Reviewed by Mark Elliott, Library Specialist
This Australian satire is set in a near future where the culture of big business has overtaken every aspect of life. Aggressive marketing entails murder, corporate raids are executed by armed mercenaries, and if you want a crime investigated by the police, you have to pay them up front. In Max Barry's alternative reality, employees are surnamed after the company for which they work (a pair of frightening villains are both named John Nike), which is just one of many telling details illustrating how dominant corporate life has become. But the effect in the story is far from a dense, Orwellian exposition. The particulars of life in the Australian States of America are easily grasped and never slow the pace of the adventures of plucky government agent Jennifer, a former marketing genius and single mother who finds herself trying to shut down the ultimate campaign. Despite its chilling subject matter, Jennifer Government is lively, readable and very funny.
