Jeremy Powers
Writing-Composition
Dr. Blake
11/10/2014
This article compares Phillip Reeve’s novel Mortal Engines, and M.T Anderson’s novel FEED. The two novels explore the dangers and problems that living in a technological emerged society can cause. In M.T Anderson’s feed, everyone in society have feeds, that are planted in a person’s head at birth usually, that tell them what to think and how to think. The people don’t use free thought because they don’t have to. Corporations have taken advantage of that and now corporations run the feed. The feed turned into a consumerism tool instead of what it was originally invented for and that is education. In Phillip Reeve’s Mortal Engines, society has changed in different ways than feed. There are no states and geographic borders have been eliminated. What exist now are cities that move around and prey on smaller cities or towns for fuel or resources. The sustainability of the cities depends on it mobility and the concept of municipal Darwinism. Movement of the cities isn’t just necessary for survival, but is also a sign of technological progress. Both novels have indirect and direct similarities and differences. M.T Andersons Feed and Phillip Reeve’s Mortal Engines have some similarities and differences. One similarity between the two novels is both the novels take place in the near future. With the way we rely on our technology today, some can argue that we might be heading right down the road towards the technology in the novels. Also, as we see all the technology and concepts in the novels as foreign and imaginary, the characters see it as only natural and secondary. Secondly, both novels show how technology can alter society. Although the technologies in both novels aren’t exactly similar, they both show similar concepts they have such as survival of the fittest. In the novel Mortal Engines, survival of the fittest is shown through the cities consuming other cities. The strongest cities will survive. In the novel Feed, survival of the fittest is shown when violet dies because her feed got hacked. Titus’s feed is stronger because he got his at birth and Violets is weaker and more vulnerable because she got hers later on in life. There are some differences between the novels as well. The major difference between the novels is the conception of the post-modern hunter. Feed focuses on the individual hunter consuming goods while Mortal Engines focuses on the municipal hunters seeking resources. In Feed, the corporations ran