The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a Hunger Games Prequel, is launching next week on 19th May, 2020.
I knew that Suzanne Collins had been working on a prequel to her trilogy.
In fact, I listened to the first 11 minutes of the The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes audiobook a short while ago.
However, I didn’t realise that it was out so soon!
Listen to the first 11 minutes here
So, what is it all about?
Interestingly, the book focuses on Coriolanus Snow – the President Snow of the Hunger Games’ trilogy.
64 years prior to Katniss Everdeen, and only ten years after the ‘Dark Days’ uprising alluded to in the original trilogy, Snow awaits the reaping for tenth annual Hunger Games.
Here’s a sneak peak of the blurb…
Ambition will fuel him. Competition will drive him. But power has its price.
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.
The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined — every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute . . . and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
Note that Snow has been tasked with mentoring the female tribute from District 12. I’m curious about how this will inform his disdain for (and fear of) Katniss.
Also – in The Hunger Games, Snow is a powerful man. He’s the president of Panem, inspiring both fear and adulation in equal measure. Contrast that with his seemingly low status in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
It’ll be fascinating to see how Snow becomes such a dangerous, bitter, and cruel man. Is he a product of the system, or is there something that runs deeper within him?
I guess we’ll find out in a week’s time!
The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is available to pre-order at Amazon, Waterstones, and fine bookstores everywhere.
Will you be picking up a copy? Are you excited, anxious, completely disinterested? Let me know below!
