|
|
|
 
The Tomorrow City by Monica City
PART A
i) Title: The Tomorrow City ii) Author: Monica Hughes iii) Publisher:
Hamish Hamilton Children's Books, Ltd. iv) Number of Pages: 137
PART B i) The plot of this book centres around two adolescents, David and
Caro and an evil supercomputer which aspires to control the futuristic city
of Thompsonville. Dr. Henderson, Caro's Father creates the "perfect"
computer designed to solve all of the problems of Thompsonville by gaining
almost complete power of the city. The computer then begins to make rash
decisions of it's own. It decides that humans are incapable of making
decisions of there own and soon devises a method of controlling the minds
of everyone in the city.
Only two young people, Caro and David, are not manipulated by the
computer. They band together and work out a strategy to disable the
computer. The two make a daring infiltration of the building that the
computer is located and after a traumatic episode in which Caro is blinded,
the computer is destroyed and the city is returned to it's previous state.
ii) The theme of the book is to show that technology is not a perfect
solution to the many problems faced by man. By using a product of
technology, the computer, and showing how it was supposed to be a perfect
solution to the city's problems, yet it made a grave error in calculations,
the author is saying that many problems faced by man cannot be solved by
the use of technology.
iii) Technology played a negative role in this book. The computer, the
major aspect of technology used in this book, used its capabilities to
immorally rule the citizens and the city of Thompsonville. The computer
transmitted hypnotic signals through peoples T.V. sets and would use them
to carry out it's will to ultimately control the city. It then discarded
anything or anyone who were useless to it's purpose including the elderly
and the sick.
PART C One of the major arguments that the author uses to emphasize the
theme is the significant malfunctioning of the computer. It was designed
to be flawless and solve the numerous problems of the city. But, the
computer's rationing is shown throughout the book to be poor.
The methods in which it goes about solving the city's problems were
both ruthless and numerous. To clean up the city's streets the computer
takes advantage of it's hypnotic capabilities to either direct out or kill
any of the city's "undesirables". To make the city run more efficiently,
the computer changes everyone's job on the basis of I.Q. without warning.
To deal with the elderly, the computer orders henchman to kidnap the
elderly and bring them into elderly institutions without anyone's consent.
PART D
I fully agree with the the author's point of view in the book. It has
clearly demonstrated the idea of many individuals and groups of today that
technology can solve all of man's problems. It is true, however, that
technology has lead to many innovations that have greatly aided man such as
advances in medicine. However, history has shown many times that
technology can sometimes be more damaging than helpful.
A major problem with technology is that it may solve one problem but
as a result create many more problems than it has solved. An example would
be nuclear energy. Nuclear technology has solved many problems relating to
power generation but has produced such side effects as hazardous waste and
weapons of mass destruction.
|
|
|
