Good fantasy series that details a dystopian society and the rise against it. Read all three books and I think you'll find it interesting.

I've read the Hunger Games. The first book was OK. The second was a little slower and...and I haven't been able to finish the third.

They are by no means classic literature, anymore than Harry Potter books were. Again, first book kept you hook with a decent story and drew you in....then the book get somewhat repetitive.

The premise is ridiculous to obiwanobiwan because he doesn't like science fiction -- being a snobbish, haughty English major, he's pretty much the last guy to ask an opinion of. It's like having a "movie critic" pass judgement on Iron Man and slam it because it's unrealistic. Iron Man was written for action/super-hero fans, and Hunger Games was written for sci-fi fans that like dark future sci-fi.

I recommend reading the first one.

Alternate suggestion -- Read "Uglies" by Scott Westerfield. That's a pretty decent series too with the same sort of feel and a little social commentary buried in the story.

"The premise is ridiculous to obiwanobiwan because he doesn't like science fiction"

OBIWAN doesn't like science fiction, you say...OBIWAN? ;)

I do, and in fact, I'd like to see MORE of it included in "The Canon of Western Literature."

Frankenstein's in there, which sort of counts, and some H.G. Wells and Jules Verne...

But Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, in particular, really need more recognition and anthologizing.

Fahrenheit 451, classic...The Martian Chronicles, classic...Asimov's short stories, classic...haven't read his "Foundation" so I can't speak to that, but as I've heard great things about it and I already respect him greatly as an author, I'm sure they're worthy of inclusion on that list...

And while I think the series itself really spiraled out of control--I'm not a fan of series in general, with some notable exceptions, like LOTR, which is really more like one really long book split into 3, or arguably the first "series" ever, The Iliad and Odyssey, which compliment one another, and then you can add The Aeneid in there to further enhance it--I think "Ender's Game" is probably one of the best books written in the last 30/40 years or so in American Lit, and REALLY needs more attention than it already has...

Not so much for the whole battle aspect of it, and all the sci-fi elements, but just for the sheer seriousness and piecing look it has into ethics and psychology, and child psychology in particular...

I'd say Orson Scott Card very possibly portrayed the adolescent-yet-mature thoughts and feelings of children like the Wiggins and Bonzo more accurately than most other authors.

PLUS...

As everyone here knows, I'm a huge Star Trek fan, and I love The Twilight Zone..."The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is another work that not only needs serious attention but could very possibly be a breakout classic of our age if we come to have a more secular and anti-theistic world, a LOT of good jabbing at theism and the whole conceit of the supposed-importance of humanity in there...

And then there's my ongoing project of watching through the Doctor Whos...which has been hit and miss, but I'll concede I'm happy I listened to folks here and gave it a shot, it still has plenty of times where it annoys the hell out of me where they play so fast and loose with the logic that convenience overtakes logic and character development and "It's DW, just go with it" is used as a Get Out Of Jail card far too much, but for all that, on the flip side, when it works, it REALLY works, and Troughton, Tom Baker, and David Tennant in particular have made me glad to watch and own a couple (I bought a 3-DVD set of the first 3 stories with Hartnell, have yet to watch them, curious how this all starts...)

But I digress.

I CLEARLY do not have a problem with sci-fi, was the point of that long ramble-fest. :)

I have a problem with:

1. Book series in general, albeit with some exceptions
2. Cases where "sci-fi" becomes another word for "magic" and just allows whatever to occur
3. When logic is thrown out the window and I'm just supposed to go with it and it's NOT played for laughs (hence why THHGTTG gets a pass, it doesn't take itself too seriously)
4. When pulp works are placed on the same level as actual literary classics...there's a distinct difference between a work that's being written for fans and a work that's "actual" literature, which I know raises some problems, but still, as you yourself, krellin, point out, Iron Man isn't exactly written with the intent of conveying some new and powerful philosophical or social message...it's to showcase a hero from a comic book, and not only is that fine, I would again go so far as to say that it's not even a disqualifying factor to ave it considered as "art"--I'm not sure if it should have WON, but I was in with the group who said "The Dark Knight" at least deserved a token nomination for Best Picture, it went above and beyond the material it's building upon...

So I'm not asking "Why are The Hunger Games even being read by such fools, they should all be at home sipping tea and reading Chaucer or Eliot or Shakespeare," I'm asking "Why are even those in the intellectual community hailing this as one of those works that transcends the popular culture barrier and is being considered as "serious" literature on par with "1984?" Is that justified...or is it hype?"

