Market Forces by Richard Morgan: Book Review

10 Second Book Review: Market Forces by Richard Morgan

I thought the book started slowly, until I realised I was over 100 pages in. So close to today and yet not far from the future of Mad Max.

This is post apocalypse without the nuclear war. Austerity measures mean cars are prohibitively expensive to own, yet alone run, so the rich wide-boys of city financing use the deserted motorways as a battlefield over promotions and contract bids to run countries and war campaigns. Richard Morgan continues his run of producing readable hard-core (science) fiction.

Recommended

Blurb on the back

The Domino Recessions of the early 21st century have cleared the road for a new breed of economic player...

'All over the world, men and women still find causes worth killing and dying for. And who are we to argue with them? Have we lived in their circumstances? Have we felt what they feel? No. It is not our place to say if they are right or wrong.

At Shorn Conflict Investment, we are concerned with only two things. will they win? And will it pay?'

Chris Faulkner has a new job at Shorn Associates. Can he live with it?

Thirty years from now the big movers in global capitalism have moved on from commodities. The big money is in conflict investment. Shorn and their rivals keep careful watch on the wars of liberation and revolution that burn constantly around the world. They gauge 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.

It's cynical, brutal and it has nothing to do with democracy amid 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 armored cars on the empty motorways of the future.

Has Chris Faulkner got what it takes to make a real killing?