- Paperback: 480 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; New edition edition (7 Jan 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0575075848
- ISBN-13: 978-0575075849
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 457,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Market Forces (GollanczF.)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
With his third novel Market Forces, Richard Morgan moves from the far-future SF violence of Altered Carbon and Broken Angels to almost equally extreme corporate violence in the mid-21st century. The hero, or antihero, Chris Faulkner is a rising executive in a Britain where the gap between suits and the underclass is huger than ever. Both promotion and competitive tendering in the cut-throat world of Conflict Investment (arms dealing) are settled by duels to the death: "Road-raging is here to stay."
The action happens in the nearly derelict arena of our motorway system--an executive playground--since the lower orders can no longer afford petrol. Individual drivers or teams manoeuvre to run the opposition permanently off the road in a Mad Max frenzy, no mercy asked or given. At first, Faulkner has a black mark for taking a defeated opponent to hospital instead of finishing the kill. He won't make that mistake again. After all, the latest management status symbol is the exclusive Nemesis-10 handgun.
International business decisions are tough ("Regime change is our worst-case scenario"), and there's no longer any safe distance between boardroom decisions and blood on the streets. As a big deal with revolutionary South American factions goes badly wrong, both careers and lives are on the line. This deadly game still has some rules of conduct, but getting to the top means pushing the envelope. Faulkner pushes hard enough to make you wince.
With terminal stress on his marriage, his battered conscience, and his few friendships, our man seems doomed to become either a monster or a mutilated corpse. Company backstabbing intensifies; the stakes are higher with each new challenge. One chancy way out of the rat race is offered, but maybe it's possible to get addicted to living on the edge?
An ultra-black, ultra-violent and intensely depressing vision of 2049's amoral Masters of the World. Compulsive reading for the un-squeamish; you can almost hear Michael Moore saying "I told you so". --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Wall Street meets Mad Max - Richard Morgan hits the mainstream with a blistering new future thriller.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pure Hate,
By A Customer
This review is from: Market Forces (Gollancz S.F.) (Hardcover)
I'll not detail this review with all the things that go on in the book. I have read all Richard Morgan's work so far, and I love his style. This book, I feel , is largely underrated because of its Chomsky-ish overtones, and people tend to get bogged down in politics. That is why I'm not going to go through that here. Instead, I found the real message of this book to be about relationships. Morgan has a style rarely seen that details relationships very subtly, and doesn't get too involved. All the same I found myself caring more and more about what happened to the other characters in the book rather than the anti-hero Chris Faulkner. His wife, while caring and worrying, dealt nobly and realistically with the hate coming from Chris. I could also feel an affinity for Mike Bryant, Chris's immediate superior and friend, even though a cold killer. Anyway, for my tuppence worth, I liked this book. It was dark, depressing, and in a Global Corporation/Republican regime, it was scarily possible (apart from the car duels). As oil prices rise and work is the new religion, money is becoming the new god. I'm not religious. I'm just worried. As we spend more time away from our loved ones, into the arms of our jobs, who do we love? I scared that all we may be left with is money and hand-wringing from the ones who care.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Corporate greed extrapolated to a logical conclusion,
By
This review is from: Market Forces (GOLLANCZ S.F.) (Paperback)
This is an excellent book that combines classic future society angst with Death Race 2000. If that sounds awful, trust me, it makes for a very compelling read.
As usual Morgan's writing and characterisation is gritty and in-your-face. Our (anti-) hero elicits limited sympathy from the reader as he ruthlessly and sefishly battles up the corporate ladder. British society has virtually collapsed into a semi-anarchic state where a corporate elite pretty much writes its own rules. Competion in business is literally cut-throat with 'road raging' being the preferred method of negotiation: to the survivors the spoils. This isn't an intellectually challenging book but I found it emotionally satisfying at a number of levels. I think most fans of the cyber-punk genre will find it so too.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
William Gibson's heir,
By
This review is from: Market Forces (GOLLANCZ S.F.) (Paperback)
Readers expecting a space opera along the lines of Altered Carbon and Broken Angels could be disappointed as the style here is somewhat different. But approach this allegorical tale of globalisation gone mad in the near future with an open mind and it is hugely enjoyable. It is also a more intimate and human story offering some insights into the gradual cooling of a relationship, which could be familiar to many modern males fighting to balance career with the demands of conscience and family life.As with Morgan's other works, it contains dark humour, some well-depicted scenes of ultra-violence, and a wealth of ideas about the direction of future society. It also has something to say about business ethics; the unconverted could find this objectionable and the converted could find it unnecessary, but take it as a novelised version of Naomi Klein's No Logo and you should be just fine. Richard Morgan quite clearly takes several ideas from William Gibson and runs with them - in this case mostly from Count Zero, one of the very best Gibson novels. (Identifying these is left as an exercise for the reader.) Morgan writes with the same outstanding clarity and precision and that is itself, to this reviewer, more than enough to make him truly Gibson's heir. Possibly the whole book was sparked off by the geekly use of the expression 'road warrior' meaning a laptop-equipped corporate executive. Some other potential inspirations:
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