Many years ago, I read Clive Barker’s The Books Of Blood on a road trip across Canada with my family. I remember enjoying most of the stories in the books; they appealed to my teenaged dark side and my irritation at the everyday. I was putting the banal horror stories of Stephen King by the wayside and moving on to an author who made more unique and original stories.

In The Hills, The Citieswas one of those stories. In it, the protagonists accidentally stumble across two towns in Yugoslavia locked in a brutal battle. Each town has roped their citizenry together into a collective person (or “superdude”, as I like to call them) and the superdudes are bashing away at one another.

At the time, I giggled. This was in the days before we knew how to lol. However, the story was well written and I enjoyed it.

That night, I was lost in thought, something that happens a lot in the back seat of a Tercel when you’re on a two month road trip, and I began to think of a town in terms like an organism. It starts with just a few cells, grows, develops characteristics, has inputs and outputs to manage. Hell,¬†if it’s poorly managed it can even develop cancer. The notion struck me as intriguing, and I’ve thought about it a few times over the years. And I still like the idea.

So naturally, I enjoyed this article from Science Daily today entitled How Cities Mimic Life: Megacities Breathe, Consume Energy, Excrete Wastes, and Pollute. It turns out that they’re presenting my little idea (though the odds are there’s a lot more to their presentation than my sleepy thought-weave) at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Give the article a read, it’s well worth it. Then, to understand why it appeals to me, read the Clive Barker short story and see how you like it.

Jim