Even a cursory search of this blog will turn up numerous occasions in which I have showered Mr. Morgan with my admiration and affection. But while I respect the originality of the work, I struggled to digest its nihilism which was, at times, violent and cartoonish.
Market Forces imagines a near-future Britain which has completely succumbed to the cutthroat competition of corporate warfare. Ones position at work, as well as the fortunes of ones company, are defined by the newest spectator sport, combat driving, in which corporate executives, ensconced in glitzy cars tooled up for war, do their best to kill one another on the open road. Chris, our antihero, begins the novel as a middling executive quite content with his lot in life at a British company who trades in foreign wars. But as a series of events conspire to catapult him to the breathless heights of power, his dissatisfaction with the life grows until the pressure of the depravity and the ugliness threaten to crack him. Doing what they can to aid in this sundering of Chris' identity are a handful of foreign idealists who try to twig Chris' largely dormant conscience. But drowning out these positive influences are the seductive voices tempting him ever deeper into the world of corporate battle-wagons and international arms-dealing which makes demigods of ordinary mortals. Will Chris resist the urge to succumb, or will he fall and allow himself to revel in the corporate power destroying England? No matter which way it goes, it'll be a Hellride of epic proportions.
Mr. Morgan makes no bones of his criticism of British culture in what must be his most controversial effort. It cannot be a coincidence that the native English are invariably corrupt while the foreign-born actors look upon these island savages with disgust and contempt. But while Mr. Morgan is successful in holding up a mirror to the ever-more-hostile corporate culture, the seriousness of the message is muffled by the cartoonish nature of the battle races. Battle wagons, really? Corporate Samurai taken literally? It's all just a little too obvious. It's entertaining, no question; there's more than enough hedonism and nihilistic abandonment, and sharp, social critique here to satisfy any fan of Mr. Morgan's, much less any fan of dystopian fiction. But I expected more nuance from the master and I did not get it here. If Thirteen is is evisceration by scalpel, Market Forces is a baseball bat repeatedly upside the head. True, the baseball bat has its unsubtle virtues, but those are outweighed here by its sins. (2/5 Stars)
PS: And you know it kills me to rate it so low, especially for its inventiveness. But it is what it is.
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