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This  “companion novella” to the Kris Longknife saga is set at the same time as Furious and follows the efforts of Special Agent Foile to assist Kris Longknife in her efforts to stop her grandfather’s trade flotilla.
Note: Shepherd has previously written about our heroine’s great-grandfather Raymond under his real name, Mike Moscoe.
Fine reading assuming have read the Kris Longknife books up to this point.
Following the events in Daring and Welcome Home/Go Away, Kris Longknife has been sent to metaphorical Siberia, nominally commanding a squadron of fast attack boats but in reality having to stay out of the way. She has fallen off the wagon and spends her nights consuming large quantities of whiskey. The details of the Voyage of Exploration have been swept under the rug.
Kris’s grandfather, billionaire magnate Alex, has decided to put together a trade fleet to make contact with the enemy at the other side of the galaxy. Oddly, the first half of the book is a caper story with Kris trying to get a face to face with grandpa. The second half is courtroom drama as she must answer for her actions.
I found the story itself to be very disjointed. The whole caper was absurd, though it had its moments of fun. Things picked up considerably in the second half, and I now once again look forward to the next installment. If nothing else, the ending of Furious is a bit cliffhanger.
Note: Shepherd has previously written about our heroine’s great-grandfather Raymond under his real name, Mike Moscoe.
Deep Space takes place twenty years after Singularity. Admiral Koenig is now the president of the North American Union, and Trevor Grey is the captain of the Star Carrier America. Trouble is brewing as a mysterious object appears at the fringes of known space, destroying the scout force sent to investigate it. The Sh’daar resume hostilities by attacking a human colony. Finally, the Confederation is in trouble as the EU seeks to eliminate North American Union independence. Naturaly, the America and its fighters are in the thick of things.
At its core this is a decent continuation to the the Star Carrier series. The story is fine, and the action, especially in the second half, is pretty decent. Unfortunately the book is hampered by seemingly endless repetition of the same factoids of history. How many times do we need to know about the Sh’daar’s obsession for transcendence, the way the Chinese Hegemony bombarded Earth, how the periphery of the North American Union is swampland inhabited by primitives? This book would have been much better if Douglas had edited out most of his repetitive infodumps.
In a small town in Maine, High School teacher Jake Epping is asked by his acquaintance, diner owner Al, to come to the diner. When he arrives, Al has aged years and has gone from healthy to terminally ill in cancer. It turns out that Al has found a sort of time portal in his pantry. The portal leads to 1958. Al’s plan was to live in the past until 1963, and then kill Lee Harvey Oswald, John F. Kennedy’s assassin. Al believes this would change history in important ways, preventing the Vietnam war and other horrors. Unfortunately Al contracts cancer and cannot complete his mission. Is the past pushing back against those who try to change history? Al returns back to 2011. Things have changed, but not enough, and when the portal is used again, the past resets to how things were. Before dying, Al dragoons Jake into completing the mission. He cannot just kill Oswald a few years before the assassination attempt, however. He must be sure that the man is acting alone, and not part of one of the many purported conspiracies surrounding the Kennedy assassination. Thus starts Jake’s adventure in the past, where many things are different, yet many things are the same.
Mr. King’s research into the late fifties and early sixties is extensive and meticulous. The fact that people smoked constantly and everywhere is an obvious factoid, but the differences go much deeper. From food prices to idioms to the fact that bathrooms in the American south were still segregated, it is fascinating to discover how very unfamiliar current Americans would be with society and its mores in “The Land of Ago”. Â Jake’s quest takes him on many side tracks as he must become an inhabitant of the era. He makes friends and even falls in love, but he cannot reveal his true purpose. He must be careful lest his use of modern idiom mark him as strange. He must also keep his focus on the objective through five years of “ordinary” life peppered with research and the intermittent stalking of Oswald.
