As a fifty something rabid reader and fan of disaster/dystopian novels, I'm not really expected to be too interested when some new writer revives the genre for the next generation. I hear of them ( like City of Ember ) and occasionally see the movie version - but mostly it's 'Been There, Read That '
So I was amused when this Christmas, a family member bought me the entire set of Suzanne Collins popular series. I read the whole trilogy in a few days and decided they're not too bad, and what Harry Potter is to aspiring wizards, The Hunger Games/Catching Fire/Mockingjay books are to budding survivalists and anarchists.
For me, however, while the world was interesting enough, and some of the interaction between the lead characters were decently played out, Katniss drove me insane as the main protagonist. Her situation left a lot of reason for doubt and self recrimination - but Man! By the third book, you'd think she'd gotten pissed off enough to get past all that.
Still, Hats off to Ms. Collins for putting something out there that's not sparkly vampire crap. While I have indeed 'Been There, Read That. ' it did engage my interest enough to want to find out how it all turned out. And a decent twist at the end.
Now, as for the movie ( with that young cutie, Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss ) I confess I haven't seen the first movie yet. So for anyone who has - is it a worthwhile start to a possible trilogy? Did they carry over enough of the book to leave some of the themes intact? Like the books, some of the scenes I've followed on YouTube are OK, but several are ... Iffy.
Wayne Z
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
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