@obi

What the shit are you getting so worked up about?

It's a god-damn young adult novel published by Scholastic. If you're interested, read it; it should only take a day or two.

How have you gotten so worked up over this?

Obi, I haven't read the book, so I can't attest to its quality, but I've heard some pretty good things about it and I think you need to read more of a page of a book before you can judge it. If you don't want to read it, so be it, but stop complaining about it without giving it a chance.

"1. Cases where "sci-fi" becomes another word for "magic" and just allows whatever to occur"



"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."--Arthur C. Clarke

: )

@abge You have to admit that obi has a point there. Can you honestly say you don't get tired of dilithium crystals and inertial dampers?

That last post was tongue-in-cheek

I actually find ST to be incredibly tedious for just that reason.

Now, ghug... Obi is a bigger Trek fan than Star Wars fan. Telling him Treknowledgy is like magic and pointing out the Deus Ex MAchina of Trek is bound to get his panties in a bunch.

The premise of most works of literature sound ridiculous.

A bunch of dwarves and a wizard force a homebody to go help them steal treasure from a dragon.

And the sequel of : Random people from various races band together to toss a magic ring in a volcano.

I love the English major judging a book by its cover and first page.

@abgemacht:

Another case of the Internet not carrying the tone of the words needed...

I'm not worked up about it, just severely curious; I'm used to these sort of series-books catching on with young adults, but this one got a lot of professors and higher-ups into it, and I was curious if there was a distinct difference between this and, say, HP or Twilight, or if it just got lucky.

Also...

YEAH...Trek-science CAN get sort of "we-need-this-to-happen-for-the-plot-just-go-with-it"-esque, but it does have some elements that are at least approaching plausible/go off an existing theory, and more importantly...

I'd say most f not all "good" Star Trek episodes/films don't rely on sci-fi as a magical Deux Ex Machina like that.

The Wrath of Khan?
No.
The Best of Both Worlds?
Data plugs into the Bog Collective, makes sense, machine to machine, no big logical leap...
The City on the Edge of Forever?
A bit, but it goes off of "The Time Machine" logic...

All of those, all the "good" Trek material, it really focuses on the story and characters to drive the tech, not the other way around, the tech doesn't provide a magical way out, and you could almost remove the tech and still have the conflict.

Same with the good episodes of DW I've seen--

Remove the tech aspect of it, and Tom Baker deciding whether killing all the Daleks to prevent their genocides is a genuine philosophical and ethical dilemma, sort of a "Child Hitler" dilemma...

Only instead of a wee Austrian boy we have The Most Evil Trashcans Ever! :p

So, no, Draug, it doesn't get my tights in a twist...

Because BAD Trek episodes DO work that way...

Anyone who's seen Voyager or Enterprise knows what I'm talking about, where "Quantum" can mean ANYTHING, to the point where I'm going "Yeah...I might be just trying to pass a stats class here, but somehow, I don't think quantum allows you to travel to every point of the universe simultaneously while accelerating up to infinite velocity--think about that one for a second--and that turns you into newts...and then quantum used as medicine somehow undoes all of that in a simple cut off-screen."

;)

"The premise of most works of literature sound ridiculous."

Some do...but not most, I'd say:

Two youngsters fall in love though their families hate one another? (Cliche, not absurd)
Three Brothers in Tsarist Russia explore social classes and come to question God?
A boy runs away from an abusive father, takes on a slave as a friend, and goes on the run?
A girl's noble ancestry screws her rural-self over and an affair ends up leading to her death?
A woman can't relate sexually to her disabled husband and seeks to have and affair?
Two men and two women travel across Europe with homosexual feelings and a love triangle?
A town convicting a black man on a rape charge due to the racism in Jim Crow Alabama?
A man makes a fortune selling booze in Prohibition NYC and his quest for the American Dream and a lost love kills him in the end?

And plenty more....... :)

"I love the English major judging a book by its cover and first page."

Well, in fairness, I haven't judged it, I'm asking WHY there's such a hype about it...

And I didn't have cash on me to buy the book when I saw it, I was just killing time waiting for my sister, and I saw it, read the first page, thought "Meh," and she was ready to go, so we went, and I put it back...I didn't exactly have hours on end to examine it... ;)

I guess that ridiculous is in the eye of the beholder, because many of those sound at least vaguely ridiculous to me. Also, through the magic of phrasing, you can make anything sound as ridiculous or not ridiculous as you want it to.