King’s mastery of style, pacing and character building shines in the prose. Despite its considerable length (eight hundred and forty-nine pages for those who still read on paper) it is not a slog to read through. Even trivial adventures become interesting when written so well. I did feel, however, that the book had perhaps been unnecessarily padded, or more accurately insufficiently cut to size. While many events serve to build the character of Jake, they might have been excised without hurting the story, and perhaps things would have moved forward a bit faster. Having said that, the many vignettes of life in the past are fascinating, often funny and as often horrifying to more modern sensibilities.
Without revealing the ending, I will say that I was somewhat disappointed that King chose to reveal some part of the “inner workings” of the time travel mechanism. While as a science fiction fan, I typically want to find out about such things, perhaps in this case it would have been better if it had simply stayed a magical mystery without explanation. I did not feel that it really added to the story, and the point made through the reveal had already been made.
A free-standing 
continuation of The General Series, this book takes place on the world of Duisberg, a fallen human colony reduced to pre-industrial times. Due to an extremely dry climate, civilization is concentrated around a single river, much like it is by the Nile in Egypt. Outside The Valley, nomadic barbarians roam the badlands. In an interesting twist, a malfunctioning planetary management computer is attempting to keep things in stasis, eking out survival for humanity, if not progress and success. As in “The Chosen” and “The Reformer/The Tyrant”, Center and Raj Whitehall’s minds arrive on an interstellar probe to change things. Soon they take control of young Abel, child of the local military commander.
While it is not quite up to the standards of previous installments, particularly “The Chosen”, it is nevertheless a fun read for the military science fiction buff. Technological and geographical constraints are skillfully used to create challenges. The characters themselves are not very fleshed out, but serve their purpose well enough.
Steve Smith is not a survivalist in the “nutter” sense of the word. He is a former special forces soldier who takes what most would consider excessive precautions against various “end of the world” scenarios. His teenage daughters are well versed in weapons usage and know how to pack for the apocalypse. When Steve’s brother Tom sends him a coded message that the zombie apocalypse is coming (yes really!), he sets in motion a well-prepared plan to get his family out of harm’s way. Zombie apocalypse wasn’t one of the more likely scenarios, but he can deal. His thirteen year old daughter Faith is reasonably happy though. She has always dreamed of a chance to kill zombies.
This is an unusual zombie novel since Mr. Ringo has actually taken the time to make the zombie trope somewhat, and I use the word loosely, realistic. Your classic zombie might as well be a magical being. No matter how much zombie-ism is made out as a disease, zombies would still need to get energy from somewhere, and evacuate waste. “Normal” zombies don’t poop. Mr. Ringo neatly solves the evacuation issue by having the tailored zombie virus induce a very strong itching feeling when it strikes, giving the afflicted an uncontrollable urge to strip just before they go on the more traditional murdering cannibalistic rampage.
As usual with Mr. Ringo, the novel oozes dry humor. Some of the one liners felled in the middle of zombie killing action are laugh out loud funny, and the whole thing is extremely entertaining despite the subject matter. The “Last Concert in New York” scene is particularly quirky and absurd. I look forward to coming installments.
Jamey Barlowe is a teenager with such weak bone structure that he cannot walk unsupported. This is because he was born on the Moon. He is roused from sleep and hurriedly taken to a space launch facility along with his sisters. The Vice President of the United States has come to power due to the mysterious death of the President. As becomes apparent, she is a bit of a nut and, among other things, wants to imprison Jamey’s space scientist father due to his signing a petition regarding the space program. Jamey and one of his sisters are sent to safety on the massive Moon base Apollo, established to mine Helium-3Â for power generation. And so begins Jamey’s adventure, with a looming confrontation with the United States on the horizon.
It dawned on me after a few pages that this was Young Adult fiction. After a few more pages I noticed that it was clearly inspired by Heinlein’s “juveniles”. Not a bad place to start. Â The story is a not too complex bildungsroman. Jamey meets girl. Jamey’s best friend meets girl. They have to acclimatize to life on the Moon. They have military training on the Moon. The base is attacked.
