And the one they are working on will be an abomination. But yes Ender's Game is an amazing book for any Sci-fi fans.Vhite said:
The Hunger Games; I just don't get it...
- Thread starter shwnbob
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it was ok
probably one of the better examples of novels aimed at teenage girls since at least it has a strong protagonist and while i liked how dark it got in the third book and how she basically slowly went insane i felt it was being held together way too much by plot-convenience glue.
and oh dear lord is katniss passing out, wandering around the base high for weeks at a time lazy way to advance the plot.
oh yeah and the way the romance is resolved? it isn't. she just picks the guy who is as damaged as she is because she doesn't want to be all alone
probably one of the better examples of novels aimed at teenage girls since at least it has a strong protagonist and while i liked how dark it got in the third book and how she basically slowly went insane i felt it was being held together way too much by plot-convenience glue.
like i don't get why what's his face hunter guy childhood friend is so angry with her that he never ever visits her after the war, sure she didn't kill him when he was captured like they agreed to but they decided to do that because they didn't want the other to slowly get tortured to death and by that point the capitol had no time to torture anyone, the rebels had won and katniss and hunter guy knew that, they were deliberately making a push for the palace to be there before the army to get to kill the president
oh yeah and the way the romance is resolved? it isn't. she just picks the guy who is as damaged as she is because she doesn't want to be all alone
However, one of them has the ultra bad-ass Shogo Kawada.Owyn_Merrilin said:
That ***** with the arrows wouldn't of lasted 5 minutes in a game against Kiriyama.
In all seriousness, that's a pretty good beneath the words analysis of Battle Royale... Is it not popular to consider Battle Royale a love story in it's own right? I mean the theme song of the whole damn thing is Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run
but like someone posted before, the government has the technology to build force fields and cloaking systems - at least an artificial battleground with controllable and adjustable components can be built. I mean, we already can do things like that today and in a future like that we can't even do something that simple? Just holes in the ground with monsters? really?artanis_neravar said:
Well they completely control the weather, and have a variety of natural disasters on hand, fire, flood etc.BNguyen said:
however the simplest answer is, that's what the people in the capitol want to see. The point of the games is a combination of punishment and control for the districts and entertainment for the capitol
The first two were good in my opinion. The third was just fucking awful though, and the movie was worse...
Simple answer: the government pimps out the old arenas as tourist destinations. Capitol citizens pay good money to go on vacation there, something you couldn't do to the same degree with holograms.BNguyen said:
didn't say holograms or anything like that - I'm talking about like traps, or platforms that change locations, something like a stage in a drama production - it'd make the fighting much more interesting if you keep the kids on their toes and could scare themOwyn_Merrilin said:
it'd be like what they did in Death Race, except in Hunger Games, it'd be Death Race minus the Mariokart-esque power-up pads that they run over, just a race with guns
So basically, the answer you're giving me is "Hey, we have all this great crap we can throw at them to show how powerful we are but let's just have them run around in the woods for a while" yeah, really interesting watch - it sounds about as interesting as a paintball matchartanis_neravar said:
Well, they don't want to kill them. and the very fact that they are able to force all the people to surrender their children is enough of a display of their power.BNguyen said:
well, may not kill them but at least use some of this impressive technology to make games interesting, like maybe a massive flood-inducing rainstorm or destroy some areas of the combat zone with fire - force them combatants to get in close instead of separating - heck, even the coliseum would be flooded from time to time to have boat fightsartanis_neravar said:
Stated (in the books at least) as having happened in the 50th Hunger GamesBNguyen said:
Happens in the first book/movie.
It's possible that they had boat games in one of the Hunger Games, but we only see two Games.
Also the 75 Games (the one in the second book) was much more creative than the first one.
The arena was designed to mimic a clock. For every hour, some form of torture designed by the Gamemakers would be activated in a section of the arena. It was split into 12 sections, each for a different hour of the day. The arena was shaped like a circle and was very small. The Cornucopia was on an island in a large, round pool of salt water. Encircling the water was a jungle. The only fresh water was rainwater stored inside the trees. There were various foods in the arena, including nuts, "tree rats," and shellfish that some tributes cooked by bouncing them off of the forcefield.
