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Title: Legend
Author: Marie Lu
Publisher: G.P Putnam's Sons (Penguin)
Genre: SciFi, Post Apocalypse, Dystopia
Release Date: November 2011
This book's gotten comparisons with Hunger Games, it seems (I don't know first hand; someone said so on Twitter), but I'd compare it more to Matched (Ally Condie) or Across the Universe (Beth Revis), really - similar subgenre, but not quite the same.
We start with the formula (this isn't criticism by any stretch - formula becomes so because it works) that any dystopia starts with, though it's more vague in this than in many. One assumes that there was a war and the Republic split from the Colonies and everyone had the best of intentions for a brighter future in mind, but it's not made clear. At any rate, some unnamed time in the future (from the revolution or what have you), something's caused havoc with weather (I've never heard of hurricanes in California, and not even a slight earthquake? But I'm a midwestern girl, so what do I know) and a good deal of the southwest has cut itself off from the rest of the country, forming a sharp divide between this new Republic and the Colonies. There is, of course, unhappiness and upheaval - the socioeconomics of the Republic are a mess. The rich are, comparatively, obscenely so and the poor grovel in what sounds to me like not long post-Katrina New Orleans.
It gets better! The Republic's government, which is a near Caesarean god-head sort of thing backed by the military but without that pesky council. There are, of course, Things Afoot, but the people are, in general, too afraid to challenge this god-head president (Elector Primo, I think it was). They're too poor in the poor sections where there's discontent, and in the rich sectors they're too complacent (and, in no few cases as we find out later, complicit).
Amongst all this, we have a boy and a girl. One is the Republic's darling and one is an exile of sorts - a Romeo and Juliet, perhaps, or Tony and Maria. We're led on a great tracking expedition for the Republic's darling, June, to find the criminal and suspected murder, Day. Only Day is really just a Robin Hood, and of course he's being set up to take the fall almost from the beginning.
All in all, it's a great read - it's fast paced and interesting, and it promises to make a better movie than any of the other things that I think may well get picked up (rights were sold to CBS, so everyone go buy the books and make it happen, yeah?) by virtue of the way it's written. The exposition is woven in so that it doesn't seem unwieldy or an interruption of the action, and the voices of the two main characters (who are in some ways a bit too perfect and in others delightfully flawed) are better done than any alternating POV stories I've read in awhile. It seems like this will be a trilogy or more, and I can't wait to see where Ms. Lu is going with it.
Author: Marie Lu
Publisher: G.P Putnam's Sons (Penguin)
Genre: SciFi, Post Apocalypse, Dystopia
Release Date: November 2011
This book's gotten comparisons with Hunger Games, it seems (I don't know first hand; someone said so on Twitter), but I'd compare it more to Matched (Ally Condie) or Across the Universe (Beth Revis), really - similar subgenre, but not quite the same.
We start with the formula (this isn't criticism by any stretch - formula becomes so because it works) that any dystopia starts with, though it's more vague in this than in many. One assumes that there was a war and the Republic split from the Colonies and everyone had the best of intentions for a brighter future in mind, but it's not made clear. At any rate, some unnamed time in the future (from the revolution or what have you), something's caused havoc with weather (I've never heard of hurricanes in California, and not even a slight earthquake? But I'm a midwestern girl, so what do I know) and a good deal of the southwest has cut itself off from the rest of the country, forming a sharp divide between this new Republic and the Colonies. There is, of course, unhappiness and upheaval - the socioeconomics of the Republic are a mess. The rich are, comparatively, obscenely so and the poor grovel in what sounds to me like not long post-Katrina New Orleans.
It gets better! The Republic's government, which is a near Caesarean god-head sort of thing backed by the military but without that pesky council. There are, of course, Things Afoot, but the people are, in general, too afraid to challenge this god-head president (Elector Primo, I think it was). They're too poor in the poor sections where there's discontent, and in the rich sectors they're too complacent (and, in no few cases as we find out later, complicit).
Amongst all this, we have a boy and a girl. One is the Republic's darling and one is an exile of sorts - a Romeo and Juliet, perhaps, or Tony and Maria. We're led on a great tracking expedition for the Republic's darling, June, to find the criminal and suspected murder, Day. Only Day is really just a Robin Hood, and of course he's being set up to take the fall almost from the beginning.
All in all, it's a great read - it's fast paced and interesting, and it promises to make a better movie than any of the other things that I think may well get picked up (rights were sold to CBS, so everyone go buy the books and make it happen, yeah?) by virtue of the way it's written. The exposition is woven in so that it doesn't seem unwieldy or an interruption of the action, and the voices of the two main characters (who are in some ways a bit too perfect and in others delightfully flawed) are better done than any alternating POV stories I've read in awhile. It seems like this will be a trilogy or more, and I can't wait to see where Ms. Lu is going with it.
