Tag / The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

by admin

Book 41 (of 52) – Sunrise On The Reaping

Sunrise on the Reaping – Suzanne Collins

The second Quarter Quell, celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Hunger Games, is doubling the number of tributes sent from each district. Haymitch Abernathy, celebrating his sixteenth birthday, thinks he is safe from the reaping until he tries to save his girlfriend from the Peacekeepers after they killed the second boy tribute.  Brought into a conspiracy amongst some of the tributes and conspirators from the Capital, Haymitch tries to destroy the arena, but instead marks himself as trouble.  When he is unexpectedly crowned victor, he returns to District 12 to find his family dead in a fire and his girlfriend poisoned, leading him to isolate himself from his remaining friends and drowning his sorrows in drink.

Nearly 20 years since the initial publication of The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins returns with her latest, and I assume last, entry in the series, Sunrise on the Reaping.  Taking place 25 years prior to the events of the original book and 40 years after The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Collins ties together characters from both and puts them into position to be where we find them in the future.  This suffers from repetition and the table-setting being done to show how we get from here to the events of the original trilogy.  I can’t see a third trip back to the well, unless she introduces a whole new set of characters who don’t tie in to the originals, so I’m guessing this is the end of the line.

by admin

Book 8 (of 52) – The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes

Sixty-four years before the events of The Hunger Games, the future President Snow is chosen as a mentor to a tribute for the 10th Hunger Games.  Looking to secure his place in the Capitol after the Snow family lost everything in the war, he skirts the rules, sneaking food to his tribute, helping her sneak in rat poison to enhance her chances in the arena, and helping her avoid the poisonous snakes sent in to kill the tributes.  After his tribute wins the Hunger Games, he is found out and forced to join the Peacemakers, sent to District 12 and hopeful of reuniting with his tribute.  He eventually finds his way back to the Capitol and finds himself on the fast track to power.

A full decade after the release of Mockingjay, the third and final entry in The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins is back with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a prequel that takes place 64 years prior to the events of the main series.  It doesn’t appear as though Collins had much success with anything else in the intervening years, which I guess explains why she went back to the well after all this time.  The story, focusing on the 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow a mere ten years after the rebellion and the tribute he fell in love with, wasn’t necessarily.one anyone was looking for and one that moves very slowly.

What comes next, both for Collins and the franchise?  Nothing announced, and we are four years out from this book’s initial release.  I guess we’ll see if this is now the end of the story for Panem and its residents.