Hungry cities
The Hungry Cities Chronicles are a fictionalized telling by Phillip Reeve about the fifth age of middle earth, when motorized cities roamed the continents, and hobbits inhabited static settlements (read:hippies) to the east.
The story follows Frodo Baggins and his wife, Strider, as they travel from traction city to traction city, preventing the ring of power from falling into the hands of Mordor.
This four part series is acclaimed by carbuncular young teens and dirty anarchists trying to teach their children about the evils of predatory capitalism; even though the series has no love for those commies either.
Plot Synopsis[edit | edit source]
Moral Engines[edit | edit source]
Strider stows away within a city about to be eaten by Mount London, in a cunning plan to kill Saint Valentine. Her and Frodo fall out of London before she can pop a cap in Valentine's ass. As they try to track London back down, we learn about its secret weapon, the SMOG MACHINE. and how they plan to use it to enslave the poor hobbits.
Frodo mostly stands around, because he represents the everyman caught up in the tide of historic forces.
(Spoiler—Don't read this if you don't want the story to be spoiled) Valentine is Luke's father, I mean Strider's father. We find out that Strider is really Aragorn
The Predator's Gold[edit | edit source]
This book lays out a prolog for the rise of radical Islam among the Hobbits. Frodo and Aragorn crash aboard Anchorage, home of the sexy Ice Queen Natalie Merchant, where they get caught up in a plot by the Lost Boys while fleeing from Saint Peter, Archangle god of das Russians. Keither Sutherland is totally underutilized in this one.
Inferential Devices[edit | edit source]
16 years later, Frodo and Aragorn have settled into a comfortable life on Anchorage. Their world is turned topsy-turvy again when Peter Pan arrives to steal the secrets of LOKI, some Nordic god. Pippin and Sam (the daughter of Frodo and Aragorn) is then kidnapped by the Lost Boys; reigniting their adventures.
Meanwhile, The Predator has taken control of radical Islam and is sending suicide bombers against friendly German towns. How could a town like Panzerstadt Berlin be a bad thing? -- I think Nietzsche lived there.
A Darling Plan[edit | edit source]
Total war between the Hobbits and Traktionstadtsgesellschaft Mordor. Frodo and Aragorn break up; both put separate ways and witness to the events as peace break downs and the final showdown between greeny-weenies and responsible capitalist Germans commences.
We find out that Englanders aren't so bad after all. Everything turns out happy; in a thousand years the Earth is green again. and people ride maglev cars around; proving that technology will cure the oppression technology was responsible for.
Kritik[edit | edit source]
The underlying theme about capitalism's exploitation of resources is totally un-apropos to modern civilization. Where does he get this from? But the subtext about the rise of radicalism among peace lovers makes sense; we really should bomb those mofos back to the stone age; but they voluntarily choose to live in the stone age.
Things we learned:
- German words are totally cool sounding. Deutscherworttonkühl
- In a thousand years, there will be peace between men.