Mockingjay by Susanne Collins

By book three, of The Hunger Games, the Districts are in all out rebellion against the Capital. Collins stays true to her genre fiction roots here and gives us a properly dystopic (if shallow) political analysis.

Unlike the grand finale of the Twilight series (to which Hunger Games is often unfairly compared), this is not a bloodless resolution in which everyone walks away happy.

I enjoyed all three of these books, though the style and characters are both presented at a fourteen year old level. It is surprising and strange that mainstream tween fiction will also likely be the best (and most popular) dystopian sci-fi of the first decade of our brave new century. 

 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games is now such a phenomena now that it hardly needs introduction. Katness is cool, if wooden heroine, and the first novel managed to really engage me in her struggles.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the novels is that they present, initially, as tween fiction. And on some level, they remain that way, by dint of sex or profanity. In fact though, this trilogy is pretty straight dystopian fiction.

And yes, we all know that there was a Japanese film called Battle Royale in which kids on an island kill each other. No, this is not just a remake of that, nerd trolls.