Well, I meant "ridiculous" there in a "it can happen" sense...

All those CAN happen...

But as for our stumbling across a Hobbit or Vulcan or Wookie any time soon... ;)

Which is part of the reason, right or wrong, Fantasy and Sci-Fi get the shaft a lot in terms of making its way into the Canon...

The one way you can get around that is if it's religious--if it's an Ancient Greek god or monster you let it go as a legend told in the time, and if it's Dante or Milton bringing up such implausible things as the Inferno-vision of Hell or Demons vs. Angels and God winning a war with Satan...

It gets a pass because...well, you don't screw with Christianity in the West without a fight, even still ;) (And to be fair, you don't really screw with Dante and Milton and Homer, either...even without the religious implausibility, their works are THAT good...Eliot famously said Dante and Shakespeare divide the Western world of Literature between them and "there is no third," but if there was, it'd have to be Homer, and Milton's right there, too, not just with his epic poem, but with his other works of poetry and his brilliant essays, he was one of the greatest and most controversial and even at times confrontational intellectuals of his day, almost like a Christopher Hitchens with poetic talent and from the opposite aisle of the theology debate.)

It is good reading for what it is, a young adult's book. It is better than the typical dystopian book because it addresses issues of war & poverty, not reducing every oppression to that of not having political power. Plus, unlike 1984,, it doesn't treat the subjugated population like unthinking dopes too stupid or brainwashed to rebel. The subjugation is more subtle. Divide & rule. The characters have much more moral complexity than in most white hat/black hat dystopian books.

The criticism it might get is that it feels the need to inject a bit too much teen romance. But then again it is geared for teens.

Also, I agree with all who point out the stupidity of someone asking questions about a book he hasn't bothered to read.

My advice, don't bother reading it, Obi. You already have it in your head that you won't like it, for whatever reason. So you won't like it, no matter how good it actually is.

I'll offer up my two cents briefly. I'll preface this with a few disclaimers that you can do with what you will. **I was an English major and a Library Science graduate student. **I would consider myself a soft-sci-fi/fantasy fan but stray from the hardcore stuff. **I'm equal parts elitist and populist in my tastes, I'd approximate.

That qualified, I genuinely think "The Hunger Games" books are pretty good. Having read both of the other YA super series, I can say that I am an unapologetic fan of the 'Harry Potter' series and a very, very apologetic semi-fan of the 'Twilight' series. Like any intelligent adult, I think the 'Twilight' series is absolute drek, featuring one of the worst female characters ever written and some truly awful writing. However, those books have an addicting quality that compels even the most hardened cynic to keep going, and I think that's *something.* Point is, 'The Hunger Games' series, while far superior to 'Twilight' in every way, is largely successful for that same intangible quality of addictiveness. High-brow, this is not. It's no "Ender's Game," but it's not 'Twilight' either.

All in all, I'd agree with Putin. Not to suggest that you couldn't enjoy it, but your skepticism seems pretty strong and I don't think these particular books would override your dominant tastes. You might find yourself liking it more than you'd predicted or more than you'd like to admit, but not enough to make yourself admit that you like it more than you'd admit...or something like that. That's my guess anyway. Only one way to find out.

I don't know. For a long time I thought that the first page of "Catcher in the Rye" was really stupid, so I resisted reading it, but I actually love the book.

Bah, I hated Catcher in the Rye.

But obi, I've read it. The prose isn't anything to write home about, but the plot in and of itself is very interesting. It's more a good story than good literature, if that means anything. It puts a very interesting spin on subjugation, propaganda, and a post-nuclear war America

Isn't there a case (in sf/fantasy) for knowing when to stop?

Tolkien realised that a sequel to LOTR was going nowhere, and stopped after a few pages. Rowling has called a halt to Potter. Both "franchises" retain their value.

Meanwhile, Feist's "Midkemia" and the dragons of PERN continue to multiply, with each book (imho) being weaker than its predecessor. As for the interminable "Sequels of Shannara"..

As for Star Trek and Dr Who - both have loyal fans who will put up with any sort of rubbish as long as it has the right badge on it, and have done for forty-odd years (with the exception of the splendid tribbles!) .

