnesses claim. Further exploration reveals an impoverished Idaho zoo in danger of losing funding, a barbaric zookeeper, irreverent animal activists, a lowland gorilla capable of communicating in ASL, and strange animal disappearances that mayhaps be the machinations of alien conservationists. Both the episode and book titles are a reference to the memorable poem by William Blake, published in his Songs of Experience collection (the 1790s). The poem, "Tyger, Tyger" functions as a contrasting companion to "The Lamb" (found in same collection), signifying the baleful intensity and ferociousness of the tiger beside the innocence and childlike wonder of the lamb, philosophically inquiring as to the creator(s) identity. These titles are interesting choices for a story that illustrates both the inherent dangers of certain animals—it's no mere happenstance that a Bengal tiger mauls an animal-rights activist—and their meeker side; namely, the hopeless efforts of Sophie the Gorilla to save her unborn child as well as her mercifulness toward Mulder when he becomes trapped in a container with the benevolent creature. This book is one of author Les Martin's better adaptations, considering many of his X-Files novelizations fall flat as a result of uncharacteristic dialogue and unnecessarily dumbing-down the intellectual language to point of absurdity. In this case, however, Martin satisfactorily captures the evocative nature of the episode, of which can be a difficult read for bleeding-hearts like myself with a soft spot for animals. Much like the cattle mutilations, animal abduction phenomena is a largely unexplored facet of alien lore. Tiger, Tiger not only showcases man's inhumanity towards beast but also sees several majestic zoo animals killed after being spirited away in enigmatic bright light and returned miles from the zoo. It's suggested that the aliens are engineering their own version of Noah’s Ark by preserving those species endangered by mankind’s recklessness. The story’s obvious stance on human encroachment and the need to preserve such magnificent creatures from certain extinction reflects the moral intuition of many, I believe, which proves to be a saving grace for this under-cooked story and, ultimately, mediocre read. Tiger, Tiger features a host of compelling ideas and issues regarding animal rights and planetary stewardship that are sadly undeveloped. The plight of the zoo animals will tug at readers' heartstrings, but the meandering plot and half-baked attempt at diegetic depth sadly amounts to little more than a clumsy, overambitious installment. Like such unrefined episodes as "Space" and "Genderbender", "Fearful Symmetry" trades on the series' alien mythos without directly linking itself to the over-arching conspiracy. To be fair, The X-Files was in the midst of its sophomore season and still endeavoring to hit its stride. Readers will likely appreciate the book’s unexplained, open-ended resolution. The motives of these apparent extraterrestrial conservationists is never revealed, leaving an appropriate degree of mystery and wonder that will linger in the minds of readers after the final page. In short, a fairly respectable adaptation of a B-movie premise.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-03-19 00:00:00 Scott Henson A YA adaptation of an episode that I can't recall seeing, though you'd think an invisible elephant and a talking gorilla would stick in the mind. Brilliantly odd and kitsch.