12-1 - Bursts of lightning hit a single tree.
1-2 - Blood rains down from the sky.
2-3 - Corrosive fog spreads through the jungle.
3-4 - Orange monkey muttations attack.
4-5 - Jabberjays torture the tributes with their loved ones' screams.
5-6 - Unknown
6-7 - Unknown muttation that rips it's prey apart; Peeta calls it the "Beast".
7-8 - Unknown
8-9 - Unknown
9-10 - Unknown
10-11 - Tidal wave hits the beach.
11-12 - From the sound of clicking, Katniss guesses that it could be insect mutts with pincers.
1-2 - Blood rains down from the sky.
2-3 - Corrosive fog spreads through the jungle.
3-4 - Orange monkey muttations attack.
4-5 - Jabberjays torture the tributes with their loved ones' screams.
5-6 - Unknown
6-7 - Unknown muttation that rips it's prey apart; Peeta calls it the "Beast".
7-8 - Unknown
8-9 - Unknown
9-10 - Unknown
10-11 - Tidal wave hits the beach.
11-12 - From the sound of clicking, Katniss guesses that it could be insect mutts with pincers.
In my opinion, they're an example of Good Idea, Bad Implementation. The author is heavy-handed (especially towards the end of book 3); she makes excuses for getting her main characters back into the ring (a common trope of continuing "situational" book series that have to find justification for sequels); her characters, while not as poorly written as some, still don't behave very realistically - more like caricatures than characters; and her backstory makes little sense outside of some sort of anti-capitalism-victimization screed.
That said, they're fun light reading. Just don't expect more out of them than out of (say) the Chronicles of Narnia.
That said, they're fun light reading. Just don't expect more out of them than out of (say) the Chronicles of Narnia.
My two cents: The main reason why the book is so amazing is because it has a lot of SUSPENSE built into the story. Now, we all know that
Yet what drives the book for me was that it actually made you sit back and think about their position. How would you try to live through everything? Would you actually kill others to survive?
Now, before you say "Oh, of COURSE you would kill someone to survive! It's survival instinct!" Not all people are able to deal with it. As you can tell Katniss
What I disliked about the story is other than actually having something else other than tension, the story brings almost nothing else to the table. Trust me, I have tried to read the series again after the first time (I always do with every good series/book) and I was disappointing. I started to notice that the story itself was poorly written starting after the first book.
When you get to the last book:
Overall: Kinda disappointing, but you may enjoy it the first go around.
My opinion: Don't buy it unless more then one person is going to read it. It looses its appeal after the first read-through.
the main character seems to always survive until the end.
Yet what drives the book for me was that it actually made you sit back and think about their position. How would you try to live through everything? Would you actually kill others to survive?
Now, before you say "Oh, of COURSE you would kill someone to survive! It's survival instinct!" Not all people are able to deal with it. As you can tell Katniss
goes pretty much mad because she is brought back by all the killing she had done.
What I disliked about the story is other than actually having something else other than tension, the story brings almost nothing else to the table. Trust me, I have tried to read the series again after the first time (I always do with every good series/book) and I was disappointing. I started to notice that the story itself was poorly written starting after the first book.
When you get to the last book:
The author seemed to become lazy with the character development, and was just unwilling to write about all the characters "What happens AFTER the whole shebang is over" story. So she just simply killed them all off.
Overall: Kinda disappointing, but you may enjoy it the first go around.
My opinion: Don't buy it unless more then one person is going to read it. It looses its appeal after the first read-through.
Full disclosure: I am a 27 year old male. This may make my reasons for liking the book different from everyone else's.
A) The love story isn't formulaic. It's certainly informed from the love-triangle thing that's so popular with teen girls nowadays (get off my lawn), but it wasn't predictable. I honestly have no idea how the series ends because the protagonist's feelings for the two love interests are complex and fully-developed. So fully developed, in fact, that it deserves its own point.
B) The protagonist is both a sociopath and a good person. You can relate to her about 90% of the time, but that 10% where she's operating off of her concentration-camp survival skills makes her a fascinating character. The way she approaches love in such a frightened way because irrational behavior can get her killed was compelling. And that leads to my next point...
