Jennifer Government by Max Barry

Imagine, if you can, a world run purely to satisfy the interests of commercial conglomerates, where people are slaves to corporations and their identities are subsumed by the companies they work for.

Jennifer Government

In this nightmare world of rampant deregulation, we meet Hack Nike, a low-level wage drone working for the overpriced shoe conglomerate whose name he bears. After a chance encounter with two senior marketing execs (both called, confusingly enough, John Nike), Hack finds himself involved in a brilliant new marketing strategy cooked up by the two execs: manufacture interest in their latest shoe by murdering people while they’re queuing to buy the trainers. All they need is a fall guy to carry out the plan.

Needless to say, it doesn’t go smoothly, and Hack finds himself looking at multiple homicide charges. But he’s not alone. Jennifer Government has history with one of the Johns, and she’s determined to bring him to justice.

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Providence by Max Barry

Right, this is the third Max Barry I’ve read this year, so I think it’s safe to say, I’m a bit of a fan.

Earth finds itself in conflict with a seemingly invincible enemy from a distant star system: strange insect-like creatures whose primary method of attack is to launch miniature black holes at the enemy.

Providence

Did I say “seemingly invincible”? Why, yes! The planet responds to the threat by launching a new fleet of starships driven by AIs so sophisticated that they take the battle to the enemy with very little need for a crew. In fact, the biggest problem for the four-man crew of one these Providence-class vessels is boredom; the ship finds the enemy, plans the attack, executes, and leaves. It can even manufacture its own weaponry and crab-like robots to carry out repairs. This leaves the crew with plenty of time on its hands to contemplate the loneliness of being cooped up in an intelligent starship, light-years from home, with three other people they neither like nor trust. …

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