2013 read #130: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
391 pages
Published 2009
Read from October 9 to October 11
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5

I have the feeling that if I were to sleep on this review, to let my opinion of this book steep overnight, I'd be certain to mark down the rating I'm giving here. While almost as entertaining as The Hunger Games, Catching Fire is marred by structural and conceptual problems and a likely fatal case of "recapture the magic"/sequel malaise.

Extensive spoilers follow, do not read if etc.

One of my issues with The Hunger Games was how predictable it was. That book followed a tidy, self-contained plot arc, setting up Katniss' life and the titular sacrificial games, sending her to the Capitol, getting her into the arena, and following the televised bloodsport to its inevitable happy-but-not-quite ending, de rigueur for the first installment of a genre trilogy. I will admit that the major twist halfway through Catching Fire caught me totally off-guard... primarily because the twist was so goddamn stupid I never would've seen it coming. Seriously, sending Katniss and Peeta back for a second round in the Games? Right as the whole "overthrow the corrupt government, or maybe go full Logan's Run and light out for Sanctuary, because yeah, both are plausible options in a totally technocratic dictatorship" storyline was just starting to get interesting, you're gonna pull a Jaws 2 on me? Please.

Rare is the dystopian dictatorship that actually comes across as competent. The same goes for dark wizards and evil emperors in conventional fantasy -- the hero has to defeat them somehow, and figuring out a way to beat a competent evil empire is just too hard, so just make the foe mustache-twirling Evil and call it a day. Leaving aside the whole sequence where President Snow, his mouth reeking of blood (seriously, wtf is up with that dark wizardly cliche, I thought this was supposed to be sci-fi), comes to threaten Katniss personally and without subtlety, the last thing a technocratic dictatorship would do with a popular anti-authoritarian figurehead is put them back on Must-See TV. Ugh, the whole business is so clumsily contrived to get Katniss and Peeta back into a recapture-the-magic rehash of the first Hunger Games, I actually tossed the book aside at that point and began making cracks about The Hunger Games 2: Game Hungrier.

And then of course it turns out that Sanctuary District 13 is REAL and they have like all kinds of hoverships and shit waiting for our heroes, we were just sitting on it this whole time 'cause we're dicks, and oh, District 12 was destroyed but don't worry, everyone you cared about is safe for the next book in the series, and ugh, I kind of feel like marking down the grade I gave right now.

But I won't, because I was entertained, and even genuinely moved a couple times, and I'm still hoping the final book will redeem this disorganized middle-act mess and make it all worth my while. It's a dimishing hope, but it's still there.