When a magnetized object passes over a coiled copper wire, the magnetic field activates the electrons in the conductor.
Three years of reseach went into the writing of I Town, the first volume of the Trintico Quartet. When I realized that these mysterious characters lurking in the back of my mind were walking on treadwheels all day everyday to generate electricity, I almost abandoned the project. I had studied electricity several times over the years of schooling and hobby enthusiasm. I did not want to write about something so alien to me. But a long talk with a dedicated physics teacher helped me understand what the electrons were feeling, being driven by a force outside their own existence, like peer pressure, fashion trends, or propaganda, I found myself not only open to the idea of writing about electricity but saw the nature of electromagnetic induction as the basis for the society I wanted to write about.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed but can only be transferred from one system to another.
Wait, you say, that's not math. That's more science. But when you want to have humans walking on treadwheels to make electricity, you have to give them the same amount of energy in the form of food, specifically calories, as you expect then to produce in watts of electricity. Not only do they have to eat enough to produce the electricity but also to maintain their valuable body weight to keep their place on the great induction generator treadwheels of Induction Town. Thus the second volume of the Quartet takes us to Agrarianna, the Motherland of the Trintico Corporate Society, where the food is produced.
Carbonesque is a form and style of art that uses items salvaged from the wastelands of the old Carbon Nation. We find a fine example of the Carbonesque style in the camp of King Ludd's Wireless of the Wilds.
In the arena of Performing Arts we find the Faux-Zombies who have a perfectly intact shopping mall at their disposal. At each full moon, they reenact the ancient movie Night of the Living Dead, drugging and dressing some of their subjects to be vicious bloodthirsty zombies while others trapped in the mall must try to stay alive. The performance of both teams is observed and individuals rated. Those with the highest ratings will sit out future Rituals, to watch in the comfort of the Manor House.
Research is the true art of fiction.
Each aspect of the planning and building of the world of the Trintico Corporate Society required a great amount of research. Electricity production, calorie consumption, food production, energy consumption, and many other elements that contributed to this world demanded examination.
The technology of the Trintico Quartet includes the great treadwheels themselves, a multi-layered composite of walking surface, a magnetic field layer, an induction coil layer and an integral structure to maintain the shape of the wheel; knocker rods, weapons that use the principle of electromagnetic induction to electrocute their targets; treadwheel-powered water pumping; an electric-powered monowheel racer; and the society itself, divided as it is into producers and consumers separated by sufficient space to allow completely different socioeconomic conditions.
Shevi is a big girl with a bright future and Jackson is a skinny boy living off of crime in a place where body weight determines class. The citizens of Induction Town walk en masse to turn the colossal treadwheel induction generators that power the Trintico Corporate Society.
Unwilling to be separated but unable to be together in Induction Town, the pair flee to the place that grows the food that fuels the walkers. Still forced apart and again finding society unbearably self-destructive, they set out separately to find and expose the energy pirates in the wastelands. What they find does not offer the redemption they hoped for. Instead, it puts them in greater jeopardy and their lives in greater danger.
The Secretary of Electricity whisks them to the Capital of Trintico. Knowing they have no place among the wealthy shareholder citizenry of Fluxton, they try to keep a low profile and rectify the discrepancies between what they've always heard of the great Capital and what they find. At last unable to accept the flagrant waste of resources, they inadvertently collapse the entire society.
It's easy to complain about the problems with the social machine, but it is this machine that provides food for those who do not grow, shelter for those who do not build, clothing for those who do not weave, an active economy for all. Having left those they love without even the basic necessities, let alone a comfortable life, Shevi and Jackson must restart the very social machine that opposed them if they are to solve even bigger problems that await them in the wastelands beyond Trintico.
My first goal was to write a story about a dystopian society not of people downtrodden and suppressed but who embrace the situation they are in because any problems they encounter within are far less than the hell that awaits beyond.
The second goal was to give the complainers the challenge not simply to defeat an imposing society but to then rebuild a more sustainable social machine.
The Leviathan Trilogy
The Mortal Engines Quartet
City of Ember
The Giver
Hunger Games
Read The Trintico Quartet next!
enjoyed any of these titles, give them the joy of reading the next series they will love.
If you don't find the answer to the question on your mind here, please message me.
No. These people are eating a lot, well over ten thousand calories a day. The first thing any weight control coach or trainer should tell someone who is hoping to reduce body weight is that you can't outdo at the gym what you do in the kitchen. The amount of exercise required to burn of a typical fast food meal is extraordinary.
Shevi and Jackson are sixteen, but, as my tendancies has always been to write characters in the new-adult phase of life, at that age in the world they were born into, they put most of their time and energy into working to pay the rent. An advanced middle school reader can enjoy it. I wrote it specifically to engage young men while remaining accessible to female readers. But, of course, as a YA romance, many of the Quartet's readers are adult women.
The story includes words you probably wouldn't want to hear from the pulpit, though there are no f-bombs of gd-bombs. It contains implications of intercourse, even outside of wedlock. There are guns and gay characters. There's even a gay character who is an avid gun enthusiast. I wish I could offer a straightforward answer to the question of appropriateness, but the issue is simply too subjective.
Yes, actually there are, even though this story is a hard-science sci-fi based on real physics. Out in the wastelands beyond the civilized society of Trintico, there is a place where people dwell within the remains of the Carbon Nation suburbs. The shopping mall is still in good condition, so the dictator of the place performs a Ritual during each full moon, drafting two teams to reenact the ancient movie Night of the Living Dead.
Alt-history 19th Century Steampunk Novel
Napoleon has escaped prison and returned to power with an alchemical substance that will show you anything you want to see except how it is made. A team of Queen Victoria's most trusted subjects plan to travel back in time to avert the escape, but when they discover the true source of his infernal metaphysical substance they know the Emperor is only the pawn of a greater foe who poses a much greater threat, not only to Great Britain but to all of humanity. A young lady and a commoner must surf streams of consciousness across a decade and the Continent in a race to depose the threat.
A truly unique premise that is a twist on the real world's obsession with weight and body size.
I have a new LOVE! The Trintico Quartet is an absolutely AMAZING story! Once I started I Town (book one) I quite literally could not put it down until I finished Trintico (book four). The character development is outstanding, The details are exquisite. The story is not predictable.
This book was the very first book since I read Enders Game many years ago that made me feel that urge to keep reading. I read the entire book in no time at all. It is engaging, well written and the story was very deep!
The technology, history, and social structure of the world are believably presented without bogging readers down in lots of dry exposition.
Two great activities that go together better than peanut butter and chocolate are audiobooks and jigsaw puzzles. And, coincidentally, both activities are fabulous for the brain....
They needed a safe place to live, whoever it was that turned the old, useless high-voltage transmission tower into a tiny fortress. They cleared the ground around the base to ma...
