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News from Panem, and elsewhere
Mar. 29th, 2025 05:03 pmSuzanne Collins: Sunrise on the Reaping.
Personal background: Unlike, I imagine, a great many of Hunger Games readers/viewers, I actually wasn't yearning for a Haymitch prequel. Now of course I had loved Haymitch in the original novels - I mean, who didn't? - , but part of what I loved was that in contrast to our young heroine and the majority of characters, he was middle aged, broken, cynical yet, as it turned out, still able to fight, plan, and win against the tyranny. As for Haymitch as a young man, I thought the glimpse we got when Peeta and Katniss find the recording of "his" games and his few remarks were all we needed to know. If anything, I would have wanted to read about how Haymitch later connected and bonded with the other Victors, something quintessential to the plots of both Catching Fire and Mockingjay.
However, I had been pleasantly surprised by Songbird and Snakes, aka the young Coriolanus Snow prequel (ironically more the film than the book - I thought the book was good but did not quite achieve what (at least I assume) it wanted to do, whereas the movie did -, and also Suzanne Collins, like the rest of us, is living in a world where propaganda, spectacle and autocracies are flourishing more than ever, and thus I was curious whether this would be reflected in the novel. Which I've now read.
( Here are my mostly positive spoilery thoughts. )
Daredevil 4.05 + 4.06: ( Spoiler cut just in case. )
Wheel of Time 3.05: Interesting as all the history last episode was, I'm glad we're catching up with everyone else here. ( Some spoilers ensue. )
Personal background: Unlike, I imagine, a great many of Hunger Games readers/viewers, I actually wasn't yearning for a Haymitch prequel. Now of course I had loved Haymitch in the original novels - I mean, who didn't? - , but part of what I loved was that in contrast to our young heroine and the majority of characters, he was middle aged, broken, cynical yet, as it turned out, still able to fight, plan, and win against the tyranny. As for Haymitch as a young man, I thought the glimpse we got when Peeta and Katniss find the recording of "his" games and his few remarks were all we needed to know. If anything, I would have wanted to read about how Haymitch later connected and bonded with the other Victors, something quintessential to the plots of both Catching Fire and Mockingjay.
However, I had been pleasantly surprised by Songbird and Snakes, aka the young Coriolanus Snow prequel (ironically more the film than the book - I thought the book was good but did not quite achieve what (at least I assume) it wanted to do, whereas the movie did -, and also Suzanne Collins, like the rest of us, is living in a world where propaganda, spectacle and autocracies are flourishing more than ever, and thus I was curious whether this would be reflected in the novel. Which I've now read.
( Here are my mostly positive spoilery thoughts. )
Daredevil 4.05 + 4.06: ( Spoiler cut just in case. )
Wheel of Time 3.05: Interesting as all the history last episode was, I'm glad we're catching up with everyone else here. ( Some spoilers ensue. )
