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Market Forces (Gollancz S.F.)
 
 
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Market Forces (Gollancz S.F.) (Hardcover)

by Richard Morgan (Author) "Awake. Jackknifed there in sweat ..." (more)
3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz (4 Mar 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0575075120
  • ISBN-13: 978-0575075122
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 x 3.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 87,896 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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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

Product Description
What do you buy and sell when the global markets reach saturation point? The markets themselves. Thirty years from now the big players in global capitalism have moved on from commodities. The big money is in conflict investment. The corporations keep a careful watch on the wars of liberation and revolution that burn constantly around the world. They guage who the winners will be and sell them arms, intelligence and power. In return for a slice of the action when the war is won. The reward? A stake in the new nation. It's cynical, brutal and it has nothing to do with democracy and the rule of law. So what else is new? The executives in this lethal game bid for contracts, fight for promotion, secure their lives on the roads. Fighting lethal duels in souped up, heavily armoured cars on the empty motorways of the future. Chris Faulkener has a lethal reputation and a new job at Shorn Associates. Has he got what it takes to make a real killing?

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Customer Reviews

31 Reviews
5 star:
 (10)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (5)
2 star:
 (6)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (31 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Pure Hate, 14 Jan 2006
By A Customer
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.

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars William Gibson's heir, 12 Jul 2005
By C. McDonnell "cmcd" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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:
Stand on Zanzibar (1969) by John Brunner
Gladiator-At-Law (1955) by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth
Mindstar Rising (1993) by Peter Hamilton
Snow Crash (1992) by Neil Stephenson

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A Let Down, 8 Sep 2006
This review is from: Market Forces (Gollancz S.F.) (Paperback)
From the high standards set by the Takeshi Kovacs novels by the same author this is something of a let down.

The authors notes hint at how this story might have come to be. Someone gave him a neat idea with elements of the Road Warrior in, improbably set in a dystopian version of the UK in the future. As a resident of the UK I can honestly say that familiarity with the places being written about makes it all the more improbable. Perhaps to a foreign reader that would be less the case.

While it might've made a good short story it's not material for a lengthy novel. There are just too many things that defy any form of logic. Big business deciding contracts via car wars? If that was the case do we really think that they'd allow one or three drivers to decide their profit and loss?

Personally I'd have been a lot happier to keep the personal grudge matches to the car wars and then tell a story around that. There's just too great a lack of thinking in the story, or at least what we can see there. Morgan has always written as if the reader already knows the background/explanations behind his plots - then revealed the details to us very gradually over a hundred or more pages. That worked in the Kovacs novels. Here... not at all.

After the first person story-telling of his other books I found the third person here much less intimate in a way that'd always worked well for Morgan before.

I was stuck on a plane to the US with this book, anticipating something much better. I still gave it a couple of stars for the idea and for the characterisation of the hero and his wife, I did like them both as characters.

It just feels like the author wanted a change of pace and scene, without really caring what he was writing about at the time.

Oh, keep a look out for the references to things mentioned in the Kovacs novels. It suggests - perhaps - this is part of the past of that world?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting edges
Market Forces (Gollancz S.F.)
Interesting edges whith great resemblance to the road runner movies.
A little bit over the edge but nice reading before you fall asleep.
Published 4 months ago by Hcm Sistermans

5.0 out of 5 stars Richard Morgan's Best Cyberpunk Novel
Richard Morgan offers some of his best prose in this near future cyberpunk novel which may yet be regarded by some as a classic in the genre. Read more
Published 11 months ago by John Kwok

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, but politically relevant
Abandoning Takeshi Kovacs for this novel (although Morgan ironically refers to a TK novel within the text through the thoughts of his main character, describing it as `a little... Read more
Published on 25 May 2007 by Rod Williams

4.0 out of 5 stars Corporate greed extrapolated to a logical conclusion
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. Read more
Published on 11 Oct 2006 by S. Murphy

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointment after his other books
I read this after Altered Carbon etc by the same author, and this is the only one of his books I haven't enjoyed. Read more
Published on 6 Jul 2006 by XTR

5.0 out of 5 stars 1984 with corperations

This book is quite fantastic, a dark and violent portrayal of a future that appears to be more likely than most other sci-fi futures. Read more
Published on 28 April 2006 by Snowflakes

4.0 out of 5 stars My 100-word book review
It is the year 2049, and anyone craving success in the brutal world of Conflict Investment must not only have business sense but must also be ready to fight high-speed duels on... Read more
Published on 9 Mar 2006 by A. J. Cull

2.0 out of 5 stars A funny idea for a short story does not a novel make.
Richard Morgan created a unique blend of noir mystery and sci-fi action in books such as Altered Carbon and Woken Furies: the hero, Takeshi Kovacs, was a roguish amalgam of Sam... Read more
Published on 24 April 2005

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good
Nor absolutely brilliant, but a good read that kept me hooked. Not sorry i bought it.
Published on 17 April 2005 by bob

2.0 out of 5 stars Unconvincing Mess
Like many others, I adored Morgan's first book (Altered Carbon), liked his second (Broken Angels) only slightly less, and found this sci-fi satire of the New World Order to be a... Read more
Published on 13 April 2005 by A. Ross

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