Expect a review of the Millennium book trilogy here this weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and I can’t wait to get back in the swing of things!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Press September 14, 2008
ISBN: 0439023483
 
In a post-apocalyptic world, sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen is the sole provider for her family after the untimely death of her father some years before. With a mentally ill mother and a preadolescent sister, Katniss has three mouths to feed in District 12, where food is strictly rationed by the Peacekeepers, a force that answers directly to the controlling capitol, Panem. The capitol controls all twelve Districts by means of food rationing, force, and a diabolical practice called The Hunger Games. Each year, one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen are randomly selected via name drawing to represent their district in a gladiator-like challenge between the other eleven districts and each other. Only one “tribute”, as they’re called, can win the games and return home alive. Viewing of the games by every citizen is mandatory. As a means of control, the capitol has landed on a very effective one.
 
Katniss eventually becomes the female tribute for her District, opposite a boy named Peeta Marak who has a special connection to her past. Now Katniss must fight for her life, and the lives of her mother and sister, while struggling with the strange mix of emotions she has for Peeta. The other 22 tributes aren’t anything to ignore, either. Luckily, Katniss has plenty of experience with surviving, thanks to several years’ worth of hunting and gathering food for her family when they couldn’t afford it any other way.
 
The plot for The Hunger Games is simplistic. You know the outcome after the first couple of chapters. But it’s the journey towards that ending that kept me reading. Katniss is not your typical sixteen year old YA heroine. She’s tough, untrusting, and capable. Her mind is like a steel trap, snatching up every bit of information available to her and never letting go, even though it might seem useless at the time. The skills she gained and added to from her father and her friend Gale serve her extremely well and you never get the impression that she’s waiting to be rescued by Peeta or anyone else. Although from a backwater District that is the lowest on the hierarchical scale of this civilization, she quickly grasps at least a basic understanding of the political landscape when she is thrust into the limelight at the capitol, indicating a high level of intelligence that goes beyond knowing outdoor survival skills.
 
When it comes to Peeta, she’s both calculating and confused, but she doesn’t let her confusion distract her from her goal of winning and returning home covered in enough riches to feed her family for the rest of their lives. In order to gain sponsorship from wealthy patrons on the outside who can send aid to her inside the arena, her story must be compelling, and if that means lying, acting, or killing, she’ll do it. Peeta himself is a fairly shallow character; we learn little about him other than that he carries strong feelings for Katniss and has since they were very young. He seems to have no other goals or dreams in life, which is disappointing. Katniss deserves a potential partner of equal complexity. Her friend and hunting partner from District 12, Gale, is much more interesting but has very little face time in this first book. Hopefully we’ll see more of him in Catching Fire, the second installment in the trilogy.
 
An interesting part of the story is the technological disparity between the capitol, Panem, and District 12. In District 12, Katniss hunts with a bow and arrows that she doesn’t even know how to successfully duplicate, the mining that is the District’s contribution to the capitol is still done by humans who eventually sicken and die from coal dust poisoning, and people are regularly seen starving in the streets. But in Panem, they have hovercraft, food replicators, and highly advanced medical technology, as well as the ability to control at least select areas of weather and climate. One shot is enough to cure a gangrenous infection, and they have rejuvenating drugs that can even erase scars and blemishes from your skin. It’s obvious that yet another form of control by Panem is the withholding of technology from the outer Districts, but not much is explained about why. We learn little about the government and why they’re in power in The Hunger Games, except a brief mention of a rebellion several generations ago, but I have a feeling more will be forthcoming in the next two books.
 
This passes the Bechdel Test, although it’s a close thing. Katniss has little contact with women after the games begin, and her main mentors and friends are generally men. There are some characters of color, but not prominent ones, and there are no LGBT characters or even mention of the possibility of being gay. Diversity overall is severely lacking, although the fact that as many girls as boys are entered into the games without favoritism is a point in the book’s favor. The book is frank about the deaths of the children during the games, but the descriptions are not overly graphic.
 
