Qualityland
Visit Tomorrow, Today!
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU.
YES, YOU SPECIFICALLY.
WELCOME TO QUALITYLAND.
We hope you enjoy your trip to the happiest, most advanced place on earth.
QualityLand is the world's first 2.0 country, where everything is run by infallible algorithm, including:
- Society (in which everyone is ranked by level)
- Shopping (orders arrive before you even know you want them)
- Relationships (you will be notified instantly if there is a better match)
In fact, this very algorithm selected you to visit QualityLand. If you don't like it, you're not just ungrateful - you're also wrong, because the algorithm is always right.
While you're visiting, be aware there is an election going on - the perfect time to see QualityLand in action...
ENJOY YOUR TRIP!
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USER TESTIMONIALS:
'Nineteen Eighty-Four meets Vonnegutian slap stick in a free-wheeling satire spliced with black humour and some gloriously wicked social commentary.'
The Guardian
'QUALITYLAND is very funny and very scary - my kind of book.'
Mike Judge, creator of Silicon Valley & King of the Hill
'The best kind of satire, offering up a funhouse mirror version of our world that is so smart and so cutting, you have to laugh to keep from crying.'
Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse
'This is spot-on satire.'
Publishers Weekly
'Kling's sharp observations expose with delightful brutality how close QualityLand is to reality.'
Booklist
'How much you enjoy this is in direct proportion to how much trouble you think we're all in. Sleep tight.'
Kirkus Reviews
'Wow, what a hilarious yet deeply concerning joyride into the future that surely awaits us.'
You, after you've read QualityLand
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest from Kling (The Kangaroo Chronicles), already in production at HBO, is a hilarious romp through an absurd hypercapitalist dystopia. After the third "crisis of the century" in a decade, a country is renamed QualityLand. There, each person is named after their parents' professions, has a social media feed specially created by a corporation, and is assigned a level from 1 to 100, which dictates what partner someone can match with, what job someone can have, and so on. Peter Jobless is a low-level metal recycling scrapper who, one day, receives a delivery from TheShop that he didn't order not unusual in itself, as TheShop anticipates all desires (its motto is "We know what you want") but more importantly, that he doesn't want. Aided by the defective robots living under his shop that he saved from the scrapper, Peter embarks on a journey to return his unwanted delivery. Peter's quest unfolds against the backdrop of a presidential election, where voters can choose between a maximally intelligent, socialist-minded robot programmed for objectivity, and a celebrity right-wing chef, prone to contradicting himself in the same sentence. No need to guess who's leading the polls. Sharp and biting, the most implausible aspect of Kling's novel is the relative note of optimism that ends it. This is spot-on satire.