THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION -- NICE INTERVIEW
I just learned about a very nice interview with me about THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION.
I've reproduced some excerpts from the interview below. To read the entire interview, please visit the wonderful people at HungerGamesMovie.Org!
What can we as readers expect from The Hunger Games Companion?
Lois: To open discussion among fans, THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION offers opinions about matters relating to the characters, their relationships, and the storylines. For example, THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION discusses why Katniss becomes suicidal and hooked on morphling in Mockingjay: does it make sense in the context of her personality in both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, and if so, why?
As another example, the book suggests reasons why Katniss votes "yes" for a Capitol children's Hunger Games at the end of Mockingjay.
I even tell you if I think Katniss chose the right guy, and why…
And I speculate about how the post-apocalyptic world of the Hunger Games might have happened, whether it could happen in real life, and whether a Hunger Games mentality could take over and destroy our children's lives -- in the real world.
Also, readers will find plenty of information about subjects ranging from repressive regimes (like the Capitol) to dehumanization, the end of our privacy, the gladiators and the tributes of Panem, the use of hunger as a control freak mechanism, how muttations might be created, and much more.
In short, readers can expect interesting and thought-provoking discussions about "all things" Hunger Games: everything from tributes, muttations, the arenas, the psychopathic personalities of Presidents Snow and Coin, and of course, details about key characters such as Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Finnick, Rue, Primrose, and even Buttercup.
What aspect of The Hunger Games Companion do you think readers will be most excited about?
Lois: I suspect readers will be excited by a lot of the material in THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION. For those who want to know more about the Hunger Games characters, the Companion's analyses of their personalities, motivations, decisions, and relationships might prove most interesting. For readers fascinated by the muttations, THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION provides information about how the mutts might actually be created in real life. For readers interested in all the weird science in the Hunger Games books, I speculate how the science might (or actually does) work. For those who find Effie, Flickerman, and all the stylists interesting, THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION talks about how the Hunger Games reflects our modern obsession with fashion, style, hair, plastic surgery, self-indulgence, reality television.
You have written quite a few companions/guides. Which has been your favorite to work on and why?
Lois: I enjoyed working on THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION because I love the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The subjects in THE HUNGER GAMES COMPANION fascinated me from the start of the project to when I finished writing the book.
I very much enjoyed writing THE SCIENCE OF SUPERHEROES, THE SCIENCE OF SUPERVILLAINS, and THE SCIENCE OF JAMES BOND with Bob Weinberg. All three of these books are among my favorites.
For example, THE SCIENCE OF JAMES BOND explains how all sorts of cool things might (or do) work: artificial fingerprints, voice box that imitates other people, Russian Lektor message decoder, U.S. Clipper Chip, hydrofoils, hovercrafts, multipurpose watches, Q's robot dog, GPS navigation, GoldenEye's EMP, the Gustav Graves DNA plastic surgery, the "You Only Live Twice" spaceship that gobbles other spaceships, the "radar invisible" Moonraker space station, Blofeld's gigantic rocket base inside a defunct Japanese volcano, and of course, invisible cars – to list just a few topics!
THE SCIENCE OF SUPERHEROES and THE SCIENCE OF SUPERVILLAINS gets into a lot of other really cool info, too, such as: Can a woman kill a man using her lipstick? Can a person turn himself into a lizard? Can a gorilla be a genius? Is it possible not to die? What is anti-matter? Can a man fly? Can a man have super strength? Can a man run faster than light? Can you download somebody's brain into a computer? Is it possible to have a skeletal body of adamantium? Is it possible for a person to breathe underwater? Can a man really have robotic arms? Is it really possible that there might be five dimensions?
As well as companions/ guides, you have written original novels. Are experiences in your novels based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Lois: I've written/published 28 books and close to 50 stories. All of my fiction is (drum roll…) fiction.
My current novel is Terror by Numbers, a crazy thriller to be published soon. I definitely understand my heroine and what makes her tick. I understand her environment, her surroundings, how she interacts with people. I've been to most of the places (the settings) in the book. I feel my heroine as if she's real. I've personally done some of the things my heroine does; she knows how to sail a certain type of boat, for example, and so do I; she gets off on weird technologies, and so do I; she loves to swim, loves the sea, loves the beach, and so do I.
Yet with all that said, the heroine of Terror by Numbers most definitely is not me. For example, unlike my heroine, I'm not an undercover operative in a spy organization.
I should also add that I understand my bad guys and what makes them tick, too, but that's a whole other story.
My most current short story is in Horror for the Holidays to be published within a few weeks. Trust me, the main characters in my story, Cthulhu Mhy'os, are totally fictional, as are the events of the tale.
ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS is my current 2011 collection of 26 weird science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror stories. In ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS, I talk a bit about what inspired me to write each story, so you might find that book interesting to read.
What are your inspirations for writing?
Lois: I do want readers to think about basic human emotions, such as kindness, evil, greed, jealousy, the struggle most of us share to try and become better people. But I also want to entertain readers -- that's very important! In short, I want to tell a good story that also makes readers think about what it means to be human.
I constantly observe people: motivations, mannerisms, behaviors, interactions, expressions, actions. I constantly wonder what makes people tick -- why bullies are mean, for example, or why someone in great physical pain can ignore it sufficiently to function. How do different people handle emotions and conflicts? I also read an enormous amount of both fiction and nonfiction, and many subjects fascinate me.
To write fiction, bits and pieces from all of these observations, experiences, and thoughts somehow gurgle up from the back of my brain and coalesce into something new. Ideas spring out of nowhere, but they're based on tidbits merging like a puzzle into a new form.
Read the entire interview here at HungerGamesMovie.Org!