Class is also very important in the story, with Katniss’s low class upbringing being an asset to her at times, as she is able to withstand hunger, pain, and adverse weather conditions better than the tributes from wealthier families and Districts, who’ve always had enough to eat and shelter over their heads. Could this be considered glamorizing the poor? I don’t think so, as Katniss tells the story of almost starving to death after her father died, and it’s obvious that she’d much rather be wealthy and not hunt, then risk her life and her family’s lives every day out in a forbidden forest. The tributes from wealthier areas have advantages too, in that they have reached their full growth due to enough food, they’ve had training with multiple weapons, and their sponsors on the outside are wealthier and better able to help within the games. It’s also stated that lower class Districts like 12 rarely last long in the games, due mainly to their underfed and under trained state.
 
The Hunger Games is a good story, not overly original but with a compelling main character that I’ll definitely read more of. I’d like to see the politics develop more, and where the relationships between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale will go from this point. Some more diversity would also be very much appreciated, but considering this is a series that has already been finished, I’ll have to take what’s already been included. If you’re looking for a good easy read with an interesting female lead, this is a good book for that.

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Over the centuries, they’ve resorted to stealing away the babies and young children of the people who live above ground, in order to raise them as “changelings” or Children of the Cuckoo, human servants to carry out their business in the sun. The Hounds teach them loyalty, fear, and obedience, as well as contempt for other humans and a taste for meat of any kind.

Any kind at all.

Soldier is one such Child of the Cuckoo. Stolen as a baby, she has no recollection of her life before the Hounds, and is solely and wholly dedicated to them, even as they repeatedly put her life in danger and she sinks into the despair of alcoholism. Soldier is not a traditionally likable character. Her attitude is off the charts and her mouth is in the gutter. She is a foul-mouthed, tough-as-nails kind of woman, who prefers to shoot first, shoot some more, and forget about asking the corpse any questions later. But she does get things done, although usually in the messiest way possible.

She’s rude and vicious to her changeling partners, Saben White and Odd Willie Lothrop, and has no compunctions about shooting down innocent bystanders if they happen to catch a glimpse of something they shouldn’t. Her mentor, the Bailiff, is the only one that can control her, but she’s not so sure the Bailiff is trustworthy anymore, if he ever was. She also has the ability to rewind time, a trick that has saved her life more than once. But there are strange gaps in her memory, and when a job goes horribly wrong, she starts to get the feeling someone is trying to kill her and hide a big secret at the same time.

The confusion Kiernan writes for her is palpable, and half the time it felt as though I had as little idea of what was going on as Soldier did. Every friend is an enemy, and people who should be her enemies turn around to lend a hand at her most desperate moments, causing even more distress. Being a woman neither spares nor impairs her during dangerous moments, and she comes across as strictly asexual, a change from the standard Urban Fantasy shtick. As she tries to complete her assignment, reign in her rogue partner Saben, and figure who and why someone is trying to kill her, not to mention what Emmie Silvey has to do with the Hounds and her, I couldn’t help but pull for Soldier, even though I may disagree some of her methods. She was raised by alien, man-eating ghouls, after all.

Emmie Silvey is eight years old, and the color of her eyes isn’t the only strange thing about her. She’s a precocious and intelligent child, with a very literal mind and a general uncanny ability to make everyone around her uncomfortable, either with her yellow eyes or her blunt questions and answers. Emmie’s wish is for her eyes to be green, her dad Deacon to be sober, and her stepmother Sadie to come live at home with them again. When she meets a strange woman who tells her to beware of horses, Emmie brushes off the encounter. Afterwards, a girl named Pearl starts visiting Emmie in her dreams, and soon reveals secrets about Emmie’s past that shatter every foundation of her life.

The Hounds of Cain want something from Emmie, and they’ll do anything to get it. She is forced to flee in search of Soldier, with the help of Pearl and a woman trapped in a dream of the desert. Emmie doesn’t enjoy the magic she encounters, and some of the scenes she’s forced to see would scar a war veteran, let alone a child. But she powers through, and even amidst all the chaos, manages to find answers to her million-and-one questions about who she is and why everyone is so interested in her.