It is a lightweight read even for a Young Adult novel, and despite the elaborate Moonbase setting some things kept nagging at me. Despite Steele’s effort to introduce at least some modern trappings, it seemed as if these kids were stuck with current technology and the social mores of the 1980s. Given that the novel takes place in 2097, I think it is safe to assume that there would be more advances than a Moonbase and some cell phone technology that could come on the market in 2014. I also wondered why people still listen to the radio in cars (which at least drive themselves) the way they do today, or why they have landlines. Another point was that Steele confused weight and mass in zero gravity. He might just have been trying to simplify but even Young Adult science fiction should get it right.
Due to my dubious status as a prolific reviewer on Goodreads and my interest in military science fiction, I received a message out of the blue from one Marc Jacobsen, USAF officer and author of â€The Lords of Harambeeâ€. He asked me to review his book if I was interested. I was both excited and apprehensive. Previous forays into self-published novels have given me the probably unwarranted impression that they are either outstanding or awful. This one did nothing to change my views.
The Lords of Harambee takes place on a human colony world in an indefinite but not too far future. In a cruel irony on its Kenyan name of Harambee, signifying cooperation towards a common goal, the world is a hell-hole with a fortnight-long diurnal cycle, meaning one week of freezing cold night followed by one week of infernally hot day. To make matters worse, the atmosphere is not breathable. Inhabitants must wear breather masks fed by compressors when outside atmosphere controlled buildings. Most of the world is desert with the occasional lava plain.
Initially, Harambee seems almost a stereotypical third world backwater, with an ethnic minority controlling power and money while lording it over a poor but backwards ethnic majority. The alert reader may recognize this situation from the recent history of Iraq. Meanwhile, powerful off-word corporate interests control mining interests. The same alert reader may recognize this situation from, well, any number of places around the world.
The story centers on General Michael Sheridan, head of the peacekeeping mission on Harambee, his estranged daughter Claire, naïve activist (at least initially) and Julian Marshall, special forces operative with doubts.  As things come together for bipartisan talks between the ethnic groups, perhaps even followed by democratic elections, civil war and genocide erupt, in large part due to meddling by foreign governments. In the mayhem that follows, off-word military, political and corporate interests do their best to screw things up while the “lords†of Harambee do their best to kill each other and commit atrocities.
If I had to describe this novel in one word, it would be powerful. It starts almost innocently, with a tired General Sheridan, stuck in a backwater assignment with chronically insufficient resources, starting to see glimmers of hope on the horizon. And then all hell breaks loose, and continues breaking loose. Mr. Jacobsen very skillfully navigates the reader through a rather intricate plot while keeping the human experience at the center. And what an experience it is. The descriptions of brutal killing, rape and suffering are gripping. I kept thinking that things could not get any worse, and then they did. And yet, strong but flawed characters kept fighting in an obvious but heartfelt metaphor for humanity. The desert and desolation of Harambee as illustration of the humanity and its suffering was especially apt. The fact that the action scenes are excellently written, the characters are interesting and the occasional humor is very dry doesn’t hurt.
Even if The Lords of Harambee is science fiction, it should interest anyone who wants to learn about the effects of foreign policy in “third world†countries. It does send a powerful message, mostly about things not being as simple from thousands of miles away as they are to those “on the groundâ€.
Gully Foyle, spaceship crewman, is stranded on his broken ship for months, certain he is already dead. Another ship passes by but ignores his signals. Gully goes a bit crazy. He is rescued by a strange tribe of space habitat dwellers, and their antics drive him more crazy. Finally, he makes it back to Earth and civilization. He starts an obsessive quest for revenge against the crew and owners of the ship that did not rescue him. He makes a fortune through shady means and changes his name in order to infiltrate the rich strata of society in the service of his quest.
Human society is not as we know it, but profoundly changed by the discovery of the innate human ability to “jaunte”, or teleport, with the power of the mind. Physical layers of security such as walls have little meaning unless the entrances are defended with “jaunte-proof” labyrinths designed to be impossible to memorize.
