3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bleak Tomorrow - "Page Turner" on Kindle, November 23, 2009
This review is from: 2044: The Problem isn't Big Brother. It's Big Brother, Inc. (Paperback)
This is just the kind of book that reminds me why I got a Kindle. I did not want to put it down. I read it, horrified yet not wanting to stop, as my husband drove the car, as I was waiting for a concert to begin, in bed... etc. The "Predator State" that James Kenneth Galbraith describes so well, the oligarchy we live in, could definitely get worse. We have corporations now who decide life and death issues for people by denying health care and lobbying to oppose health care for all. Climate change is already depriving 3rd world citizens of food and water and it will get worse and effect us in the west also. The author has put together a novel that paints one of the possible bleak scenarios that await unless we regain our identities as citizens and NOT consumers, and invest in a world economy that supports human life and human dignity over greed and short term gain for those at the top.
See also
The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Riveting Page Turner, November 8, 2009
This review is from: 2044: The Problem isn't Big Brother. It's Big Brother, Inc. (Paperback)
I thoroughly enjoyed 2044. It's a riveting page-turner set in a world of the future where big business is in control and fresh water is in short supply. It's about an average guy, Malcolm, who comes across a new technology that desalinates water without need of energy. It's a technology that's good for people, but bad for business. Find out what happens when Malcolm and his friends set out to share the technology with the world.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
2044 -- frightening, yet plausible!, August 26, 2009
This review is from: 2044: The Problem isn't Big Brother. It's Big Brother, Inc. (Paperback)
I found Lotke's vision of 2044 more frightening than Orwell's 1984. While the threat to our individual freedoms has shifted from government control to the increasing power of global corporations, the plausibility of the threat becoming a reality feels way more likely, and at times, approaching probable.
I highly recommend this novel. The pace is fast, the characters are compelling, the message is haunting, and the punch is hard. Lotke extrapolates to a world where employees are reduced to productivity obsessed units of production. A smaller and smaller number of increasingly consolidated multinational corporations monitor, manipulate, pressure, and control its employees and customers.
Today, we rationalize our commitment to long work weeks with language, such as spending "quality" time with our friends and family. However in Lotke's world, we don't even try. Normal social interactions are a distant memory -- part of our antiquated past left by the wayside on the steady march in the name of progress. Instead, we pledge loyalty to the corporation and willingly sacrifice our fleeting leisure time to complete the next project like a workforce of Bill Murrays trapped in a really scary version of Ground Hog Day.
Like Orwell, Lotke relies heavily on exaggeration; however, after reading the book, one cannot help but notice things at work in a different (more jaded) light. On a similar note, I just saw a phenomenal documentary, Food, Inc. (a must see) where the alleged behavior of today's Monsanto Corporation is no less alarming than Lotke's fictionalized Microtech Corporation. Unfortunately, glimmers of 2044 are already here in 2009.
I'm very interested in seeing what Lotke sees in his crystal ball for 2084...
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