Entertainment Weekly has released an excerpt of the upcoming Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and it turns out that Suzanne Collins’ new book will delve into the origin story behind the trilogy’s Big Bad: President Coriolanus Snow.
Set 64 years before the original trilogy, the prequel features a teenage Snow front-and-center as the new protagonist. EW describes him as “friendly” and “charming,” a “teenager born to privilege but searching for something more, a far cry from the man we know,” aka an evil dictator with a rose obsession and blood-flavored breath.
In this excerpt, Snow’s breath reeks of little more than cabbages, and he’s merely a senior at the Capitol’s Academy tapped to mentor in the Hunger Games. At this point in time, the Games are a far cry from the extravagant, reality TV phenomenon of Katniss’ era. In fact, viewing is optional, so a lot of people just don’t tune in. Tasked with finding a way to attract more eyeballs, Snow finds himself paired with an underdog from District 12.
Read the full excerpt over at Entertainment Weekly, where you can also find a portrait of teen!Snow.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes comes out from Scholastic on May 19, 2020.
And their portrait of Snow looks very much like a young Donald Sutherland. I was wondering whether they’d go that route or try to keep a distinct identity for the books.
It’s surprising to read something in the Hunger Games universe written in third person. I tend to feel a bit of cognitive dissonance when a series I’m used to reading in one narrative format switches to another, like how Marie Brennan’s Turning Darkness Into Light ditches the memoir format of the Lady Trent series it’s a sequel to in favor of a compilation/epistolary format sort of like Dracula. Although at least parts of that were still first-person.
That’s a perfectly fair reaction and may in fact be exactly what the author was going for; a way to shake up the comfortable assumptions of an audience, to help them fully engage with a work on its own terms rather than as a mere extension of what has come before (The acid question though, is whether this is an intelligent choice and a Good Thing or whether it is mere sound & fury signifying something).
I do wonder if using Mr Sutherland as the physical model for Young Snow is a form of caveat emptor, a subtle hint that while we’re seeing the character at a very different time in his life, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a fundamentally better person …
Having now read the excerpt I must admit to being intrigued; I should also point out that if this plot-line goes where one expects it to, Coriolanus Snow will wind up being ‘The Man who saved the Hunger Games’ which is a pretty horrifying reference to add to your CV by any objective standard.
Honestly, the sheer banality of Evil involved with a mind working out how to KEEP THE MURDER GAMES GOING is fairly chilling … oh Good Grief I just made a cold pun; wrap me in a shiny suit and condemn me to BATMAN & ROBIN!