The most obvious quality of the books is the way they so completely grip you from start to finish. The books were about as easy to put down as the last piece of chocolate you’ll ever eat. Suzanne Collins achieves this with a combination of near-perfect plotting and pacing, a main character that is incredibly real and interesting, and a writing style that creates a whole new definition of minimalist.

Any avid reader of adult books would be likely to reject the writing style during the first couple of pages. I myself almost felt like putting it down after the first few minutes and wondered if the praise I had heard for the books was unfounded. As interesting as the opening was, I continued, and I’m very glad that I did. The books are written in first person, which means that you are inside the main character’s head, and this is the excuse for the extremely short sentences (including many fragments) and grammatically incorrect wording. I knew this, but it still bothered me. By the time I reached chapter two all those thoughts had vanished never to materialise again, because by that point I was completely and irrevocably locked in the narrative.

The tension was so complete and perfectly tight that I barely noticed the chapter markings. Several times I told myself that it was time to stop at the next chapter, noticing that it was only a few pages away, and yet two hours later I would realise I’ve overshot the next chapter without even noticing. I don’t know why the publishers even bothered with chapters, because the narrative had no true breaks in it, not even when our main character was asleep.

Although I criticise the extreme writing style, which doesn’t lend itself to taking advantage of the thematic and potential allegorical impacts the book could have had with stronger narration, it’s difficult to fault such perfect and gripping storytelling. The lack of such narration will probably stop this book reaching the ranks of “great” books by most people’s standards, but it will remain one of the most gripping I’ve ever read.

And in the end, when it comes to overall messages, the story speaks for itself. Watching the kids die one by one in the arena says far more than a preachy narration ever could, so perhaps this is a good choice, because her approach to this story is far better than attempting something grander and failing at it.

Rather than try to be a successful “great” novel (or series), The Hunger Games stands as a demonstration of near-flawless storytelling skill. And as far as achievements go, that’s a pretty “great” one. I can’t wait to find out how it ends.

First a bit of background for those who haven’t read my past blog posts on this subject. Expressing the concepts of capitalist vs communist economics in a Christian sense has been important to me for a while, because I feel that very few Christians have a real understanding of it. Having spent pages explaining every detail, my conclusion is very simple and boils down to the following: Jesus believed in voluntary communism, a system where nobody is forced to give and yet everyone chooses to live equally despite this freedom to choose. This is freedom in the right-wing sense, but communism as a choice of that freedom. It is very different to both the totalitarian communist governments we’ve seen over the last century and the free-market capitalist systems of the western world. It is doubtful that Jesus’ chosen system could ever work on a large scale.

For this reason I vote for a socialist balance somewhere in between, where we still retain all the most important freedoms and our taxes are used to make sure everyone has a home, warmth, food, healthcare, and education. Our government fights to protect the people from injustices, including companies who might take advantage of them. The poor are not only surviving, but relativity comfortable, even if the poor cannot have the luxuries many take for granted. I believe firmly that Jesus would support the concept, since the idea of Jesus leaving people to go hungry, or to die when they could be healed is absurd. Similarly Jesus would not stand by while one human is taking advantage of another, and the things corporations get away with today would be disgusting to him. These ideas seem obvious to me and are the principles of my political desires.

However a lot of socialists make statements such as, “Capitalism is evil.” Despite the obvious issues with both extreme capitalism and extreme communism, those same people are almost never heard saying, “Communism is evil.” Why is that?

To be a pragmatist for a moment, it’s because they’re trying to fight a left-wing idealogical battle and don’t want to send mixed messages. It’s also because they live in a capitalist country, and so of course they won’t be focusing on the evils of communism. However there is a more fundamental reason for the statement bias, a reason the evils in capitalism hurt some of us so much more, and that reason comes from looking at the source of each evil.

The evil of communism is very well-defined. In a communist system, the people invariably lose freedom until a small number of people hold a large amount of power over the resources of a country. As a result, those people become corrupt and the equal utopia doesn’t materialise as expected. This evil has a source in the establishment; this evil has a face or number of faces, and there is a general sense that those who search for power are those least suitable to have it. This form of evil is no surprise to us and is easy to identify and explain away while still having faith in mankind for its great intentions. It is only the power-seekers who are evil, not the people.

The evil of capitalism on the other hand is very different, because it’s based on the fundamentals of the system. We give people almost absolute freedom, we give them low taxes and a license to make their own way in the world, and we then expect them to give to charity to help the poor. The state is small, the power is in the people (and the companies) and they are left to regulate themselves. In a perfect world this system is completely moral and right, because in that perfect world (as discussed earlier) all those people choose to do the right thing and share the wealth as Jesus and the early church tried to do. However in the hands of the real world, bad things start to happen.

In the real world, companies start to control the government and have power over law and enforcement. In the real world, corporations become barely regulated at all and are able to treat their workers in any way they see fit. In the real world, companies strive for increasing levels of money and growth, on an endless conveyer belt of money adoration. In the real world, we create a country like America where even the Christians think they deserve their huge house and three cars, because freedom is “the Christian way”.

What we find is that a system which is based on growth through greed, actually produces more greed. This should be obvious, and yet we mostly ignore it.

Communism fails because of the weaknesses of the few, but capitalism fails because of the weaknesses of everyone. It encourages us to follow our demons and pursue money until we love it as a second god. It says that competition is the way to progress for all mankind, while ignoring the poor who are suffering because not enough of us give to charity. It breeds a worsening of the human condition because the principles are not moral.

