"The Hunger Games" Suzanne Collins

J.K.Rowling's recent success has seen an absolute torrent of material in the fantasy genre for teens or young adults, but not so much in the way of science fiction.  Suzanne Collins is filling that void very nicely with the first in a trilogy that came a as a recommendation to me recently, and it was thoroughly enjoyable.

Suzanne Collins has imagined a future that seems much smaller than our, a sparsely populated post apocalypse north america where the majority of people are downtrodden and controlled.  One of the vehicles for that control involves a yearly draw which all the citizens in the districts, the areas that supply the capitol with goods and the stuff of life, must enter from the age of 12 for 7 years.  The draw decides who fights in the hunger games, a many day filmed combat to the death with a boy and  a girl picked from each of the 12 districts. The story follows a young girl, who steps forward to take the place of her 12 year old sister (yes they do make 12 year olds fight to the death) and becomes a tribute.

This first part of the trilogy is a story of good versus evil, but never falls into the trap of becoming trite.  It seems to me that it is the beginning of some kind of revolt against the Capitol, though it is nicely understated.  It also explores themes of love and growth. It manages to achieve what Heinlein achieved with his teen fiction, a strong empathy for the emerging adults as they shoulder an adults burden.  I particularly like the distance that is kept from the real villains of the piece, the rulers of Capitol that push children together to fight to the death.  This is an excellent book and I look forward to reading the following parts of the trilogy.