Starters and Cinder - science fiction
Recently, I started watching Battlestar Galactica on netflix. I never really considered myself a “science fiction” genre fan, as I would often fall asleep watching Starwars and roll my eyes at Star Trek.
Like most of us have noticed, there is a huge trend in dystopian novels, and has personally made me much ore tolerable regarding science fiction topics which I would normally blissfully be ignorant of. I would thank this on reading The Maze Runner by James Dashner and then quickly reading Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.
The great thing about dystopian novels is that authors can borrow - steal - use - any genre in history and add their own twist to it. Incarceron by Catherine Fischer is also a great example of a dystopian novel using somewhat old school fantasy books and mixing it with technology.
While I now see myself as a fan of Dashner, Card, and even Fischer, these authors have allowed me to open up and read other books similar in context.
Over the past month, I was able to read two new dystopian novels: Starters by Lissa Price and Cinder by Marissa Meyer. While these books are quite different in plot - they feature machinery entering and becoming part of who we are.
Cinder is a futuristic Cinderella story where humans and robots - androids - live together. Cinder is a teenage girl who is part android and part human, making her a cyborg. She is one of the most gifted mechanics known and tries her best to keep her cyborg self a secret. Cinder is poor and funds the only support to her household where she is ill treated by her step-mother. When her step-sister dies from an illness sweeping the land, her step-mother forces Cinder’s life to change.
If you’ve read different versions of Cinderella then you’ll know that Marissa Meyer’s is one of a kind. I have yet to read any Cinderella inspired story similar to to this one and that makes it unique enough. Cinder is a very strong character - physically and mentally - and as she fights to keep the machine part of her inside, she is shown as more human than many of the 100% human characters.
As the story continues, I found a good part of it predictable and not due to the Cinderella theme. It was easy to see the who, what, and why part of the book and at times, I felt myself rushing through the book just to get to those parts. I think teens who are interesting and reading on fiction books that portray human and machine relationships will find Cinder interesting.
After finishing Cinder, I began reading Starters by Lissa Price. I obtained the ARC to this book through NetGalley, so I am reviewing this book on context only.
Starters takes place in a future California. Thanks to modern medicine and technology, humans can now live much older than they originally do. However, no amount of surgery or medicine can fix their physical old age. New technology now allows these people - Enders - to access the body of real and alive teenagers. This technology allows Enders to have a day - a week - and even a month of doing sports, dancing and living carelessly - in a young and healthy body while the teenage owner goes to sleep.
Callie is a homeless squatting teen who lives with her very sick little brother Tyler and her friend Michael. Then they are on the verge of living on the streets again, Callie decides to volunteer her services - her body to Prime Destinations. Time goes by quickly for Callie as she is contacted to allow her body to be used up to three times before getting her payment which will allow what is left of her family a safe place to live. On the last session, Callie is to allow an Ender to use her body for a month. Resting in a safe haven, Callie wakes up and is not where she is supposed to be.
Starters is a pretty fast paced book which touches on many serious topics regarding in some ways the selling and using of human bodies. Price is careful to make sure we know that these bodies are not being used for sex, but that does not stop Enders from hurting the bodies through violent sports, drinking and being sleep deprived.
Personally, I think any teen who has read Pretties by Scott Westerfeld will eat this book up. While I found some parts of the book disturbing (her relationship with her boyfriend) - I do think this book can lead to a lot of interesting book topics related in today’s world not just predictions of the future.