This science fiction classic is in many ways an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo. Foyle’s obsession is apparent throughout the book. He certainly is not a likeable character, but very interesting. He uses any means necessary to achieve his goal, despite the suffering that this causes in others.
Despite the fascinating aspects of a changed society and the quite engaging story, I found the second half of the book to be hopelessly dull. Mr. Bester changes the rules to fit the plot, with new strange characters that have just the right abilities that Foyle can use appearing just at the right time. The book also jumps from scene to scene in quite a jarring fashion, with less than the necessary introduction. The whole thing felt quite disjointed in fact. I really tried but finally gave up about four fifths of the way through.
A few hundred years from now, humanity has colonized the Solar System. Mars and Earth (the “Inner Planets”) are the developed juggernauts of society, with Earth crowded by a population of thirty billion. The rest of humanity lives on various moons and asteroids (the “Outer Planets”), hollowed out or domed for habitation. Tension between the Inner Planets and the fringe has been constant for centuries, with the fringe being gouged on taxes and kept cowed by the massively powerful Mars-Earth combined navies.
The story is told from the viewpoint of two characters, freighter officer Holden, born on Earth, and Ceres police officer Miller, born and raised on Ceres itself. Holden’s ship is attacked for (initially) undetermined reasons and along with a few other survivors he is now a fugitive from powerful interests. Miller is asked to investigate the disappearance of one Juliette Andromeda Mao, scion of a rich family who left the fold to hang with the semi-terrorist Outer Planets Alliance, a group dedicated to independence from the Inner Planets. Miller’s search soon leads him to an encounter with Holden, as they both try to figure out who is inciting a shooting war between the Outer Planets and the Inner Planets. More importantly, what is the terrible plague that found Julie Mao; who is trying to use it and for what purpose?
The plot moves along quickly, with kick-ass action scenes worthy of a blockbuster movie. Miller’s slow descent into madness is contrasted with Holden’s transformation from naive boy scout to cynical player. The divergence of Inner Planet and Outer Planet society is finely described with tidbits sprinkled throughout the book; a story of frontier society trying to define itself. The supporting cast is wonderfully fleshed out, avoiding stereotypes and developing relationships realistically. The story itself twists in unexpected directions, with a grandiose “couldn’t see that coming” ending. Great space opera!
Collecting five of McMaster Bujold’s early works, Proto Zoa is a lovely little gem, even though the stories have all been published before. “Barter”, “Garage Sale” and “The Hole Truth” are cute little vignettes in a suburban setting, one of which is not even science fiction. Bujold’s skill at finding the amusing and the ironic amidst the mundane shines in these three stories. The novelette “Dreamweaver’s Dilemma” is ostensibly part of the Vorkosiverse, but only in as much as Beta Colony is referenced. Aftermaths is a nice vignette about the dead and their relationship with the living (or is it the other way around?). It later formed the epilogue for “Shards of Honor” but started life as a short story.
As a big fan of Lois McMaster Bujold, I loved this book despite its brevity.
After the debacle at the end of Threshold, our heroes plus the few survivors of the EU ship Odin are marooned on Europa, a moon of Jupiter thought to have a liquid ocean underneath a globe-spanning icecap. The first half of the book focuses mainly on survival, while the second deals with the exploration of the Europan icecap and the obligatory thrilling cliffhanger.
This book is almost a throwback to old school “explore the solar system” science fiction. The struggle for survival itself becomes the subject of examination and discussion, but without becoming boring. The Universe is light and cheery and full of wonder despite its many dangers. The fleshed out characters make things come alive. The dialogue may sometimes be cheesy, but it always feels authentic. Real people don’t always spout cool one-liners, and some real people love horrid puns. The physics are real and well researched; I have learned more about ice behavior in low pressure and temperature than I thought I needed to know, but it was interesting. As with the previous installment, the story was on the light side, especially the conspiracy subplot. Also as with the previous installment, I liked this book more than it probably deserved simply because it is a joy to be with the characters on their fantastic adventures.
