Posted on by Dunc

Other worlds: On the awesomeness of Katniss Everdeen

The Hunger Games. Meghan Lewit has praise for Katniss Everdeen in The Atlantic, calling her “the most important female character in recent pop culture history.” I can’t really disagree there.

Meanwhile, it’s being reported that Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) is the front-runner for the part of Katniss in the upcoming movie adaption. She’s 20 and blonde, but at least she can act, I guess. Hollywood, sigh.

Stephen King. A new installment in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, The Wind Through the Keyhole, will be published next year. It looks to be a gap-filler, not a continuation. Meanwhile, in November, he time-travels to the Kennedy assignation.

The Kingkiller Chronicle. If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the genre as a whole, you probably know that Patrick Rothfuss is one of the hottest things in fantasy. His second book, The Wise Man’s Fear, just came out. I can’t even begin to catch up with the overwhelming hype and I wasn’t all that impressed with his first anyway, but there’s a nice interview with him on Amazon’s Omnivoracious.

YA mafia. The latest controversy sweeping YA is massive, but it prompted John Scalzi to snark, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that. Also noteworthy: Cleolinda on how reviews are not for authors.

Sunday reader. Mari Ness finished up her look back at the Narnia books on Tor.com a few weeks back. (She also did a massive series on the Oz books if you’re all Lewised out.)

9 Replies to “Other worlds: On the awesomeness of Katniss Everdeen”

  1. That’s funny, the new Dark Tower is supposed to bridge the time between “Wizard & Glass” and “Wolves of the Calla.” I never felt like there was much of a narrative gap between those two. Not that I won’t read it, because I will…probably in only one sitting. The Kennedy Assassination one sounds kind of neat too, especially if he’s writing it as one of his more slow-burn type books. I could do with a character piece about the futility of time travel, I think.

  2. I understand the idea behind going with Jennifer, but I love Hailee and she just makes me think of Katniss. Long as it’s not Kristen Stewart or Dakota Fanning, I’m being positive.

    I just read The Name of the Wind and reading the new one now– I find the writing flows and has kept my interest. Like rereading The Stand in a sense. I hope his release dates start picking up or this is going to be slower than King’s Gunslinger series or Auel’s Earth Children. I am enjoying Kvothe’s story- I RPG’d too much not to love hearing a tale in a inn/bar angle!

  4. Cy: I can’t say that I like it either. Then again, I haven’t read it, so maybe it’s more of a lack of opinion on my part.

    It sucks feeling like you’re the only person who didn’t like something though, so I think I get what you mean. There’s a sort of feeling that either everyone is crazy or you’ve just missed some element that is otherwise completely obvious. I feel the same way about Rothfuss’s work, myself. So it was kind of gratifying earlier to read that Dunc was also less than impressed.

  5. I only read Hunger Games last year (on the flight to CV, ironically) and mainly because of the hype. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much. Go figure.

    As for Name of the Wind, I’m not saying it’s an bad book. I didn’t hate it, and I might even have read the sequel if it had come out while the first was still fresh in my mind. But whatever is so fabulous about it just completely eluded me: It seemed like just another dude-centric fantasy with too much D&D in the DNA for me.

  6. Eliz: I have my fingers crossed for Hailee, too. Particularly since one of the reasons I’ve seen kicked around (aside from the obvious child labor law stuff) is that they’re going older with Katniss in order to cast the guys. Because YA-centric movies have never created stars out of complete nobodies or anything.

    And while I could live with Lawrence, who I’ve heard was appropriately kick-ass in Winter’s Bone, if they cast that dude from I Am Number Four as Peeta I’m gonna gag.

    (Been thinking that Lawrence and even Number Four dude would do quite well as some of the Careers, though.)

  7. Thanks, Doyle. That’s pretty much the feeling. A lot of things about Hunger Games disappointed me, and the Atlantic article didn’t really change that feeling. I’m not saying it’s a terrible book, just that…I don’t think it’s so revolutionary as to be considered a topic of post-feminist scholarship, I guess.

  8. Hunger Games had me up until the end. The sum of it was just too bleak and too brutal; there was not enough at the end to make me enjoy the wrenching story. It’s brilliant in many, many ways, but I have no desire to reread it or own it.

  9. I’m with Nancy. I loved the first two books of The Hunger Games trilogy. Not so much a fan of the last one.

    And while I did find some major awesomeness in there, I’m not sure I find it all that revolutionary.

    Still, I can get myself behind anything that gets people reading; especially young people.

    Yes. Even Twilight. (As much as I don’t like the content.)

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