The Machine Society
Rich or Poor. They Want You To Be a Prisoner
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Mike Brooks’ debut novel is an adventure story set in a dystopian future in which our taste for branding, consumerism and artificial reality is boundless. In /The Machine Society/, he weaves together psychological insight, philosophical reflection and spiritual inquiry to give us a novel that is both a deep satire on modern life and a rich metaphor for our longing to find inner peace. Dean Rogers lives in the Perimeter of New London, holding down a soul-destroying job, surrounded by people who have lost the will to communicate. He is afraid his debts will spiral out of control, resulting in him being cast out of the city, outside of the Security Wall. Meanwhile, in the Better Life Complex, New London’s rich elite live in plastic luxury, unaware of the sinister secrets that underpin their world. /The Machine Society/ is an original and intelligent sci-fi thriller, and a heartfelt rally cry for the soul’s liberation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brooks's dystopia combines echoes of Orwell and Huxley with present-day concerns about capitalism and technology, but never quite pulls its various components together. Ex-academic Dean Rogers struggles to negotiate the stratified post apocalyptic city of New London. After a perilous incident at his dead-end job, Rogers is plucked from the dismal slums of the city's Perimeter district, given a makeover, and ensconced in the luxurious enclave of the Better Life Complex, where each citizen is a walking advertisement for a corporate sponsor and all edibles are packed with "healthy" additives. As he learns more about the secrets of the Complex, he endangers himself and those around him, and soon he must either escape or die. Brooks's novel includes some clever satirical details, but they are not particularly subtle, and the occasional excerpts from the invented philosophical work The Machine Society by a Lenin-esque Erich Vinty read like undergraduate polemics. The plotting and characterizations are strictly rote, and the ending is unconvincingly upbeat.
