Marc-Uwe Kling 2020. QualityLand. Translated by Jamie Lee Searle. London: Orion. 339 pp.

Outrageous satire and as a bonus often outrageously funny. Nearly gave up in the first third when the smart-arse humour seemed to prevail but luckily kept going, it becomes more funny and an actual narrative develops in spite of the torrent of satire. With more effort this would be more of a Vonnegut or Douglas Adams style of book, and with more effort still even Swiftian. But still worth the visit for the acute skewering of Facebook, Amazon, reality, Trump, politics, sexual politics, free will, and more that I’ve forgotten already. There is an election happening in this dystopia totally controlled by tech giants not even thinly disguised. And, in parallel there is a hero tilting at windmills. Peter is is straight out of Douglas Adams, a no-hoper shy of the System and almost the only moral citizen. He has surrounded himself with a posse of machines with faulty AI personalities who he has rescued from his own recycling crusher. With a suitably sly and clever ending.