Sometime in the future, the United States fights for its survival and defeats the 12 unnamed entities who sought its destruction and it means the losers must pay, in this case it is with the best of their best, 24 young men and women who must engage in battle to the death.
In what was to be a war to the finish, 12 unnamed entities attack and try to destroy the United States, only to find themselves the losers in a world where Panem -- the former Washington, DC -- emerges the victor. It's a world where the victor has keep its territories subdued. To do so, it invents the "Hunger Games," by Susan Collins, where two of its finest are sent off to a fight-to-the-death contest. It's the ultimate "Fantasy Island" meets the Roman gladiatorial games where the fight is to the death with no quarter.
Into this world arrives Katness Everdeen, 16, from the Appalachian territory, who is making the ultimate sacrifice to save her sister and is partnered with Peeta. Let's look back a little before we move forward.
The key to the world in Susan Collins' "Hunger Games," used to be called "man's inhumanity to man." In this case, though, it's more like man's insanity to man. It is the ultimate reality show except that in this one there is no escape for 23 of the 24 participant.
It's a world where, unlike "Spartacus," who finds his humanity and humanity in the courage of his "brothers of the games," the competitors in the "Hunger Games" slowly lose their humanity and their inhibitions and devolve into mere participants in a TV show where no one is "voted off the island -- you're killed."
How Katness and Peeta, who retains her humanity and convinces Katness to do the same, while, also keeping from becoming victims is the hidden story around which the "Hunger Games" revolves.
The "Hunger Games" is a novel that works because it resonates with its audience very well. Notice that it is meant for readers 12 and older. This puts it about the time the Playstation really became the hot property of the Internet gaming world.
Players were ready to annihilate - no one ever liked being annihilated himself so they developed workarounds (spoilers) where players could gain unlimited supplies of ammunition or oxygen. Spoilers were also developed that gave players more weapons and more powerful weapons and that could also bring them back to life if they had the misfortune to caught in an ambush.
In a larger sense, the "Hunger Games" is a direct outgrowth of this thinking. It reflects an understanding of how to "settle" wars and scores by using weapons. In the "Hunger Games," the players become finely tuned hunting and killing machines who can track and find their enemies and who can split them with one arrow shot.
Unfortunately, since this is a novel when you've used up your quota of arrows, knives, blades and anything else with which you can hack and maim, you are usually the next to fall.
Katness becomes that type of killing machine but her partner Peeta helps her hold onto her humanity. That's what is lacking from the other players in this game. The territories and Panem reflect their times. They are short of food and other basic necessities so they need a gladiator-like distraction and the "Hunger Games" gives them that distraction. That they have forgotten why they are fighting them in the first place is place far down the list.
Like Collins' other work, this one has been well received. It will likely have several more aimed at us before the series peters out. We suspect Katness will have something to do with the final stand and the final "Hunger Game" because she is, after all, the ultimate warrior.
And, while we don't pretend to know what is on the publisher's mind or the author's mind, we can only think that somehow the "Hunger Games" will pass into history, just as Rome's gladiatorial contests did two millennia ago.
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