Hunger

Hunger is a science-fiction fantasy and a sequel to Gone, of which one reviewer aptly remarked, ‘If Stephen King had written Lord of the Flies, it might have been a little like this’. The setting is a small peninsula on the Californian coast, containing a town called Perdido Beach, a nearby residential school for the behaviourally challenged children of the rich, and (crucially) a nuclear power station. 15 years before the story begins, a small meteorite hit the power station and ploughed deep into the earth, carrying much uranium with it. Although the accident has been (in every sense) covered up since then, the whole area has come to be known as Fallout Alley. Then everyone over 15 disappears in a single instant, and Fallout Alley is imprisoned by an impenetrable dome, admitting light and dark, but shutting off all contact with the outside world.

As if this were not enough, many of the children in both town and boarding school acquire diverse mutant powers, different for every individual, such as the ability to run at superhuman speed. These powers can be used for good or ill, and Hunger picks up the violent rivalries and conflicts that the situation generates. The ‘hunger’ of the title takes two forms. One is the simple famine that begins among the children as supplies run out. The other is the ‘hunger’ for radioactive sustenance of a monstrous alien organism buried deep in the earth, where the meteorite fell.

The paranormal powers and threats and dangers are the material of a Stephen King-like fantasy, while the struggles among the children themselves for power and leadership and order and survival, the pressures on skin-deep habits of civilized behaviour, do indeed recall Lord of the Flies. The leading character, Sam Temple, is in direct descent from Golding’s Ralph, though Sam himself is one of those endowed with mutant powers.

Hunger, like its predecessor, is a fast-paced, over-the-top, ingenious, and highly readable fantasy which holds its many storylines together with great narrative panache and skill. It is a true page-turner, and there will be plenty more pages to turn. The next instalment is signalled in the sinister closing sentences of Hunger. Some disturbing episodes mark this off as strictly teenage reading, but the series will win plenty of enthusiasts in this age group.