| Booktalk
#1
The sound is deafening and
the smoke from the engines surrounds London. The chase is on.
It has been a long time since it had eaten. And now they are closing
in on a small town by the name of Salthook. It's putting up a good
chase. Going 80 miles an hour in an effort to get away. But
it's no match for London. Soon there's a catch and Salthook is gobbled
up by London. The crowd goes wild. What a catch! Tom
watches and feels a bit sorry for those who don't get to experience the
thrill. There are some towns that don't believe in the principles
of Municipal Darwinsim. The Anti-Tractionists believe that towns
should be stationary. But everyone knows it's a town eat town world
and it just isn't right to have a stationary town. Can you imagine
what it must be like?
Booktalk #2
Imagine
a time, in the hopefully distant future, when cities prowl the earth preying
on each other. Whole cities, like islands, mounted on tracs so they can
hunt, or flee as the need arises on the great hunting ground that earth
has become.
Thaddeus
Valentine, the famous historian and archeologist of the great traction
city of London, and his daughter Katherine are down in the gut when a young
assassin with a black scarf strikes. Only the quick intervention of Tom,
a lowly 3rd class apprentice saves Valentine from sure death. Racing
after the fleeing girl, tom glimpses her hideously scarred face. "Look
at what your Valentine did to me!" she screams. "Ask him! Ask him what
he did to Hester Shaw!" Moments later she disappears down a waste chute
and Tom, unable to stop, tumbles after her. He lands on a sea of mud scored
by huge caterpillar tracks and watches as the great city that was his home
churns off into the distance. How to survive? What is there in Out-Country?
It looks to be a desolate wasteland. And why did the girl with the
scarred face want to kill their hero?
Book
1 of The Hungry City Chronicles. (New Hampshire Isinglass Teen Read
Award committee) |
