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nyxshadow's review against another edition
3.0
Je reste un peu perplexe face à ce roman. Si je retrouve l'atmosphère punk et aggressive d'un Carbone Modifié, je trouve que l'auteur s'est un peu perdu dans des descriptions de violence.
Cherche-t-il à dénoncer les travers de la société et l'hyper-capitalisme ? Le pouvoir qu'ont les entreprises, supérieur au moindre pouvoir politique ? Peut être, surement même.
Pourtant le roman n'a pas su pour moi se positionner. S'il a voulu parler de cette politique, ce fut au détriment de l'intrigue que l'on a du mal à suivre. Cherche-t-il à narrer la vie de Chris ? Mais en ce cas, est-ce un premier tome ? Ce qui justifierai le côté inachevé de ce personnage. Mais cela n'a pas l'air d'être le cas.
Ce n'est pas ce que je qualifierai de fin ouverte. On est plutôt au bout d'une phrase.
Cherche-t-il à dénoncer les travers de la société et l'hyper-capitalisme ? Le pouvoir qu'ont les entreprises, supérieur au moindre pouvoir politique ? Peut être, surement même.
Pourtant le roman n'a pas su pour moi se positionner. S'il a voulu parler de cette politique, ce fut au détriment de l'intrigue que l'on a du mal à suivre. Cherche-t-il à narrer la vie de Chris ? Mais en ce cas, est-ce un premier tome ? Ce qui justifierai le côté inachevé de ce personnage. Mais cela n'a pas l'air d'être le cas.
Ce n'est pas ce que je qualifierai de fin ouverte. On est plutôt au bout d'une phrase.
spynavy's review
4.0
Another great Morgan book. I really enjoyed this novel and if you are like me you will probably envision the main character as Jason Statham. There is a lot of Death Race/Transporter type action within the book and is a novel look at the future corporate world. An interesting setting in a near future "megacorporation" society coupled with Morgan's unique vision makes for a pretty good read. The characters are dark, gritty antihero types that you may either love or hate, but perhaps a bit of both. I highly recommend this book and Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series.
dray's review
3.0
In my estimation not as good a read as the previous trilogy. I couldn't really accept the central premise of the book, that international disputes are handled by staged car death races by conglomerates. This book would make a good movie - a sci fi fast and furious.
mykhe's review
3.0
I was more than a little let down by this one. I was at page 74 when I was about to give up completely, so I googled some reviews to see if it was worth it. One of the better reviews said "hold on until page 100. It gets much better then." More like page 174, and even then I wasn't that sold. While the end is believable, it was also very expected. Morgan, who is so good at dialogue in both the Takeshi Kovacs and Ringil Eskiath series, goes on at length to very little avail. He could have dispensed with the marital fights far earlier and limited the inane dialogue of a lot of the business chatter. His descriptions, usually "cinematic" and outstanding, are weak here; although, I'll credit that to the bleak world outside the corporate sphere and bland one within.
The character development is the biggest draw of the novel once the novelty of *Death Race* meets *Wall Street* meets *Mad Max* wears off. The reader is given a great idea of who Chris Faulkner is at the beginning of the novel, and then expands him to so much more as the novel goes on. That's actually, the entire reason why I could cope with the ending. I didn't like it, and I kept wishing for something else to happen even when I spotted the end 100 pages before it happened, but it was honest.
And, ultimately, that and the "some of this has already happened, 'what if?'" factor are what kept me reading. (This novel was published about 3.5 years before the Great Recession.)
The character development is the biggest draw of the novel once the novelty of *Death Race* meets *Wall Street* meets *Mad Max* wears off. The reader is given a great idea of who Chris Faulkner is at the beginning of the novel, and then expands him to so much more as the novel goes on. That's actually, the entire reason why I could cope with the ending. I didn't like it, and I kept wishing for something else to happen even when I spotted the end 100 pages before it happened, but it was honest.