An eight year old character can be hard to write, but Kiernan manages to cover any defaults with the pre-requisite “precocious” label. If Emmie sounds old beyond her years in some scenes, well, she’s a special kid. There are times, however, when it’s obvious that Kiernan can portray a typical child just fine, as Emmie often comes off as whiney and hardheaded, usually at the most inappropriate times in the story. When she and Soldier finally meet, it’s like oil and water, or perhaps gas and a match. Emmie is an interesting character, and one I’d like to see again in future books. She’s also a bibliophile, frequently quoting lines from children’s and young adult books.

Most of the main characters and several minor ones are women, so this book easily passes the Bechdel Test, with conversations and encounters touching on every aspect of the story. The violence is graphic in some places, but not over-used, and there are implied rape scenes, but nothing explicit, and not exclusive to the female characters. Pearl is referred to as brown, and there’s a brief conversation where she mentions that her mother was a Native American princess. Another character is black, but the color is from an incident in her past, not by birth. Otherwise, the cast seems fairly whitewashed. There are several derogatory references to LGBT characters in the book, but it’s par for the course as far as the language the characters use. A main character likes boys, but it’s more about possible pedophilia then being gay. Not the most diverse, but I have to give props to the bad-assery of all the women involved.

The main problem I had with the book was the ending, which I obviously won’t give away, but after sleeping on it, I see that Kiernan faithfully sticks to her characters’ natures and personalities, even when it would have been easy to write a happy ending. I don’t necessarily agree with it or have to like it, but it feels right for the story. I would definitely recommend this book, although I hope for more diversity and a smidgen less profanity in future releases. There are apparently two previous books in the series, Low Red Moon and Threshold, but reading them wasn’t necessary to understand Daughter of the Hounds, which was written to be a stand-alone.

If you’re looking for Dark Fantasy or Urban Fantasy without the romance, Daughter of Hounds delivers. Strong, dangerous female characters, smart, serious kids, and an ambiguous but thought-provoking ending that will make you wish for more books by Caitlin R. Kiernan.
 

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Check out Caitlin R. Kiernan’s website or follow her on Twitter @auntbeast

First: I stopped by Half Price Books on Saturday to use up my giftcards from Christmas. The haul was pretty sweet.

Daughter of Hounds by Caitlin R. Kiernan
Spellbent by Lucy A. Snyder
Fun, Inc. By Tom Chatfield

Three books on knitting accessories, each only three dollars, and Writer’s Digest Guide to Magazine Article Writing, because hey, why not?

Second: Some blogging resolutions. I plan to post at least every other day, with at least one of those being a review. I’m also expanding my reading selection, so expect to see more non-fiction reviewed, especially some feminist works I picked up during my Women’s Studies class last semester. For another example, Fun, Inc. is a non-fiction book on the future of the gaming industry, something I’m very much interested in.

I’ll also be writing more about current events in publishing, writing, and editing, particularly about the issues near and dear to A Working Title, i.e. sexism, racism, and LGBT discrimination. Hopefully that will amount to at least one article a week.

On top of ALL that, I’m going to start reviewing video games from A Working Title perspective, just like the movies I’ve done for Heroine Content.

This is definitely an ambitious set of resolutions, but after taking almost a year off, I’m back in the saddle and ready to go the distance.

Happy 2011!

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I also received some great book recommendations from @seananmcguire via twitter today. I received a giftcard for Half Price Books and wanted some suggestions. Seanan definitely delivered:

The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan

Spellbent by Lucy Snyder

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (I’ve read but not reviewed this one.)

I’ve been seeing Caitlin’s name around, associated with one of her other novels, Silk, and I’m looking forward to reading both. The blurbs remind me strongly of Slights by Kaaron Warren that I read and reviewed earlier this year. I’ll be interested to see what they’re really like.