The inhabitants of an extrasolar colony accidentally triggers a weapon system built into the star they orbit. With the help of archaeological records evidence, they can trace its creation back to an ancient race that inhabited the system. An expedition is sent to the mythical “Spider Star” in order to find a solution. The journey itself takes years, and when they arrive, everything is so very alien.
The premise is intriguing and fascinating. The plot itself is not half bad. Unfortunately the characters are uninspired cardboard cutouts and the read itself is fantastically dull. I really wanted to like this book but after about reading about two thirds of it I couldn’t bring myself to continue.
Literature scholar Brendon Doyle is hired to investigate a magical time portal back to 1880. He misses the return trip and must now use his knowledge of the time to survive.
This fantasy novel has many science fictional elements, for example the internally consistent time travel. The “stranded in time” theme is very strong, as Doyle struggles to first survive and then to foil his magician adversaries.
The year is 2044. Human civilization is hanging on by a thread. Recession, energy crisis, disillusionment, unemployment, starvation and poverty have reigned for decades. The only escape most people have is in a massive interactive simulation, the OASIS. The OASIS is also where most people work, a virtual universe with everything from shopping malls to space monsters. Thirteen year old Wade has grown up in a slum and has nothing to show for himself but being a geeky kid with some computer skills when OASIS co-founder and creator James Halliday dies, leaving his entire multi-billion dollar fortune and control of his company to the winner of an elaborate and mysterious quest throughout the OASIS. During the next five years, Wade becomes one of millions of “gunters”, short for “egg hunters”, trying to crack the quest and win the prize, fittingly an “Easter Egg”. This mostly involves ridiculously extensive research into the pop culture of the nineteen-eighties, Halliday’s favorite decade, to the point that Wade can recite every line of dialogue of every popular movie of the day, sing along to every hit song, and win at every old arcade game. He also knows the most obscure details of Halliday’s life. Then one day, Wade makes a breakthrough.
Ready Player One is a fast-paced, exciting, page-turning thrill-ride which proudly displays its early Cyberpunk roots. As Wade progresses on his quest, he encounters both allies and rivals. In particular, a large and ruthless multinational corporation is aiming to take control of the OASIS by running an entire division of gunters and battling for the prize. The majority of the action takes places in the OASIS, providing a stark contrast to the bleak and impoverished world outside. In the real world, people are jobless and homeless, and even debt slavery is often a better option than freedom since at least it provides room and board. In the virtual world, the poor but skilled can be wizards and warriors, paladins for justice or evil villains. The virtual world affects the real one in worrying ways, however, and domination of the real one is very much tied to winning the battle for the virtual one. For our recluse hero, this is a shocking and painful realization. He is mighty in the OASIS, but really only a geeky and powerless kid in the real world. The transformation of Wade’s real self to match the heroism of his avatar is the true underlying quest in the book.
It is clear Mr. Cline did a lot of research on eighties pop culture himself. The entire novel is one big orgy of fanservice, specifically aimed at those fans who grew up in the eighties. As an avid consumer myself of John Hughes movies, old computer games and era music, it pushed all the right buttons. The question this: can a person who is not at least casually versed in eighties pop culture truly appreciate it? I would say yes. Even without understanding the myriad pop culture references, it is a great adventure novel, and an excellent metaphor for our despondent times. Just be prepared for the massive geek-outs.
In the early 22nd Century, a body is found in the river Tyne in the northern English city of Newcastle. The murdered man is a North, one of hundreds of clone brothers in the immensely powerful and rich North family. But which one? Detective Sid Hurst is assigned to lead what soon becomes a massive investigation. Earth and its colonies are linked through instantaneous travel gateways, with undesirables and jobless shunted out to the colonies. Massive corporate interests loom over society. Taxation is so high that everyone has “secondary” accounts, a deep grey economy of bribes and favors shadowing what is reported to the government. As Sid investigates, the mystery of the dead North deepens, leading finally to a geophysical expedition looking for clues in the far-flung jungles of the world St. Libra, where mysteriously there is no animal life at all, only plant life.