And, ultimately, that and the "some of this has already happened, 'what if?'" factor are what kept me reading. (This novel was published about 3.5 years before the Great Recession.)
ineffablebob's review
3.0
The author's note at the beginning of Market Forces says it evolved from "...nasty idea to short story to screenplay to the novel..." and that it was inspired in part by Mad Max. And that is exactly how it reads.
Market Forces is a near-future dystopia where international finance corporations openly bankroll wars around the world, inequality in capitalist nations is extreme, and corporate executives win promotion through road-rage battles. The protagonist is Chris, an executive with lower-class origins pushing his way upward into the privileged ranks. Along the way he struggles against the other executives, against his own conscience, and against the system.
There's a whole lot of big-budget action movie in this book. The driving duels, obviously, but plenty more too. Sex and drugs and money and betrayal and bloody fights (in and out of cars). It's not hard to see where "screenplay" fit into the evolution of the novel that the author mentioned. I'm pretty sure the same story could easily have been told with a lot less drinking, drugs, sex, and graphic violence...but it wouldn't have the same spectacle feel.
For the first half of the book, I had a hard time taking it very seriously. The idea of Mad Max-style road duels didn't fit all that well into the more serious world-building. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch from today's world to get to the idea of giant financial powerhouses abandoning all pretense of morality, or to have society stratified into the privileged rich and downtrodden poor with governments pushed aside by corporate power. Executives running one another off the road made it all seem pretty cheesy, though. But as the book went on, there was a lot more intrigue and political maneuvering than straight-up road rage, and by the time it got back to driving I was used to the idea.
Much of the novel is taken up by Chris trying to come to terms with what kind of person he is. Is he a ruthless executive driver who ruins third-world nations and rival executives alike? Or does he have enough empathy for others in situations not unlike his own background to show some mercy? What does it mean to be loyal to his own beliefs and to the people he knows? Not easy questions, and there's not really a definitive answer. Everything ends up in shades of gray, no easy right or wrong resolutions.
Market Forces paints a disturbing-but-intriguing picture of a world where amoral financial interest has taken control. It's even fairly believable, aside from the idea of road-rage car duels. But those duels and the sex/drugs/violence action-movie spectacle isn't really my style, and felt over-done. If that's your thing, though, you'll likely enjoy this one.
Market Forces is a near-future dystopia where international finance corporations openly bankroll wars around the world, inequality in capitalist nations is extreme, and corporate executives win promotion through road-rage battles. The protagonist is Chris, an executive with lower-class origins pushing his way upward into the privileged ranks. Along the way he struggles against the other executives, against his own conscience, and against the system.
There's a whole lot of big-budget action movie in this book. The driving duels, obviously, but plenty more too. Sex and drugs and money and betrayal and bloody fights (in and out of cars). It's not hard to see where "screenplay" fit into the evolution of the novel that the author mentioned. I'm pretty sure the same story could easily have been told with a lot less drinking, drugs, sex, and graphic violence...but it wouldn't have the same spectacle feel.
For the first half of the book, I had a hard time taking it very seriously. The idea of Mad Max-style road duels didn't fit all that well into the more serious world-building. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch from today's world to get to the idea of giant financial powerhouses abandoning all pretense of morality, or to have society stratified into the privileged rich and downtrodden poor with governments pushed aside by corporate power. Executives running one another off the road made it all seem pretty cheesy, though. But as the book went on, there was a lot more intrigue and political maneuvering than straight-up road rage, and by the time it got back to driving I was used to the idea.
Much of the novel is taken up by Chris trying to come to terms with what kind of person he is. Is he a ruthless executive driver who ruins third-world nations and rival executives alike? Or does he have enough empathy for others in situations not unlike his own background to show some mercy? What does it mean to be loyal to his own beliefs and to the people he knows? Not easy questions, and there's not really a definitive answer. Everything ends up in shades of gray, no easy right or wrong resolutions.
Market Forces paints a disturbing-but-intriguing picture of a world where amoral financial interest has taken control. It's even fairly believable, aside from the idea of road-rage car duels. But those duels and the sex/drugs/violence action-movie spectacle isn't really my style, and felt over-done. If that's your thing, though, you'll likely enjoy this one.
apostrophen's review
2.0
It would be wrong to say I was totally frustrated with this book. I did finish it, which means it passed the marginal test of "do I even want to bother finishing this?" Well, I finished it. It failed, however, the other marginal test of "should I have bothered finishing this?"
