Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan
If you’re looking for shiny-happy science-fiction then I suggest you pass by Market Forces and Richard K. Morgan all together. On the other hand, if you like dark science fiction with an edge, aren’t afraid of a bit of blood here a bit of sex there, then Richard K. Morgan should be right up your alley. Morgan is, in many ways, an updated Philip K. Dick - which is a huge compliment in my book. Now granted, he doesn’t have the legacy yet, and hopefully Richard won’t be eating cat food or going bonkers like Dick, but … his work is sometimes very similar.
In Market Forces, Morgan merges geo-political globalisation (he’s British so I figure I’ll use the ’s’ instead of the ‘z’) and class warfare issues with Mad Max driving action sequences. Morgan’s characters are always honest in their duality, of doing bad for the sake of good, or simply doing bad and acknowledging that it’s what has to happen. Now mind you, sometimes you get the hint of real politics being throw about, but it’s light enough for me not to notice or not to care. That’s how early Tom Clancy read for me versus the late Clancy which just feels like some political pamphlet dressed up in plot and military tech specs.
There is a bit of fun melodrama here and there in Market Forces as well as interesting vignettes about the corporate world and what it takes to survive and thrive. It’s bleak, it’s powerful and it’s a great read. If you’re a student of what makes books or scripts great it is the idea that someone has to change, has a decision to make and that’s just the case in Market Forces. Chris Faulkner has a decision to make as his life intensifies and careers out of control. His decision seems linked to some … truism. It’s this central theme that keeps you wanting to read to the end, and it’s an ending you’ll want to read. No doubt about that.
