Because using stock characters like the complete jerk or the good guy who’s really a bad guy can convince people that this is some wholly original epic where loyalties are tested and bonds forged. Because all the crossbow firing, gun shooting, knife fighting, mutant attacking survivalist stuff will make up for the otherwise complete lack of a plot.

Because sending everyone off into the dystopian wilderness to duke it out and kill each other in a survival of the fittest style test hasn’t been done to death before. Because blithely standing by while someone is twitching on the floor bleeding out from a nail in the eye is great not just for dramatic effect but to show those little shits who's boss. Step Three - The Hackneyed Battle Royale-Style Elimination Competitionīecause killing off three quarters of your most promising citizens is such a great way of rebuilding society. Just don't tell any of that to the people lurking around fomenting rebellion. Even when you think they’re cruel, heartless SOBs - especially when you think they’re cruel, heartless SOBs. They know what’s good for you, even when you don’t. Step Two - The Derivative Dystopian Governmentīasically, big brother is watching. Oh, and randomly sprinkle in dangerous feral mutants, both animals and human, for added effect. Mix and match various technologies like crossbows, guns, and hovercars and hope the people reading this haven’t passed one of those logic exams where you’re presented with a list of things and asked to pick out the one that doesn’t belong. Set this shit in one such overtaxed small town, where people live in general squalor but still have the time and materials to make and enjoy ice cream of all things, because when potable water and electricity are everyday concerns, dairy farms and refrigeration can magically ignore the rules of this world. Cue nuclear slash biochemical world war followed by unexplained natural catastrophes, leading to people living in generally hardscrabble conditions. Have a bunch of bombastic sounding nation states with slightly futuristic names blow each other up for no apparent reason other than that this needs to happen in a postapocalypticish setting. Step One - The Generic Dystopian Landscape So rather than wasting my breath critiquing this clone, allow me to introduce to you to what I like to call how to write a cookie cutter Hunger Games style knockoff in four easy steps, no EasyBake oven required. With the success of The Hunger Games, every new dystopian - and gosh darn it there are so many of them now - is being marketed as The Hunger Games meets this or The Hunger Games meets that, but never in a million years would I have suspected I’d read one so blatantly unoriginal that it’s not The Hunger Games meets anything, it’s just The Hunger Games - rehashed, ripped off, whatever. I think I’ve read The Testing at least four different times in the past year - without actually ever having heard of this book.

The testing joelle