There was one significant strike against it from step one: for whatever the reason, the publisher decided that they would give the book the same style, cover, and font as Morgan's other two books: 'Altered Carbon,' and 'Broken Angels,' both of which I really liked. The other two books continue around a single character, have a really interesting (if violent and gory) world that I enjoyed. For all that this looks like book three in the series, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the other two, but is packaged in a way that looks like it should be.
Forgivable, of course, but slightly irritating.
So, when I found myself in a much more recent-future London, where executives ride to and from work in battle-wagon like souped-up cars, ramming each other off the road for prestige, I was a little confused. The world our anti-hero, Chris Faulker, lives in, is a gritty, post-economic disarray, ultra-capitalist/ultra-violent one where the poor are beyond poor (and live in marginalized violent horrible zones) and the rich get richer by messing around with small wars and supplying arms and shooting their higher-ups in legalized duels or road-rage fueled death matches in their aforementioned cars.
The problem? Well, it's... boring. Chris starts out a man who isn't all that comfortable with violence. His wife hates the life he leads. You're fairly certain that Chris is heading for an emotional breakdown of some sort. People are setting him up, but you get the feeling he's going to kill them all and come out on top, in some manner. But... well, not to put too fine a point on it - you don't care. As far as an anti-hero goes, Chris is lacking that ephemeral something that makes you at all empathetic to his situation. When he's staring down the barrel of a gun, you're not really sure you'd mind if he died - everyone else in this setting seems to, and with no real impact.
Maybe that's the problem I had with the book in general - it's set in a future where life has little meaning beyond being fodder for profit in the form of war death tolls. But the author didn't manage to make it ironic, or subjectively add a touch of social commentary. It just sort of read like a whole lot of violence tacked on to more violence, with a bit of sex and road-rage tossed in for good measure.
I really do suggest his other two titles - but this doesn't stand up to them at all. Violent stories all, but the other tales had... well... plot.
There was one significant strike against it from step one: for whatever the reason, the publisher decided that they would give the book the same style, cover, and font as Morgan's other two books: 'Altered Carbon,' and 'Broken Angels,' both of which I really liked. The other two books continue around a single character, have a really interesting (if violent and gory) world that I enjoyed. For all that this looks like book three in the series, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the other two, but is packaged in a way that looks like it should be.
Forgivable, of course, but slightly irritating.
So, when I found myself in a much more recent-future London, where executives ride to and from work in battle-wagon like souped-up cars, ramming each other off the road for prestige, I was a little confused. The world our anti-hero, Chris Faulker, lives in, is a gritty, post-economic disarray, ultra-capitalist/ultra-violent one where the poor are beyond poor (and live in marginalized violent horrible zones) and the rich get richer by messing around with small wars and supplying arms and shooting their higher-ups in legalized duels or road-rage fueled death matches in their aforementioned cars.
The problem? Well, it's... boring. Chris starts out a man who isn't all that comfortable with violence. His wife hates the life he leads. You're fairly certain that Chris is heading for an emotional breakdown of some sort. People are setting him up, but you get the feeling he's going to kill them all and come out on top, in some manner. But... well, not to put too fine a point on it - you don't care. As far as an anti-hero goes, Chris is lacking that ephemeral something that makes you at all empathetic to his situation. When he's staring down the barrel of a gun, you're not really sure you'd mind if he died - everyone else in this setting seems to, and with no real impact.
Maybe that's the problem I had with the book in general - it's set in a future where life has little meaning beyond being fodder for profit in the form of war death tolls. But the author didn't manage to make it ironic, or subjectively add a touch of social commentary. It just sort of read like a whole lot of violence tacked on to more violence, with a bit of sex and road-rage tossed in for good measure.
I really do suggest his other two titles - but this doesn't stand up to them at all. Violent stories all, but the other tales had... well... plot.