BEDA 14 - Blogging for Fiction

I have two problems with being a blogger. My first problem is that I find it very difficult to write short blogs. And I really need to make this one brief.

My second problem is that I want my blogs to be meaningful and interesting to the people who read them. Is this really a problem? Well, only if you don't have a real audience. There may be a future for me in writing fiction after all. I have invented a fictional audience that I feel some responsibility for. Does this make me crazy?

Actually, I have many other problems with being a blogger. Being the reining queen of typos for one, and not really wanting to market my blog for readers is another. However, I do not wish to discuss this today, as it would be another long and boring blog.

Since I have made up you, my loyal audience, I will blog briefly about the two fictional books I read this weekend.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins - SCI FI - 4 stars

Think of a time in the future when basically the world has went to the crapper. The United States has become a nation of one totalitarian capital (center) city and 12 outer districts. To keep the outer districts from rebelling, again, the capital imposes many terrifying economic and legal controls. One of those being the Hunger Games. Every year, two teens (one boy and one girl) are chosen from each district and forced to participate in the equivalent of a massive cage match to the death that lasts for weeks on end.

Super realistic sci fi with an emotional but in no way gratuitous punch. A bit depressing but nothing my teen readers can't handle. And, there is a follow up book on the way. Maybe a whole series???

Feed, by M.T. Anderson - SCI FI - 3 Stars

What do you know? The whole world has went to pot! Corporate American has taken over the minds, lives, vocabulary, and entire cognitive existence of developed countries. In order for their children to fully participate in this culture, most families in the middle to upper class brackets have wireless networks implanted in their newborns brains. Now almost of the entire civilized world experiences life through the "Feed." The Feed is a web of pushed and on-demand media that the brain automatically controls. This includes chatting with friends, listening to music, watching TV shows, looking up websites, making online purchases, and the futurist equivalent to getting high; going "mal" by downloading warped sites to the feed. Kind of sounds sweet until Anderson gives us a taste at what a world run by and for commercial enterprise would eventual become.

I recommend this book in audio format. I think perhaps it is a more sensory rich experience hearing this book instead of just reading the words. Mostly because by listening to the audio book, you get to hear the Feed, the pushed advertising, the manic programs, and the variations in tone of the chatted conversations versus the real talking ones. Of course, after listening to this, I was like all dadada, and big meg doing that thing, like talking like those kids in the book, ya know unit?

And there you go, a snap shot of my sci fi weekend where I guiltily read for fun instead of for intentional enlightenment.

Happy guilt-laden reading for all!