Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (2010)

The last of the Hunger Games trilogy was great. I really like the main character Katniss Everdeen, a reluctant heroine, who seems to never do what people expect of her and spends a lot of time in this book recovering from various injuries and traumas. I am not going to try to retell the plot or even explain the alternative future world that Collins has created, just that it is a nice commentary on our world today and I understand why Hunger Games gets chosen as a common read or discussion book. In the audio version there was an interview with the author at the end where she explained where she got her ideas. I had not picked up on all the green mythology this series is based on, but definitely her criticism of reality TV. Turns out that some of her ideas came when watching news scenes from the Iraq war juxtaposed with reality TV programs. Powerful.

Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1917)

Though I went through a pretty long science fiction and fantasy stint in my reading history, I never did read one of the classic SF authors - Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950.) My audio book store had a row of his books prominently displayed, so I thought I would try one. Pretty good. I had no idea that the man wrote so long ago. He started writing stories for adventure magazines, and his first story was about Mars. Though he published his first book in 1914 on Tarzan, his most famous series, but returned to write 11 books about Mars. This is the first one.

John Carter is an Arizona, where he enters a cave chased by Indians, sorta passes out, and finds himself naked on Mars. There he meets the huge green Martians, and later more human-like red Martians. I kept wondering if Burroughs was the first to create a visual image of Martians for us. Will have to research that, if I ever have time. Then he turns out to be a skilled fighter against these huge beings, earns the right to be a chieftain among them, falls for a Martian princess that he ends up saving from enemies numerous times, teaches one of the chieftains about friendship, and changes the face of Mars in the 10 years that he is there. All just a great adventure story. I don't mind the damsel in distress scenario, taking into consideration that this was written almost a 100 years ago. I enjoyed his description of what Mars would look like, the issues with breathable air and water. Obviously he was fascinated with the beginning experiments with flight, as he has large flying ships and small one person crafts, though he used some mysterious force to give them flight instead of the physics and engineering really needed. I was also interested in some of the other numbers and scientific accuracy of the times.

As pointed out in Contemporary Authors, though very popular, academically Burroughs is considered a pulp fiction writer of little merit. But I like the quote in Contemporary Authors: "Writing in Esquire, Gore Vidal claimed that, although Burroughs 'is innocent of literature,' he nonetheless 'does have a gift very few writers of any kind possess: he can describe action vividly.'""

Not a priority to check out the rest of his books, but not bad for light reading. Glad I picked it up.

Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne DuPrau (2008)

Somehow I had missed this fourth book of the City of Ember series that my son and I enjoyed so much. Actually, we were very disappointed in the third book, which went back and explained how the underground city of Ember had been created, but this book didn't have half the energy and interesting twists we found in the first two books, so I think we gave up. Then the other day I saw this in the audio book shop and it looked like it picked up where the second book left off - and again it was wonderful.

Lina and Doon are two twelve year olds who discovered the secret of the City of Ember and brought the people out of the city into the devastated, but now recovering world. The people of Ember have settled in the town of Sparks, a long day's walk from the cave where they had lived for quite a few generations. They now have to face the elements of changing seasons, without the luxuries of electricity or running water, and they have to grow their own food - wheras in Ember they mostly survived on canned goods and some greenhouse grown foods.

Life is hard in Sparks and when Doon's father gets injured, and he buys a partial book from a traveling vendor, he starts thinking that it may be useful to return to Ember to see if anything of value could be salvaged, especially food and medicine. This leads to an extended adventure that I think would thrill most middle school readers. They end up finding something else that the elders left for the people of Ember to find and help rebuild their civilization. I love the importance of books and the struggle to prove to others that all those squiggly lines could be of some use in a fairly harsh world. That the knowledge of others can be recorded and used by future generations. I have a few quibbles with the logic of the book - why can't they continue to go back to Ember to salvage various goods and even appliances and technology that have been lost in the outside world, but mostly it works.