This is ultimately why capitalism upsets me so much more than communism, not because it’s any better in a practical sense, but because it allows people to take advantage of our weaknesses. It encourages greed and bad behaviour. Would you put a person struggling with their weight in a room full of chocolate? Not unless you were very cruel. And just as Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,” so as Christians when we advocate a system built on greed with no footnotes or conditions, we put ourselves in a room of chocolate where the result of eating it is the loss of the kingdom of God; a loss of eternal life itself! This seems to me to be incredibly disturbing.

Meanwhile, suffering and exploitation is rampant and often goes unchecked. Corporations run our countries behind closed doors and we let it happen, because most of us have been taken in by their propaganda. Communist propaganda contained pure lies and obvious advertisements, which in the modern information age would be hard to use successfully (hence why China tries to control the internet). Capitalist propaganda is a slow and careful brainwashing that begins from the first day we watch TV, with our children. This makes it far more dangerous; it is the ring-wraiths in Lord of the Rings, the evil with shape and not substance, moving in the darkness unknown to most but felt by all. These are villains who can’t be defeated with a simple slash of the sword.

And ultimately, the other reason I don’t like capitalism is in the accepting of defeat. Capitalism works so well because human nature contains a selfish element, an element that wants more than other people. The whole concept of continuous economic growth through competition is owed to this element. Perhaps accepting the existence of that element is pragmatism and denying it is idealism, but if we accept defeat on our weaknesses then we’ll never move forward, either as people or as a world.

Extreme capitalism is no more evil than communism in the real world, but the principles behind it and the way it impacts our future most certainly are. Compare a rich Christian in America with a downtrodden Christian in communist China, and ask yourself, which has the easiest path to eternal life? Which has the easiest struggle for morality? What would Jesus’ answer be? I have a feeling that many modern Christians would fail to answer that question correctly.

Yesterday I watched Dr Horrible on Blu-ray and revelled in the awesomeness, as I would for any musical capable of making me laugh and cry within minutes of each other.

Then I went on John Green’s live stream and watched as we nagged our way to a comfortable 3500 vote win of $250,000 for the HP Alliance, after being down by 500 votes just three hours beforehand.

I just watched the first episode of The Guild - Season 4 and some footage from previous ComicCons, both of which made me really happy.

And today I’m packing for Infinitus 2010, which I’ve heard has a record 2400+ attendees (though I’m sure that’s mostly due to the draw of the Wizarding World in Universal).

After all these things I’m reminded yet again why I love nerds, geeks and every variation in between. These things come from artistic, kind and intelligent places, where time and what you do with your life really mean something. I never look at a nerdy thing and fail to understand what compelled them to do that, because those things seem to validate their own existence by being unique and sometimes even beautiful.

And then even more significant are the communities that revolve around those things; waiting on the eve of returning to the environment where I can most be myself, it feels like going home. The communities we form are the firmest I’ve come across outside of religious groups, and even if the Harry Potter fandom does shrink and fade, nobody can take away what we’ve done together. Nobody can take away the memories, nobody can take away the charity work and hundreds of thousands of dollars raised, and if the HP Alliance uses it wisely, nobody can take away all the good that that money is going to do. I love our community and the wider community of nerds that seems to be forming a more complex net all the time.

As JMS was fond of saying through characters in Babylon 5:

“Humans form communities. And from that diversity comes a strength that no single race can withstand.”

And if that is the mark of our species, or one of our marks, then our greatest communities really mean something.

After arriving in the US nearly a week ago, we went to Boston for the weekend (a coincidentally timed trip based on Justine’s shifts and her sister Melanie being off at weekends). It was a great trip where I got to know Melanie better, went to see the Red Sox play for the second time in beautiful and historic Fenway park, visited the JFK presidential library, which reminded me how incredibly inspiring that man was (a couple of his speeches make me teary), and followed the freedom trail going over Boston’s revolutionary past.

It also reminded me of my original opinion on the revolution as far back as when we studied it in history as a child: “Those Americans were so uppity.” Nobody ever prompted me or suggested it, but that’s honestly how I saw it, and to an extent I still do: the riots, the Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party which as far as I’m concerned is deplorable for the simple fact of the wasted tea. Angry at the British or not, I can tell you I would never have taken part! I can understand the tax issues, and the British taxes imposed on the American colonies were unfair, but I can also understand the need to keep at least one of the taxes imposed (ie tea) after repealing all the others, because in my simplistic view, I can already see that to give the colonists everything they protest about at the bat of an eyelid would be to lose authority. It makes me want to study it in more depth, because there are probably stresses and issues I don’t appreciate. Has an American ever looked at the story and thought of the colonists as uppity or wasteful or unruly? Do we all look at it through our cultural lense? I’d be curious to know if any Americans thought as I did when I was little.

In any case, as I continue to settle in very slowly because of the distractions of going away for the weekend, which will be followed by Justine’s family visiting on Friday, getting married in a civil ceremony for the paperwork and then ultimately Infinitus, I realise that being away from home already makes me prouder of my British roots. No matter how much I try to pretend I’m nothing more than a “citizen of the world” and couldn’t care less about being British, by contrast with another country the things I’m proud of come to the fore, and I realise that I want to retain my Britishness if I can. Maybe the accent will fade, but I’d rather it didn’t.

As has been the usual theme in my life, I think I like to be different. Being British seems so much better when you don’t live in Britain.