paperback, 381 pages
German language
Published April 1, 2019 by Ullstein Taschenbuchvlg..
Der Autor hält der digitalen Welt in seinem Buch Qualityland einen Spiegel vor, welcher in vielen Dingen bereits heute erschreckend realistische Züge hat. Das Buch war für mich nicht der Kracher schlechthin, aber eine kurzwellige Geschichte, die zum Nachdenken angeregt.
Jako nastup hodne hustej. Rozsekalo me to nekolikrat slusne. Satira spolecnosti, kde big corp otevrene kupci s uzivateli a kazdej ma ve spolecnosti hodnotu od jedne do sta (kde jedna ani sto nikdo nema, aby slapal jeste vys nebo se necitil jako luzr, i kdyz vsichni pod 10 sou luzri tak jako tak, teda pardon oficialne "nymandi"). Po case trosku monotonni. Porad nektery napady fakt pecka. Ale mam takovej pocit, ze to zrovna neni nadcasova bomba. Fajn odpocinkovy cteni, clovek se docela zasmeje, vic tam ale imo neni.
Very funny! I love well written satire!
If you want to write a proper scathing critique of today's world you have to be a cynic, humorist or a SF writer with a taste for dystopias. Good thing Marc-Uwe is all four.
In a world where algorithms dictate everything (correctly or not) there exists a country that with advice of PR firm decided to do complete image change. So it let silicon valey, or its equivalent take over everything and change its name to Qualityland to avoid all of its historical responsibility. Of course everything is the BEST in Qualityland, with all caps and don't you forget that, there is fine if you do.
I approve of this approach, by keeping the location of the story ambiguous you understand that it might be your home in 50+ years, so pay attention.
Anyway, back to the story. We follow our dear average Joe Peter Jobless who is facing bad …
If you want to write a proper scathing critique of today's world you have to be a cynic, humorist or a SF writer with a taste for dystopias. Good thing Marc-Uwe is all four.
In a world where algorithms dictate everything (correctly or not) there exists a country that with advice of PR firm decided to do complete image change. So it let silicon valey, or its equivalent take over everything and change its name to Qualityland to avoid all of its historical responsibility. Of course everything is the BEST in Qualityland, with all caps and don't you forget that, there is fine if you do.
I approve of this approach, by keeping the location of the story ambiguous you understand that it might be your home in 50+ years, so pay attention.
Anyway, back to the story. We follow our dear average Joe Peter Jobless who is facing bad finances, bad ratings for his scraping business, bad rating for his enthusiasm, bad ratings for his health and fitness, bad ratings for being average basically. Thus the almighty algorithms decide that he must be a loser and they in their infinite wisdom decide to buy him with his own money without his knowledge or permission a dolphin shaped dildo to cheer him up.
Disappointed in his life and now also greatly annoyed he decides to go on a herculean task to return this thing no mater the cost and challenge the almighty eldritch monster know as the shop algorithm.
Except of just following our protagonist on his epic quest, we get further glimpses into this world which is eerily familiar. This book gives of Brave New World vibes, but again this is a comedy.
Now the reason I gave this book a 4 instead of a 5 star review, was for its humor. Some of the jokes were too on the nose and some I greatly suspect were lost in translation. I bet that if I read this book in German as it was written it would get that 5 star rating easily.
QualityLand is an important satire that explains all the problems with Facebook, Google and alike in a really interesting way. It basically says: what happens if all those algorithms and business tactics are the most important thing in a not so distant future world. If you want to explain some friends why Facebook and Google need to be limited in their powers, you just might give them this book. They will learn a lot and laugh a bit, too.