I agree. Pern got so repetitious after a while that I had to stop after the first two trilogies - by that point, the story (and the story within the story that was the 2nd trilogy) had been told to a good conclusion. Hunger Games has reached an appropriate conclusion (and for what it's worth, the second book is the weak link in the trilogy. Fun read, this series, with decent ideas, but not absolutely classic. It should translate very nicely onto the big screen.)

Fantasy and sci-fi trilogies for young adults have exploded in the past decade. Some authors overdo it and become pulpmakers (Hellloooooo, Rick Riordan! And don't even say the name Pendragon.) Finding your stopping point can be tricky, also. Joseph Delaney is finally killing off the Spooks series at book 13, next year. Orson Scott Card wrote the great Ender series, but then started rehashing side characters and....feh. Garth Nix did well to end the Old Kingdom/Abhorsen series after three, but the Keys to the Kingdom series just got way too convoluted. (All of these are series for young adults, but the same can be said for adult series. Anyone get through all of Proust?)

And the same for movies/TV. Compare the two Star Wars trilogies (better yet: don't!). Look at (or don't) the later STNG movies. Everything has an expiration date. Babylon 5 was getting tired, and J. Michael Straczynski did well to end where he did. Doctor Who desperately needed time off after Doctor #5 (or 6?), and came back refreshed. Some never get the time they need or deserve (Firefly?!?). Enjoy them for what they are, and move on when the time comes. Right?

"Babylon 5 was getting tired, and J. Michael Straczynski did well to end where he did."

Except he didn't. He tried to continue with a spin-off series about the rangers. It was OK, but not great with the only real interesting character being a technomage. And he did a half dozen TV movies, some good some otherwise. But B5, as a standalone series, did end perfectly. Of course, it's because he had that story in his head from the start.

I thought Crusade had promise, but it got badly interfered with. But I never saw that as a continuation, but as a separate entity. Still, the opening credits kick butt (even if they're lifted from late Season 2 in B5.)

Well, it didn't.

It was initially conceived as a 5 season arc. Then word came down that it would end after season 4. So he crammed the whole end of the Shadow War AND Earth/Clark Conflict into the end of Season 4. Then they decided to let him do a fifth season, which is why s5 always feels a bit disjointed from the rest with the telepath war and such.

Then Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise, and TNG were all unique entities as well. Crusade was set in the same universe during the same time frame. It is 100% analagous to TNG, DS9, and Voyager (especially Voyager).

Points taken. It's nice to learn something new. Thanks, guys!

(But I still think that the Star Trek Enterprise show should be shoved into a galaxy far, far away - like Delta quadrant far!)

Does someone here know the song of ice and fire?

Hunger games is a good read. Once I started it I couldn't put it down, reading it at work, and then the two sequels. There are some flaky aspects, and reality suspension, bit I enjoyed it until the end of the third book, which was a colossal let down and left me pissed off.

The books involve sort of a "running man / American idol" media hype to an annual battle to the death between 24 children for amusement and to assert the oligarchy's obsessive control over masses. Take it for what it is.

I've read "A Song of Ice and Fire."

hunger games got a good bit of criticism for similarity to battle royale.

The Hunger Games are good books. I read them and enjoyed them. But there is a difference between a good book and a great book. They are good books; no one denies it. But they are not great books to be considered at the level of good books such as "War of the Worlds" and Arthur C. Clark's stories and books with a SciFi feel similar to them. For they may not be pure SciFi but hav that feel.

I've read "A Song of Ice and Fire."

***Oops. Double Post : |

How did you double-post hours apart...? O.o

Embarrassing, right? I refreshed the page and it went through again apparently.

:DDDDDD
if you want to read a REALLY good series, you have to read a song of ice and fire...thats REALLY epic...literally ^.^

I read The Hunger Games at my daughter's request. For background, I'm a big sci-fi fan, and would agree with a lot of obi's list earlier (I'd rate Orson Scott Card as probably my favourite author).

I'd agree with what a couple of folks earlier have said - it's a decent read. Interesting plot, with some depth. It is written for teens. Having gotten part-way in, I wanted to finish it. I definitely liked the background, and the way the characters were shaped by it. It felt like good sci-fi in that it took some ideas and explored the "what if .." side of them through some characters you could relate to (did that make sense ? Good sci-fi IMHO is about the effect of something different to our world on the people who live in that world). It did remind me of The Running Man (the book rather than the movie).

I'm looking forward to the movie.