Posts Tagged ‘dystopian literature’

Countdown to Mockingjay

It is only fourteen more days until the release of Mockingjay.  Are you ready?  For those of you who somewho have missed out, Mockingjay is the third (and final?) book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy.  In these books, twenty four teens are chosen each year to compete in the Hunger Games, where they must fight to the death.  The winner is the last one left living.  I can’t wait to find out what happens to Katniss, Peeta, Gale and the others. 

Meanwhile, you can vote for your favorite YA charaters from fantasy and science fiction in the YA Fantasy Showdown.  You heard right.  It is going down with the biggest, baddest characters from YA Fantasy, and you get to pick the winners.  Can Katniss Everdeen take on Tally Youngblood?  What will happen if Edward Cullen faces Hermione Granger?  Head on over before August 10, when the epic battles begin.  Also head over to creator Heather Zundel’s blog for more details and great ideas for your very own release party. 

What are you going to do to celebrate the coming of Mockingjay?

The Passage by Justin Cronin

As the summer started, the buzz began to build about this book.  I encountered comments in my email and on the blogs I read:   Justin Cronin’s The Passage was going to be the book that brought vampires into real literature, and for adults, no less.  Even my brother-in-law was reading it on vacation.  Finally, the library came through and let me know it was my turn to read it.

I was not disappointed.  Cronin weaves a complex, multi-layered story of hope and survival.  It starts with Special Agent Wolgast, who as been asked to pick up and deliver certain death row inmates to a secure facility for top secret military experiment.  It seems that humans can be infected with a virus that turns them into vampires.  The military wants to refine this virus to allow the infected humans to repair their injuries, but not be driven by the thirst for blood.  Wolgast is finally pushed too far when he picks up the last subject for the experiment, a six-year-old girl named Amy. 

Everything goes horribly wrong when the vampires break free of their cells and escape across the country.  They kill and infect the population, and nothing can stop them.  Society crumbles under the onslaught.  The story jumps foward a hundred years to survivors left inside a lit, walled compound.  Unfortunately, the batteries are slowly dying, and the lights that protect the residents of the compound will go out.  Where will you be when those lights go out?

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One book that I keep hearing about is The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson.  I’m definitely going to have to move it up on my TBR pile.  Meanwhile, check out the book trailer for it and a discussion as to how and why science fiction and dystopian literture are different at the League of Extraordinary Writers.  They also mention my current dystopian read, The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Have you had enough of vampires yet?  If not, check out Christopher Farnworth’s Blood Oath.  Zach Barrows has a new job as assistant to Nathanial Cade.  Let’s just say it’s not his dream job–that would be Chief of Staff for the President.  Instead he learns that vampires–and worse–are real.  Cade is not only a vampire, he is sworn to “to support and defend the nation and its citizens against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”  Check out the review on GuysLit Wire.

One of my students my second year of teaching recommended that I read Garth Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom.  I’m ashamed to say I still haven’t got around to this series of seven books.  Since it keeps showing up, as it does here on GuysLitWire, I’m going to have to move it higher up the pile.  I promise.  I will read them–sometday.

What do you use as a bookmark?  Me–anything I can find lying near me.  Check out this blog by a guy who works at a rare and used book store.  He blogs about the unusual “bookmarks” left behind in the books that make it through his store.

Ever wondered about the difference between science fiction and fantasy?  What about speculative fiction or dystopian literature?  I know, I just dump them altogether on the same shelves in my classroom, but there are differences.  Check out the discussion at the League of Extraordinary Writers.

Elana Johnson says that The Healing Spell by Kimberly Griffiths Little is AWESOME. Head over to her blog to check out the trailer and a chance to win a signed copy along with your very own gator.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I’ve had The Road on my TBR (to-be-read) pile for some time.  I finally picked it up this summer after coming across references to it again and again in my blog readings.  It is one of the great works of dystopian literature (the world gone bad) for adults.  A father and son are traveling together through a desolate world.  Every living thing–plants and animals–have been destroyed, and ash covers the land.  They have nothing but each other as they travel the road to the south in search of hope.  They push an old grocery cart that holds all they own–a tarp and blankets, a few cans of food, a pistol.  They scavenge food and other useful items in the abandoned houses, towns, and cities they travel through.  They avoid the bad guys when they can and try to block the horrors they witness from their minds.

As I read this, I kept hoping for things to get better–anything at all.  One of the things I like about dystopian literature is the sense of hope.  No matter how bad the world is, no matter how dire the circumstances, individuals find it worthwhile to fight against evil.  The father and son in The Road want to be on the good side, but I’m not sure there is a good side for them to join.  Every turn in the road leads to even more devastation and horror.  Through it all, father and son look out for each other, and maybe there lies the hope.

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