<div>It is an unstated law of the entertainment industry. If one creative work (a book, a film, a song) becomes a hit, there will be dozens, if not hundreds, of works that take inspiration from that one, hoping to cash in on the same success. <br /><br />If some of the derivative works sell, there will be a secondary wave of inspirations. And so on. It’s how genres are spawned and how new markets are conquered.<br /><br /><div>In the case of Pawn, by Aimee Carter, one can trace the lineage back to Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Pawn, like its literary ancestor, falls under “YA Dystopian Fiction With A Spunky Heroine.” <br /><br /></div><div>Does it mean Carter has borrowed anything of the plot of Hunger Games? Of course not. Pawn has a totally different plot (which is a common trope in itself, but we’ll come back to that in a bit). <br /></div><div> </div><div>But the list of what it does borrow is quite telling: In the future, the world, aka the US, is tightly controlled by a dictatorial family. <br /></div><div><br />People are slotted into concrete social strata, never to escape from where they’ve been placed. <br /><br /></div><div>The heroine, Kitty, is thrust onto the world stage by a quirk of fate (specifically, the colour of her eyes). <br /></div><div> </div><div>She now has the chance to change the world for the better, if only she can play her part right. <br /></div><div><br />And for romantic tension, there is her old boyfriend from her ‘normal’ days, and two other boys who may or may not be romantically inclined towards her. <br /><br /></div><div>Told this way, Pawn sounds like a carbon copy of Hunger Games. But the plot itself is quite different: Kitty lives in the aforementioned dystopian world where people are given grades, from I to VII, based on an aptitude test they take when they turn 17. <br /></div><div><br />She’s just been given a bad grade, which will mean she will spend her life cleaning sewers. <br /><br />Suddenly, she’s kidnapped by the prime minister, and given plastic surgery so that she looks like his niece, Lila. <br /><br /></div><div>Lila has been going around giving revolutionary-type speeches, and goading the people into rising against the government. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Just as well that she died mysteriously a few days before — Kitty will now be more obedient than Lila, and will do the bidding of the prime minister and his politically-minded mother. <br /></div><div> </div><div>But almost as soon as Kitty is brought into the fold, she finds out there are other factions within the family. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Lila’s mother, for example, and her fiancée are not keen on the whole experiment and want Kitty to continue Lila’s good work. <br /><br />Kitty must not only fight for her own survival, but also make the right choices in an ever-shifting game of loyalties. <br /><br /></div><div>The trope of the duplicate taking the place of a powerful figure, controlled by other forces, is an old one — Bollywood has its Don and the recent Aurangzeb, while Twain’s <br /></div><div><br />The Prince and the Pauper and Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda had similar elements. <br /></div><div><br />Carter uses the idea well, giving the story a lot of twists and turns. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Kitty’s impersonation of Lila is only a starting point, and she must do more things to keep herself safe. <br /></div><div><br />To make everything worse, there is a mysterious rebel army that may be responsible for Lila’s death, which makes Kitty their next target. <br /></div><div><br />All in all, there is never a dull moment in the story. <br /><br /></div><div>What does let the book down are two things: the writing, and the characterisation. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Carter is nowhere near as skilled as Suzanne Hunger Games Collins in getting her words to flow smoothly. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Games is no masterpiece, true, but it feels more internally consistent, and everything from the dialogues to the scene descriptions fit together well. <br /></div><div><br />Carter has everyone speaking like an American teenager, with “Yeah”s and “So what”s. <br /><br />The plot itself seems workshopped and artificial, as if it’s a series of chapters checking off a list of revelations prepared beforehand. <br /><br /></div><div>The characters also don’t seem to grow or change except when a twist is demanded — Lila’s grandmother, for example, is a stereotypical “dictatorial mother”, and wherever a hard decision is required to be taken, it’s pegged on her. <br /></div><div><br />Kitty herself has one single change of heart at one point, but it’s so obvious they could have written it on the back cover and we wouldn’t have lost a thing. <br /><br />The characters exist only to advance the plot, and not to live their lives within the pages. <br /><br /></div><div>Overall, do the plot differences and the twists give this book an identity of its own? Not really. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Pawn still sits in the long shadow cast by Hunger Games, and will sell on the basis of the popularity of the genre, not on its own merit. <br /><br /><div><em>Pawn </em></div><div><em>Aimee Carter</em></div><div><em>Harlequin</em></div><div><em>2014, <br />pp 343</em></div><div><em>Rs 250</em></div></div><div><br /></div></div>
