Jennifer Government by Max Barry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I finished up Max Barry’s Company and decided I’d go back in time and re-read JG as well. I called Company “corporate cubicle fiction” so I guess JG is “corporate overthrow fiction,” for want of a better term. Barry takes the idea of the corporation as a world-changing force of nature and pursues it to a logical (and therefore, ironically, absurd) conclusion, where governments are pushed to the side as corporations and the countries they represent start to merge. Capitalism as nightmare, without any of that silly communism as an antidote.
You’ll want to take a few willing-suspension-of-disbelief vitamins before diving in, but you won’t be disappointed if you do. Barry’s economic structures take a little getting used to, but they’re just props for him to explore corporate partnerships run amuck, the dangerously pervasive nature of advertising, global-mob psychology, and a dog-eat-dog world. Is that too much for you to swallow? Never fear—it’s all part of an action-adventure. Murder! Violence! Guns! Guerilla Marketing!
And a twisted story line that will having you hopping around the globe from character to character, trying to keep track, although they all come together at the end for the final showdown. Allow me to repeat what I said about Company, which is even more true in JG: Barry’s style is a bit stark, a bit plain, matter-of-fact. He gives you just enough description to keep things straight, letting you fill in the rest. But, whereas in Company that forced the reader to paint with her own experiences, in JG it’s just stark—existentialism as advertised by Nike.
Another fast read; and what review would be complete with mentioning Nationstates.net, nation simulation game and a tie-in to the book that’s been online now since JG‘s publication in 2003.