Great North Road is a singleton book, but still retains Hamilton’s customary “big brick” format at over twelve hundred pages. The characters are many and the plot complex. The backdrop is detailed, with a rich backstory spanning decades. Strange societies and interesting people abound. Unlike most of Hamilton’s works, however, this one is very firmly grounded thematically in the contemporary world. Earth in the early 22nd Century seems stuck in a rut. There are technological advancements over today, certainly, but not as many as one would think. And definitely nothing that has changed the paradigm. The economy is still very much dependent on oil, albeit an artificial variant produced by genengineered algae. Government bureaucracy is powerful, massive, overwhelming and nonsensical. The ultra-rich are disconnected from normal society. The “failed capitalism” theme is powerful, a bit like that seen in the news today. Is this really the best way forward for society, or are humans meant for something more? And yet, forces are conspiring to break out from this path. Hope, as always, is a strong theme for Hamilton. And unlike in his big series, he manages to tie it all up neatly in the end.
In the latest book set in the Vorkosiverse, Miles is conspicuously absent barring an amusing cameo. The protagonist is instead Miles’s cousin and close friend Ivan Vorpatril, a favorite secondary character in many of the earlier books. Ivan is mostly known for his somewhat overbearing mother, social secretary to the Emperor, his high birth but unwillingness to get close to the corridors of power, and his many successive girlfriends, none serious. While on the planet Komarr assisting the Chief of Military Operations on an inspection, now Captain Ivan Vorpatril receives an unexpected and unwelcome visitor, Byerly Vorrutyer, a part-time spy and old acquaintance of Ivan’s who specializes in ferreting out corruption in Barrayaran high society. Byerly leads Ivan to investigate a young lady on the run from a hostile  takeover in Jackson’s Whole, the definition of a Machiavellian society. Unsurprisingly, things blow up in Ivan’s face and he is found saddled with the young lady as a bride in order to protect her from both local security forces and outsystem bounty hunters. What follows when Ivan takes her back home to an encounter with his mother, and subsequently when parts of the young lady’s past resurface, makes for a caper of epic proportions.
Bujold is in super form here. The little ironies woven into descriptions and conversations made me chortle with pleasure and re-read certain passages over and over. The decision to explore the character of Ivan is an inspired one. He was always known to have a spine, even though he lacked the propensity of his cousin Miles to bash people over the head with it. His growing intimacy with Tej after their sudden wedding is marvelously portrayed, sweet without romantic comedy movie cheesiness, as are the complex family dynamics on both sides. This novel was a great pleasure to read for this Vorkosigan fan, and it should also be easily accessible for new readers.
This “companion novella” takes place between Kris Longknife – Daring and the upcoming Kris Longknife – Furious. It is not a fantastic piece but serves as a good way to bring readers up to date. The story focuses on General “Trouble” Tordon, one of Kris’s great-grandfathers, and his involvement in the events on her homecoming from the mission in Daring.
Note: Shepherd has previously written about our heroine’s great-grandfather Raymond under his real name, Mike Moscoe.
Book three seamlessly segues from the end of Center of Gravity. Admiral Koenig leads the battlegroup further into Sh’daar territory, towards the enigmatic center of the Sh’daar civilization. Meanwhile Lieutenant Grey’s personal odyssey continues.
I was disappointed with the last book in the trilogy. The action is still good, but it is upstaged by the exploration of the enigma that is the Sh’daar. Wormholes, discussions about transcendence and the evolution of civilizations abound. Douglas has thought the whole thing out quite well and the ending makes sense. Unfortunately it feels as if the more lofty macrostory and themes don’t mix well with the military science fiction setting. Long discussions on the deep future and the deep past of technological civilizations slow the pace down too much. Mind you, these discussions are interesting, but they just don’t fit in well in this book.