<div>It is an unstated law of the entertainment industry. If one creative work (a book, a film, a song) becomes a hit, there will be dozens, if not hundreds, of works that take inspiration from that one, hoping to cash in on the same success. <br /><br />If some of the derivative works sell, there will be a secondary wave of inspirations. And so on. It’s how genres are spawned and how new markets are conquered.<br /><br /><div>In the case of Pawn, by Aimee Carter, one can trace the lineage back to Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Pawn, like its literary ancestor, falls under “YA Dystopian Fiction With A Spunky Heroine.” <br /><br /></div><div>Does it mean Carter has borrowed anything of the plot of Hunger Games? Of course not. Pawn has a totally different plot (which is a common trope in itself, but we’ll come back to that in a bit). <br /></div><div> </div><div>But the list of what it does borrow is quite telling: In the future, the world, aka the US, is tightly controlled by a dictatorial family. <br /></div><div><br />People are slotted into concrete social strata, never to escape from where they’ve been placed. <br /><br /></div><div>The heroine, Kitty, is thrust onto the world stage by a quirk of fate (specifically, the colour of her eyes). <br /></div><div> </div><div>She now has the chance to change the world for the better, if only she can play her part right. <br /></div><div><br />And for romantic tension, there is her old boyfriend from her ‘normal’ days, and two other boys who may or may not be romantically inclined towards her. <br /><br /></div><div>Told this way, Pawn sounds like a carbon copy of Hunger Games. But the plot itself is quite different: Kitty lives in the aforementioned dystopian world where people are given grades, from I to VII, based on an aptitude test they take when they turn 17. <br /></div><div><br />She’s just been given a bad grade, which will mean she will spend her life cleaning sewers. <br /><br />Suddenly, she’s kidnapped by the prime minister, and given plastic surgery so that she looks like his niece, Lila. <br /><br /></div><div>Lila has been going around giving revolutionary-type speeches, and goading the people into rising against the government. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Just as well that she died mysteriously a few days before — Kitty will now be more obedient than Lila, and will do the bidding of the prime minister and his politically-minded mother. <br /></div><div> </div><div>But almost as soon as Kitty is brought into the fold, she finds out there are other factions within the family. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Lila’s mother, for example, and her fiancée are not keen on the whole experiment and want Kitty to continue Lila’s good work. <br /><br />Kitty must not only fight for her own survival, but also make the right choices in an ever-shifting game of loyalties. <br /><br /></div><div>The trope of the duplicate taking the place of a powerful figure, controlled by other forces, is an old one — Bollywood has its Don and the recent Aurangzeb, while Twain’s <br /></div><div><br />The Prince and the Pauper and Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda had similar elements. <br /></div><div><br />Carter uses the idea well, giving the story a lot of twists and turns. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Kitty’s impersonation of Lila is only a starting point, and she must do more things to keep herself safe. <br /></div><div><br />To make everything worse, there is a mysterious rebel army that may be responsible for Lila’s death, which makes Kitty their next target. <br /></div><div><br />All in all, there is never a dull moment in the story. <br /><br /></div><div>What does let the book down are two things: the writing, and the characterisation. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Carter is nowhere near as skilled as Suzanne Hunger Games Collins in getting her words to flow smoothly. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Games is no masterpiece, true, but it feels more internally consistent, and everything from the dialogues to the scene descriptions fit together well. <br /></div><div><br />Carter has everyone speaking like an American teenager, with “Yeah”s and “So what”s. <br /><br />The plot itself seems workshopped and artificial, as if it’s a series of chapters checking off a list of revelations prepared beforehand. <br /><br /></div><div>The characters also don’t seem to grow or change except when a twist is demanded — Lila’s grandmother, for example, is a stereotypical “dictatorial mother”, and wherever a hard decision is required to be taken, it’s pegged on her. <br /></div><div><br />Kitty herself has one single change of heart at one point, but it’s so obvious they could have written it on the back cover and we wouldn’t have lost a thing. <br /><br />The characters exist only to advance the plot, and not to live their lives within the pages. <br /><br /></div><div>Overall, do the plot differences and the twists give this book an identity of its own? Not really. <br /></div><div> </div><div>Pawn still sits in the long shadow cast by Hunger Games, and will sell on the basis of the popularity of the genre, not on its own merit. <br /><br /><div><em>Pawn </em></div><div><em>Aimee Carter</em></div><div><em>Harlequin</em></div><div><em>2014, <br />pp 343</em></div><div><em>Rs 250</em></div></div><div><br /></div></div>