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Apr 07, 2012Ubalstecha rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
It's 2154, and the world is a dystopian mess. Many years ago, some apocalyptic event occurred that caused the population to drop to a point that there was a lack of workers. To fill this need, governments created robots to do menial work. These robots began to get better, able to handle more complex work. This meant that as the population recovered, there was no work for them to do. Permanent classes of unemployed were created, living off government hand outs. Into this world is borne Lisse. As a child of an unemployed family, she is taken from her parents at the age of six to be educated. But with the robots taking more and more jobs, she too ends up Unemployed at the age of sixteen. Dropped off in the Designated Area in which she is now to live, Lisse bands together with a group of seven friends to survive their new world of gangs, drugs, garish clothes and government crackdowns. But then one day, an invitation arrives for the group to attend the mysterious Game. With nothing else to do, they go and are exposed to a treasure hunt in a new world that seems too real to be true. Each return finds them wanting to do better and learn more. They devote a great deal of time to preparing for their next session. And then one day, it turns out the Game may have been all too real. Author Monica Hughes's work was published in 1991, and it shows a world where technology is replacing man in insidious ways. A precursor to works like the Hunger Games, it is a more Utopian view of our future, even though it may not seem like it at first. It has aged very well and is worth the look.