Aug. 29, 2008
BOOK REVIEW: Big Brother Controls U.S. in 'The Age of the Conglomerates' Sci-Fi Dystopia
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Forty years in the future, an all powerful force -- The Conglomerates -- rules America in a new trade paperback by Thomas Nevins, "The Age of the Conglomerates" (Ballantine Books, 304 pages, $14.00).
The Big Brother at the helm of The Conglomerates, the unnamed chairman, is suffering from the pressures of his all consuming job and wants rejuvenation, so he calls on Dr. Christine Salter, director of genetic development at the New York Medical Center, to perform genetic engineering on him. Salter is estranged from her mother and younger sister Ximena and she's concerned about the disappearance of her boyfriend and subordinate at the center, Dr. Gabriel Cruz. Christine is also worried about the lack of communication with her grandparents, George and Patsy Salter, with whom she is close, who live on Staten Island.
The Conglomerates rose from the private sector after the collapse of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The shadowy party has its headquarters in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), a Brooklyn neighborhood, and the party controls the figurehead President, cabinet and Congress in Washington, DC.
People who don't fit in the master plan of the economically driven Conglomerates are called Dyscards and live in the subways of New York and in cities as varied as Detroit and San Antonio; People over 80 are called Coots; when they reach the magic age, all their property is confiscated, they're loaded into a Vietnam War-era vintage C-5 Galaxy airplane and flown to "resettlement" centers in the Southwest. The master plan of the The Conglomerates is to strip "unproductive" elements from society and maximize profits, just like the corporations which gave rise to The Conglomerates.
Nevins himself works for a conglomerate in real life; he's a 55-year-old -- the same age as the chairman in the novel -- book salesman for Random House. Ballantine and Random House, along with other imprints such as Knopf and Crown, have been owned since 1998 by a German transnational media conglomerate called Bertelsmann AG.
Much of the book reminds me of one of my favorite novels by Philip K. Dick, "The Man in the High Castle." Other literary precursers include Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and, of course, George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Orwell himself was influenced by a 1920s Sci-Fi novel "We", a dystopia by a Russian writer named Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937). And, of course, all writers of dystopias have been influenced by Edward Bellamy ("Looking Backward: 2000-1887"); Jonathan Swift ("Gulliver's Travels") and Sir Thomas More ("Utopia"), to name just a few predecessors.
"We" was banned by the Soviets because it describes a "One State", ruled by the great Benefactor. Just as people in the age of the Conglomerates are constantly under surveillance, so are the citizens of One State -- and "Nineteen Eighty-Four" -- are bereft of privacy.
As is my policy with novels, I'm not going to give away any more of the book's plot; I hate reviews that tell all, spoiling it for the reader. As a lifelong devotee of Sci-Fi, I recommend "The Age of the Conglomerates." It would make an absorbing mini-series on, say, the Sci-Fi channel or USA network.
Publisher's web site: www.ballantinebooks.com
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BOOK REVIEW: Big Brother Controls U.S. in 'The Age of the Conglomerates' Sci-Fi Dystopia
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
Forty years in the future, an all powerful force -- The Conglomerates -- rules America in a new trade paperback by Thomas Nevins, "The Age of the Conglomerates" (Ballantine Books, 304 pages, $14.00).
The Big Brother at the helm of The Conglomerates, the unnamed chairman, is suffering from the pressures of his all consuming job and wants rejuvenation, so he calls on Dr. Christine Salter, director of genetic development at the New York Medical Center, to perform genetic engineering on him. Salter is estranged from her mother and younger sister Ximena and she's concerned about the disappearance of her boyfriend and subordinate at the center, Dr. Gabriel Cruz. Christine is also worried about the lack of communication with her grandparents, George and Patsy Salter, with whom she is close, who live on Staten Island.
The Conglomerates rose from the private sector after the collapse of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The shadowy party has its headquarters in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), a Brooklyn neighborhood, and the party controls the figurehead President, cabinet and Congress in Washington, DC.
People who don't fit in the master plan of the economically driven Conglomerates are called Dyscards and live in the subways of New York and in cities as varied as Detroit and San Antonio; People over 80 are called Coots; when they reach the magic age, all their property is confiscated, they're loaded into a Vietnam War-era vintage C-5 Galaxy airplane and flown to "resettlement" centers in the Southwest. The master plan of the The Conglomerates is to strip "unproductive" elements from society and maximize profits, just like the corporations which gave rise to The Conglomerates.
Nevins himself works for a conglomerate in real life; he's a 55-year-old -- the same age as the chairman in the novel -- book salesman for Random House. Ballantine and Random House, along with other imprints such as Knopf and Crown, have been owned since 1998 by a German transnational media conglomerate called Bertelsmann AG.
Much of the book reminds me of one of my favorite novels by Philip K. Dick, "The Man in the High Castle." Other literary precursers include Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and, of course, George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Orwell himself was influenced by a 1920s Sci-Fi novel "We", a dystopia by a Russian writer named Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937). And, of course, all writers of dystopias have been influenced by Edward Bellamy ("Looking Backward: 2000-1887"); Jonathan Swift ("Gulliver's Travels") and Sir Thomas More ("Utopia"), to name just a few predecessors.
"We" was banned by the Soviets because it describes a "One State", ruled by the great Benefactor. Just as people in the age of the Conglomerates are constantly under surveillance, so are the citizens of One State -- and "Nineteen Eighty-Four" -- are bereft of privacy.
As is my policy with novels, I'm not going to give away any more of the book's plot; I hate reviews that tell all, spoiling it for the reader. As a lifelong devotee of Sci-Fi, I recommend "The Age of the Conglomerates." It would make an absorbing mini-series on, say, the Sci-Fi channel or USA network.
Publisher's web site: www.ballantinebooks.com
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Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