C) The setting was interesting. There is so much set up used so well in such a small amount of words: an interesting and believable dystopian future, a description of the life of the poor and the privileged, a well-fleshed out family dynamic which drives the plot, a tantalizing hint of a future rebellion... and finally, a look at child soldiers from a child's perspective, wrapped in exciting fight scenes and the rich interpersonal relationships of people who are fighting and dying together.
TLDR: I liked it because it was deep. It made me think, it made me feel for the characters, it made me curious to see what would happen next. It did all the things a book should do, without feeling like it was mass produced crap (which the movie did feel like to me).
My pleasure from the first book came from three elements.shwnbob said:
A) The love story isn't formulaic. It's certainly informed from the love-triangle thing that's so popular with teen girls nowadays (get off my lawn), but it wasn't predictable. I honestly have no idea how the series ends because the protagonist's feelings for the two love interests are complex and fully-developed. So fully developed, in fact, that it deserves its own point.
B) The protagonist is both a sociopath and a good person. You can relate to her about 90% of the time, but that 10% where she's operating off of her concentration-camp survival skills makes her a fascinating character. The way she approaches love in such a frightened way because irrational behavior can get her killed was compelling. And that leads to my next point...
C) The setting was interesting. There is so much set up used so well in such a small amount of words: an interesting and believable dystopian future, a description of the life of the poor and the privileged, a well-fleshed out family dynamic which drives the plot, a tantalizing hint of a future rebellion... and finally, a look at child soldiers from a child's perspective, wrapped in exciting fight scenes and the rich interpersonal relationships of people who are fighting and dying together.
TLDR: I liked it because it was deep. It made me think, it made me feel for the characters, it made me curious to see what would happen next. It did all the things a book should do, without feeling like it was mass produced crap (which the movie did feel like to me).
I didn't particularly like the first book. I read a portion after the movie came out and briefly everyone seemed to talk about the series like it was some profound modern cultural artifact. This was more or less what happened with twilight as well - by the time it penetrated my own normal sphere, the movement was vast and baffling.
That said, the things I didn't care for are relatively minor nitpicks. The society demonstrated was distopian with no obvious control mechanism. The games themselves run contrary to the goals of the government given the notable story of the Minotaur from greek myth (a story that basically demonstrates why this exact scheme is a bad idea in the long run). The story is based around the games themselves and it struggles to actually tell a story throughout save for the "love affair". It is this love bit that bugs me most as the demonstration of the capacity of empathy among those chosen for the games runs contrary to literally everything about the games and the people who appear to participate in them.
In most ways, my problem is with the twin issues of narrative dissonance (what we are shown often conflict with other things we are shown) and fundamental plot holes. While I have some tolerance for plot holes, when they inform the action, the history and the motivations of the characters they present a problem in my view.
Still, since the Hunger Games is like Twilight in that it is designed to appeal to someone other than myself (specifically, teen females I assume) it gets a pass. I don't particularly like it but it is also relatively easy to avoid interaction and thus I am content for it to remain as little more than a notable moment of foreign zeitgeist worthy only of passing consideration.
That said, the things I didn't care for are relatively minor nitpicks. The society demonstrated was distopian with no obvious control mechanism. The games themselves run contrary to the goals of the government given the notable story of the Minotaur from greek myth (a story that basically demonstrates why this exact scheme is a bad idea in the long run). The story is based around the games themselves and it struggles to actually tell a story throughout save for the "love affair". It is this love bit that bugs me most as the demonstration of the capacity of empathy among those chosen for the games runs contrary to literally everything about the games and the people who appear to participate in them.
In most ways, my problem is with the twin issues of narrative dissonance (what we are shown often conflict with other things we are shown) and fundamental plot holes. While I have some tolerance for plot holes, when they inform the action, the history and the motivations of the characters they present a problem in my view.
Still, since the Hunger Games is like Twilight in that it is designed to appeal to someone other than myself (specifically, teen females I assume) it gets a pass. I don't particularly like it but it is also relatively easy to avoid interaction and thus I am content for it to remain as little more than a notable moment of foreign zeitgeist worthy only of passing consideration.
