I finished Jennifer Government this weekend. And even though the dreaded 10-point review scale is a tool of the unintelligent and creatively bereft, I give it a 7 out of 10. Overall, it held within its pages a wonderful, intricately-woven story that had a fantastic premise, but there were a few niggling plot details and character motivations (or lack thereof) that kept this story from hitting perfection.

Towards the end, author Max Barry needed to get some characters to perform certain activities in order to bring about a completion of certain key events in the storyline. It felt as though Barry decided against giving these characters a believable reason to perform these activities, and instead simply forced them to do it, against their written nature. It felt a bit jarring in those instances to have a character say something or act in a way that was completely contrary to the way they had been speaking and acting up to that point in the story. However, I have to admit, those few instances did not keep me from enjoying the overall story, nor did they pull my interest away from the fates of the main characters in the novel.

The premise itself is a masterpiece of future woe, and the idea of a world controlled by corporate entities truly filled me with more dread than the inevitability of a nuclear holocaust, catastrophic global apocalypse, or other-worldly carnage and destruction. It was immense and powerful, and was truly a story worth reading if only for the reassertion it offered me in the vile, self-serving nature of corporations.

Onward to Old Man’s War by John Scalzi!