Amazon.co.uk: Market Forces (Gollancz S.F.): Richard Morgan: 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

Book Description
A blistering near-future thriller that will propel Richard Morgan onto the bestseller lists - a novel that will be enjoyed by any thriller reader.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
Awake. Jackknifed there in sweat. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

29 Reviews

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

William Gibson's heir, 12 Jul 2005

By	"conradmcd" - See all my reviews

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 8 people found the following review helpful:

Pure Hate, 15 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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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

My 100-word book review, 9 Mar 2006

By	A. J. Cull (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Market Forces (Gollancz S.F.) (Paperback)

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 Britain's deserted motorway network. Richard Morgan's third published novel is a wry cautionary tale about corporate politics in an impoverished and divided world. Readers may find the near-total urban decay and the unsympathetic characters somewhat depressing, but Morgan's writing, as usual, is engrossing and imaginative. This may not be reality as we know it (thank goodness!) but is horribly vivid, with the unpleasant internal logic of a nightmare.