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A review by libreroaming
Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson
5.0
M.T. Anderson pulls no punches in his sci-fi story where an advanced alien species comes to Earth, promising technological advancements and prosperity in exchange for trinkets of humanity's "primitive" culture. But our own capitalist society takes these gives and results in an even more massive wealth gap between the rich who side with the aliens and everyone else. Now it a society stripped of basic jobs that are no obsolete because of technology, where Adam and his family desperately try to make ends meet and are told they just aren't trying hard enough.
His dystopia is not the one easily fixed by fighting an evil overlord, or facing an obviously corrupt regime, but the entrenched systems of disinterest that we already are familiar with. And the crippling despair that comes from seeking value in a world that has deemed your commodities in traits they appropriate but never seek truth in. A depressing read (even with all the poop humor) that is both short and lingering with its bitterness.
His dystopia is not the one easily fixed by fighting an evil overlord, or facing an obviously corrupt regime, but the entrenched systems of disinterest that we already are familiar with. And the crippling despair that comes from seeking value in a world that has deemed your commodities in traits they appropriate but never seek truth in. A depressing read (even with all the poop humor) that is both short and lingering with its bitterness.