Science Fiction Book Club discussion

Ahhhh my favorite character died! This book is better than The Hunger Games even though I did like that book a lot too. I just always felt that Hunger Games had one overwhelming flaw. I couldn't stand the fact that that book was written completely from Katniss's perspective and I love that Battle Royale jumps from student to student. I just wish that the one would have lived further!!!!

By the way I am still reading the story and am only on page 403. Reading onward.

Has anyone finished this book yet?

Only 10% through. Making slow progress with this one and had to finish the Hunger Games first so I can compare and contrast.

Is anyone else even reading this book?

Technically the everyone has until Friday but I have been wondering the same thing. I've been finished with this book for a while now and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Help!!! I can't put this book down!

Haha Diane. I'm very nearly finished. I was really angry I had to stop reading and go back to work after lunch today!

No legal ebook, and I have lots of other stuff to read.

I finished it! What a wild ride. Wasn't it a "sit on the edge of your seat" kind of book! I loved it, but now it's time for something a bit more relaxing. Phew!

I so wanted the plan by the two friends to work in some fashion...instead it blew up in their faces.

Well I finally finished it. Really enjoyed it. Did anyone else find the translation a little bit clumsy?

I don't know what version you had but I had the newly revised text with the interview of the director and the author. It is a darker cover with a more designed Shuya on it. It seemed well enough translated to me but as I said it wasn't the red one imaged above which I did hear was rough in the translation.

Yeah I had the red one.

I found the black one to be well enough translated that it didn't bother me while reading it. A great story though...I loved the ending.

It's one of those stories where you can see how it's going to end - there was no way all 3 of them were going to make it - but you desperately want it to be different. And like you, although I knew the two friends plan was bound to go wrong I was rooting for them all the way through just hoping I'd be wrong.

I found this much more realistic than The Hunger Games. There wasn't a thought process of 'oh I have to spare my audience and save the characters' at all. People died, friends died, they got things wrong, plans didn't work, life was a b***h. It was a great book.

I have to agree with that assessment. Hunger Games didn't seem to have the element of rebellion strong enough for me while Battle Royal did it well enough for me to be satisfied.

I honestly have to disagree with everyone that respects The Hunger Games as an example of anything other than poor writing. It's angsty. And it doesn't even have the sense to read like a fun, enjoyable B-grade movie ("Sandman Slim"). It's Twilight, is what I'm saying here. Battle Royale, however, I found to be quite well-written, thought out and, in general, a good novel.

I very much enjoyed reading this at the time. I can see why Hunger Games is so popular, I enjoyed reading that series myself but it felt a very much "kid" friendly version of what is really a pretty disturbing, adult concept.

All fiction owes a debt and this does own a debt to many works of fiction that have covered issues such as humans killing each other as game show/ punishment/ for entertainment of others - I am thinking of Prize of Peril by Robert Sheckley and some of his other stories and A Most Dangerous Game - although some of these ideas may have preceded these works.

I think the freshness of Battle Royales approach, the multiple character perspectives and multiple ways different children respond to the situation works very well. It is a very inventive novel although ultimately I did somehow expect more after reading the reviews shortly after it came out (I read it soon after it came out in an English translation).

How much of my disappointment was down to the translation or not I am not sure - but it remains a very enjoyable novel and ultimately I think it offers a more compelling vision than the sanitized Hunger Games - although I do think they are well written books.

Thanks for sharing the information.