Yeah, P-C. That, and there's a whole set-piece in Mockingjay that just threw me right out of the story because it made NO SENSE AT ALL. For those who read Mockingjay: the bit where the "pods" are in the streets of the Capitol, which means the authorities set boobytraps all over the area inhabited by their own civilian population. Totally nonsensical.

I really didn't have a problem with the world-building until Mockingjay, which just didn't seem to fit with the other two books at all.

I don't really need to know that, though, P-C. Personally, I mean, because the Capitol is portrayed as so powerful and so unknowable, I can be with Kat in not understanding how it's done, but having to roll with it.

Yep.

But if the world-building issues aren't really till Mockingjay, then at least I'm not crazy about wondering what people were complaining about.

I had problems with the world-building, too. The biggest was that Collins wrote it as though the Capitol, which I'm assuming is Denver-ish, is able to defend itself against all attackers because...of the mountains. Pretty sure the books aren't set in the 1800s.

t edit

But if the world-building issues aren't really till Mockingjay, then at least I'm not crazy about wondering what people were complaining about.

My world-building issue was in book 1.

My world-building issue was in book 1.

Mine, too. It just feels very, um, simple. Broad strokes, not a lot of complex relationships, and so forth. You can blame that on Katniss' relative youth and ignorance, but seriously: District 12 only produces coal, and Rue's District only produces grain, and so on and so forth. All the people in the Capitol are perfectly happy with the entertainment provided by the Hunger Games and there is no internal political strife there. Nobody in any of the Districts has figured out how to subvert the advanced communications and surveillance technology despite having a hundred years or more to do it.

It's an interesting setup, but it's shallow to me. Too imbalanced to work for more than a generation or two, like North Korea--and North Korea is utterly dependent on outside aid to feed their people.

My biggest worldbuilding problem in Mockingjay was, towards the end there's all this talk about how Katniss basically has to save humanity and they all have to repopulate the earth (I'm paraphrasing but that was the definite sense I got) -- which made me wonder, are there no other countries left on earth?? Is Panem all that remains, not just of America, but of the whole WORLD? It's the kind of thing a writer can get away with in sci-fi that's set on an entirely different planet, but if this is meant to be Earth a few hundred years in our future... what the hell happened? And why did it take until book 3 to find that out?

Kate, yes, that too.

I really much preferred Scott Westerfeld's dystopian future in the Uglies series, which slowly unfold to show the world is, in fact, a much bigger place than the lead character understands. And he writes kickass action sequences, too.

I really much preferred Scott Westerfeld's dystopian future in the Uglies series

Definitely.

That's also on my List. It's a trilogy, but then there's some book called Extras ? Should I read that too?

Extras is...okay. I'm glad I read it for completion's sake, but I didn't like it as much as the first 3.

I also really like Westerfeld's Midnighters trilogy, although it's not dystopia like Uglies or Hunger Games.