On the character side, the developments are not very original, and the dialogue is wooden at best. Grey is a metaphor for humanity itself. Koenig is the consummate military officer. The rest are cardboard cutouts.
Book two starts where Earth Strike left off. Admiral Koenig is set to launch a raid deep into enemy territory, with the aim of scouting, disrupting enemy momentum, and keeping pressure off Earth.
Great action scenes. However the political stuff is quite heavy handed, the message being that politicians are idiots who can’t make rational decisions and military men (well, American military men) know better. A Churchill-like politician would have added greatly to this series.
In this new series by Ian Douglas (AKA William H. Keith, Jr.) Earth and its colonies are on the defensive, hemmed in and attacked by a vast and enigmatic interstellar empire. The action focuses on the Star Carrier America and its fighter spacecraft. The first half deals with a rescue mission on a far-flung colony world, and the second with an attack on Earth itself. Sure, spoilers, but it is right there in the title.
The action is good, clean military science fiction fun, just like in Mr. Douglas’s three connected trilogies dealing with space marines. There are some quite interesting discussions regarding the impact on technology on human society. This goes far deeper than most military science fiction books, which tend to gloss over any impact outside of that on military technologies. The story is very entertaining as it rapidly moves from action scene to action scene. Douglas knows pacing.
This anthology of short stories deals with armored fighting suits (mecha, what have you) from many different perspectives. Some stories are pure action, while others delve deep into sentient machines and man-machine interfaces. There’s even romance.
The stories range from excellent to passable. And there is quite a bit of thought-provoking stuff.
Once again we join Daniel Leary and Adele Mundy with the crew of the Princess Cecile. A Cinnabar national is inciting rebellion on an Alliance world. With the two nations now at peace, the political situations is sticky. If the rebellion succeeds, it could mean resumption of hostilities, and that would be ruinous for both sides.
Another fun adventure with our friends, this time rather interestingly splitting our two protagonists up for a good long section. While I do enjoy the reading, I get the feeling that Mr. Drake is treading. Leary and Mundy seem so superior to any challenge posed them that there are no real challenges. They are almost ridiculously awesome. Unless Drake puts their back to the wall against real odds again, this series will peter out into dullness.
In the third and final book, Katniss is among the rebels. She has survived The Hunger Games, twice, but she is more and more a broken person. Friends and others want to use her for their purposes. She is no longer a Tribute but she is still a pawn.
Throughout the book, Katniss falls victim to a psychological trauma that has its roots as far back as the first book. The way in which Ms. Collins describes Katniss’s descent into madness is chilling, especially as the narrative is in the first person. The last third of the book is very bleak, as there seem to be no good options. And yet, the pace is kept up, the action moves on. Even in the darkest, most introspective passages the reader still feels carried forward in the story.
A great ending to a great trilogy.
A few months have passed since the events of The Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta now live as neighbors in the Victor’s Village, along with Haymitch. Things are strained because, despite Katniss’s status as a victor, she is also a symbol of defiance against the capitol. The President would probably like her eliminated, but cannot do so because of her status as a popular public figure. To top things off, she must pretend to be in love with Peeta in public, while Gale now works in the mines and she is in general unsure how she stands with him.
Since this year will be the seventy-fifth Hunger Games, the rules are special. Katniss’s troubles are just beginning.
While it cannot quite reach the level of the first book, Catching Fire is a more than worthy sequel. Yet again, the strict first person perspective forces the reader to see everything through the eyes of Katniss. More importantly, we see the world through the lens of her thoughts and doubts. It is a cruel and dangerous world, and she must make brave decisions in order to protect her loved ones. The action scenes take up less space and are, perhaps, not as gripping. I felt that Ms. Collins could have spent some more time here. In any case this was a page turner just like book one.
The ending leaves little resolved, and book three directly follows.