Book Review: Market Forces
I just finished the book Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan, who wrote the awesomely cool military/detective/sci-fi/thriller Altered Carbon. The novel has a hard core anti-capitalist, anti-globalization theme, but I freakin' loved it. Couldn't put it down.
Instapundit didn't like it, but c'mon, who are you gonna believe, me or that guy?
Here's my Amazon.com review:
Before Richard K. Morgan's provocative third novel even begins, he dedicates it to "all those, globally, whose lives have been wrecked or snuffed out by the Great Neoliberal Dream and Slash-and-Brun Globalization". He also makes sure the reader knows he drew inspiration from left-wing extremists like Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Michael Moore. The reader, upon encountering this, could be forgiven for slipping the book quietly back on the shelf with a slight shake of the head. But that would be a mistake.
Despite the ideological chest-thumping, "Market Forces" is not just a wisp of a story wrapped around a shrill anti-capitalist polemic. It's actually a rollicking good read that doesn't get swamped by the author's ideological crusade, except perhaps near the end. But more on that later.
The setting is deliciously twisted. Fifty years from now, the world is run by a handful of financial houses that deal in "conflict investment" -- giving financial assistance to tinpot dictators in exchange for a cut of the country's GDP if they stay in power. Executives vie for promotion or contract tenders by staging highway duels in armored cars. It's a bizzare mixture -- "Liar's Poker" meets "Mad Max" -- but Morgan deftly pulls it off.
Morgan's first novel proved that he is adept at drawing imperfect characters, and here he serves up a whole cast of scummy anti-heros and scummier villians. Chris Faulkner fought his way up from the slums and is a new hotshot executive. His wife, Carla, is a mechanic who keeps his sedan in prime dueling condition. Her father is an idealistic outcast whose socialist views are a constant source of tension in the family. Along the way, Chris falls in with a media vixen, a chummy but brutal partner, and a team of envious colleagues intent on seeing the newcomer go down in flames, quite literally if it should come to that.
The action ticks over nicely as Chris careens between stoking conflicts in Cambodia and Latin America, terrorizing street thugs with Mike, and grinding rival investors into scrap metal under the bumper of his armored Saab. All the while he is trying to rescue his foundering marriage and avoid the plasticene temptations of Liz, a powerful journalist tracking his career.
While Morgan's conclusions on the nature of the modern geo-political/economic system may be black and white, he lays it out for us through shades of gray. The rapacious corporations are clearly the bad guys, but characters like Mike are strangely charismatic, and it's easy to cheer the suits when they wield their power to wipe out white supremacists or permanently cripple an abusive husband for beating his wife. Likewise, those characters with the "right" socialist viewpoints are quick to espouse their ideals but are too weak or scared to act on them.
Morgan's contention that capitalism is inherently brutal and self-destructive only starts to become obvious in the last part of the book as Chris repeatedly snubs chances for redemption and mires himself deeper in the brutal corporate culture he once held at arm's length. But the book works despite this late-game heavy-handedness, and while I might have wished for a cheerier conclusion, I have to give credit to Morgan for pushing things to what he must see as their logical conclusion, insofar as that logic works in the fantasy version of capitalism and globalization he has constructed.
This *is* a sci-fi book, after all.
Instapundit didn't like it, but c'mon, who are you gonna believe, me or that guy?
Here's my Amazon.com review:
Before Richard K. Morgan's provocative third novel even begins, he dedicates it to "all those, globally, whose lives have been wrecked or snuffed out by the Great Neoliberal Dream and Slash-and-Brun Globalization". He also makes sure the reader knows he drew inspiration from left-wing extremists like Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Michael Moore. The reader, upon encountering this, could be forgiven for slipping the book quietly back on the shelf with a slight shake of the head. But that would be a mistake.
Despite the ideological chest-thumping, "Market Forces" is not just a wisp of a story wrapped around a shrill anti-capitalist polemic. It's actually a rollicking good read that doesn't get swamped by the author's ideological crusade, except perhaps near the end. But more on that later.
The setting is deliciously twisted. Fifty years from now, the world is run by a handful of financial houses that deal in "conflict investment" -- giving financial assistance to tinpot dictators in exchange for a cut of the country's GDP if they stay in power. Executives vie for promotion or contract tenders by staging highway duels in armored cars. It's a bizzare mixture -- "Liar's Poker" meets "Mad Max" -- but Morgan deftly pulls it off.
Morgan's first novel proved that he is adept at drawing imperfect characters, and here he serves up a whole cast of scummy anti-heros and scummier villians. Chris Faulkner fought his way up from the slums and is a new hotshot executive. His wife, Carla, is a mechanic who keeps his sedan in prime dueling condition. Her father is an idealistic outcast whose socialist views are a constant source of tension in the family. Along the way, Chris falls in with a media vixen, a chummy but brutal partner, and a team of envious colleagues intent on seeing the newcomer go down in flames, quite literally if it should come to that.
The action ticks over nicely as Chris careens between stoking conflicts in Cambodia and Latin America, terrorizing street thugs with Mike, and grinding rival investors into scrap metal under the bumper of his armored Saab. All the while he is trying to rescue his foundering marriage and avoid the plasticene temptations of Liz, a powerful journalist tracking his career.
While Morgan's conclusions on the nature of the modern geo-political/economic system may be black and white, he lays it out for us through shades of gray. The rapacious corporations are clearly the bad guys, but characters like Mike are strangely charismatic, and it's easy to cheer the suits when they wield their power to wipe out white supremacists or permanently cripple an abusive husband for beating his wife. Likewise, those characters with the "right" socialist viewpoints are quick to espouse their ideals but are too weak or scared to act on them.
Morgan's contention that capitalism is inherently brutal and self-destructive only starts to become obvious in the last part of the book as Chris repeatedly snubs chances for redemption and mires himself deeper in the brutal corporate culture he once held at arm's length. But the book works despite this late-game heavy-handedness, and while I might have wished for a cheerier conclusion, I have to give credit to Morgan for pushing things to what he must see as their logical conclusion, insofar as that logic works in the fantasy version of capitalism and globalization he has constructed.
This *is* a sci-fi book, after all.
<< Home