No, I'm in the US but I really like UK television. I don't think I've ever heard of Bedlam before. What is it about? Let me know what you think of The Fades.
Yeah, definitely. Also, Collins did a pretty good job with The Hunger Games book but massively failed with Catching Fire and Mockingjay; they are nothing but utter garbage. Takami has that over her, haha. I think the only thing that got negative reviews his way was Battle Royale II which was essentially a rip-off of the first movie. I don't know how much the author had a say in the movie sequel, though.
Oh man, Takami's response to the entire thing makes me respect him even more. Of course his books and movies are being sought out even more because of the rise in popularity with the Hunger Games, but he could have taken this whole thing in a really negative turn. When it boils down to it, though, you can look at it this way: a story is a story and can only be as good as its writer.
I'm not surprised that she would have never heard of Battle Royale, unless she had specifically researched other similar stories from around the world. Battle Royale wasn't extremely popular in the US save for a few niche groups so she wouldn't really have a reason to know what it was. The book and the story are still pretty underground in the US and is only really now being known because of the popularity rising in Hunger Games and followers of Battle Royale are comparing the two in more popular areas of the internet.
I haven't read the Wikipedia entry for either stories so I don't know what's been written about them. Are you referring to the BR page or HG page?
I really just write for myself. I would love to be able to do it for a living but that's really hard. The three i've finished are published though which is cool. Not many people have read them though.
Right now i'm writing a story where a bunch of people start going missing in a town and when the townspeople investigate they find out that the people have been taken by a giant troll. That's the basic plot anyway. It's my fourth novel. I write horror obviously.