Two are people separated by class in a place where class is determined by body weight. The people of Induction Town walk on treadwheels to generate electricity, so the bigger they are the more they are worth. She's a big girl with a bright future, betrothed to a son of one of the biggest families of Wheel Six. He's a skinny kid scavenging a living from crime. They have no business being together. They know it as well as their friends and family, and Mr. Myrtle, a small man with big ambitions to prove himself to the bigger classes. If he can't force these two get back to their proper places, he'll make the ultimate example of them.

Not all social machines are bad, and the Motherland, the place that grows the food that fuels the walkers of Induction Town, seems to be a better place for Shevi and Jackson. But strict discipline is essential to maintaining the rhythm of Agrarianna, and as they try to fit into a place where friendship is discrimination and family is against the law, they discover they won't withstand its abrasiveness.

No one has ever escaped the Iron Curtain that defines and confines Agrarianna. But Shevi and Jackson must try, separately. If they can find and expose the energy pirates in the Wilds, they just might win the chance to return to their former home.

What could be better that living in Fluxton, the Capital of the great society built on the ruins of the Carbon Nation, populated with citizens whose only goal is to maintain the Trintico Corporate Society, filled with beautiful houses of radiant crystal? That's what Shevi and Jackson think when they arrive. Their unlikely entry into the shareholder citizenry of Fluxton reveals another means by which the Social Machine of Trintico has run amok. While Shevi tries to fit in and find a place in the strange reality of the Capital, Jackson revolutionizes the racing machines that squander the power the walkers of I Town produce.

Here Timothy Koch tests the bond of his young pair with the strain of consumerism gone wild. Can they go along with a society that starves its children to give them a better chance at success? If they manage collapse the structure that supports the Social Machine, they will bring all of Trintico to a disastrous heap.

Shevi and Jackson have broken free from expectations of the Trintico Corporate Society's social machine. They and their closest companions have found refuge in an abandoned home built in the framework of a high-voltage transmission tower in the wastelands that surround Trintico. But a new threats looms over them, a deviant tyrant who wears the skin of his predecessor and enslaves people to work in his horrific Tower of Power. Shevi's ex-fiance is among the prisoners there. Shevi and Jackson set out to restart the Social Machine of the Trintico Corporate Society to defeat this new nemesis.

An enclave of civilization surrounded by vast post-apocalypse wastelands. Three sovereign but interdependent walled steampunk cities, each with a different kind of self-imposed dystopia. The inhabitants of each will have to accept the demands of the social machine or risk getting cast out into the Wilds. Crazy King Ludd and his vagabond marauders wait there to enslave anyone they capture. Worse still are the Faux-Zombies who reenact an old movie in an abandoned Carbon Nation shopping mall when the moon is full or the Gasbaggers who value death more than life because of the methane decaying bodies offer.

Leah hoisted up a long-tailed shirt of the densest chainmail Shevi had ever seen. “Let’s try this on you. Mother says your appetite will increase when you’re carrying more weight. She says you could go two-fifty, three hundred if you took care of yourself.” (I Town, page 226)

Shevi and Jackson try to accept that the big must grow bigger to keep up with the increasing energy demands of Trintico. They try to accept the strict discipline of the farmlands that grow the food for I Town. They even try to fit into the Capital's rampant consumerism that wastes the resources of Trintico for the sake of maintaining its social machinery.

“These people do not need to be slaughtered or sterilized,” Sec Elec said, reining the conversation back on route. “They need hope. They need something to strive for. And they need an anthem and a champion to show them the way.”

“We need an anthem, for the monarchy,” Prince Tyler said.

Sec Elec voice dropped into a low growl. “We need a solution to these problems, Your Majesty. It must be real. At the end of the day it must be real.” (I Town, page 163)

If you enjoyed the Leviathan Trilogy, Hunger Games, Incarceron, City of Ember, The Maze Runner Series, or Mortal Engines, the Trintico Quartet is your next great adventure. Set in the not-so-distant future when carbon energy sources are scarce and the trees have retaken the suburbs of the old Carbon Nation, it offers a twisted look at contemporary consumerism.

Shevi and Jackson escape the class system of Induction Town only to fall into the clutches of another overbearing order in Agrarianna. The Motherland fuels the power grid by feeding the walkers of I Town. Strict discipline demands complete allegiance to the Motherland, leaving no place for friendship and forbidding family. Unable to accept these conditions, the pair flee to Fluxton, the great Capital of Trintico. But when they discover that the produce of I Town and Agrarianna are only squandered, they break the social machine. The citizens of Trintico require order and provision to resist the madness of the wastelands around them, so Shevi and Jackson must restart the social machine.

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