Max Barry Books

This Audio book combines the great talents of Max Brand's story writing with Barry Corbin's reading abilities ;resulting in an excellent yarn in typical Western style.
Originally written in 1924,it holds your attention and is filled with excitement from beginning to end. I don't generally listen to Audio Tapes as I find I tend to get distracted by other things around me;but I was looking for something to entertain me for 90 minutes on a hot summer evening. With a couple of long cool drinks ,I put my feet up,turned the lights down,and sat back on my porch and just let these two gentlemen entertain me---and enjoyed every minute of it.By the way,my dog beside me,seemed to enjoy it as well.

Having read "Company" by Maxx Barry, I wanted to try another of his novels. I found both books to be extremely clever and insightful. His view of the marketing world is 'extremely sharp' and biting. It was a great summer read.

As soon as I found out the name of the product in the book, I tossed it in the trash.

Syrup was an amazing book, from the very first sentence on the very first page. This book by Max Barry instantly hooks the reader, and sends them through a tale of scandal, deception, and satire. Brilliant.

Max Barry is truly something else. I love his writing style, his humor, and his incredible ability to tell a great story. This book is very witty, but at the same time frighteningly ironic. I cannot wait for the next read by Barry; none have disappointed thus far!

If you like Max's work, and I'm sure you do, you need to read this. It's an essential lead-in to the rest of his work, albeit not QUITE as clever as Jennifer Government.

There are lot of beginners who love to start doing 3D animations and stuff. So i think this book and CDs will help them a lot to learn by themself.

this is an excellent beginning for those interested in creating wonders with 3d studio max version 3 the only reason I gave only 4 stars is because of the lack of sufficient hard copy documentation for off computer reading)

I work at various branches of Gold Coast City Council Libraries and many people request titles of books not realising they've read them before. So that they sell more copies publishers change titles for different markets. Logoland (Jennifer Government) isn't the only popular novel found on Amazon published under multiple different titles. Others include P.J Tracy's Want to Play, which is the same book as Monkeerench. Bill Fitzhugh's McJesus, which is the same novel as both Cross Dressing or Cross + Dress. Bush Falls which is exactly the same novel as Jonathan Tropper's The Book of Joe. Risiko by Harry Bingham which is the German language version of Sweet Talking Money. Most of these titles are actually available in English versions under either title as there is still a large market for English books in these countries but they keep the changed title so once you check what you are actually buying is actually English, then purchase whichever title is cheaper. That said here's my review of Logoland/Jennifer Government.

This novel is set in the future with the political world having dwindled to a few players. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada, South Africa and Japan to name a few, no longer exist and are now just part of the USA. Europe is the opposing superpower, along with China and South East Asia.

In this horrendous world corporations have taken over, with people's surnames being the company they work for. You don't want not to have a surname in this age. Police have been bought and are a company for hire themselves along with hospitals and other emergency services which if you can't pay for, won't help you. The government is another business enterprise which no longer collects tax. An FBI type division is part of it to which Jennifer Government works for. Nike and the other major companies have no morals and are prepared to murder children for market share, which Jennifer will not accept. John Nike is set on ridding the world of the government hindrance once and for all.
This novel takes the reader on a pretty thrilling ride, although Max Barry hasn't completely explained the new world, so you have a number of questions which are never answered. One is with no tax how are the roads built and maintained and the USA able to fund and deter the rouge countries from attacking? Terrorism is also not tackled at all, with everyone walking onto planes with guns. I would imagine there'd be increased terrorism in this type of world from those unwilling to become American. The fact of how the NRA exist in countries like Australia (I know it's now part of the USA in this novel) which have complete opposite views on guns to the USA also isn't explained.

If you're prepared to overlook things and not know everything about the setting then you'll enjoy this book. Don't be put off by or even purchase this book because of the Kirkus review on the front cover (the Jennifer Government version) that likens this novel to the Matrix. It is not that type of novel at all and has nothing to do with science fiction, cyberspace, virtual reality or anything like that. Obviously Kirkus hasn't read this novel and has just made a lot of assumptions from the cover art. Buy the book though. It's good.

Also buy Max Barry's first novel Syrup it's sensational. He spells his first name Maxx if looking on search for that one. Company Max Barry's third novel (he's back to one x in his name) is also a sensational read.

Since Amazon has no info on this book, I just wanted to let everyone know what it is. It's the German edition of Jennifer Government.

After reading Syrup (which Barry is currently working on the screenplay for, BTW), I wanted to get everything Barry had written. I considered paying $30+ for this book, but luckily I did a little research first. Logoland is just the German title for Jennifer Government. So if you're looking for something else by Barry, grab a copy of his hilarious new novel, Company.

The seller was good, but the book is quite dry. It was required reading for a summer reading list, and thus, a necessary evil.

With some of the same themes as classic cyberpunk (in particular, corporations taking over everything), you'd think this book would fit in naturally with that genre. But I don't think it does, mostly because the book is too satirical..too obvious. I like my cyberpunk more subtle, not where the author is saying "see how clever I am?" Too me cyberpunk is also a little more dark (perhaps post-apocalyptic), and a little more future, not near-future. Cyberpunk often involves technology too, and this book does not use anything science fiction or high tech. So while the social commentary themes are similar, its just not really a good match. I mostly enjoyed Barry's "Syrup" but this book was too over-the-top for my tastes. I also did not care for the short scenes in this book...I think they were intended to help keep the action moving, but to me they were like forcing me to be ADHD.

Many modern day dystopian novels place the blame for many of the world's ills on technology run amok. Max Barry does not do that, whether for lack of desire or ability, but instead he places the blame for the messed up world on the takeover of everything by the profit motive. Without money crimes are not investigated and two corporate behemoths fight it out on the world stage with everything from ads to guns. Some of the book is slightly dated in a technology way, but this does not seem to really bother the story. The characters are well outlined even fleshed out fairly well.

I recommend this one for a good read; though I think he may take a few things beyond the scary to the absurd. I gave it a 4 because of that.

It's very easy to read about outsiders and their beliefs and ideals messing up, and only become more infantile and blind. This great novel and the Space Merchants series by Cyril Kornbluth and Fred Pohl actually challenge the real dogma of our new Dark Ages directly.

If asked to write the foreword to some 20th anniversary commemorative edition, I would say that Max Barry's Jennifer Government is like a bottle of Diet Neal Stephenson served with a twist of Christopher Moore (or perhaps a dash of Tom Robbins?) There is something uncannily similar between Snow Crash and Jennifer Government: in the comic book pacing; in the hyperbolic and impossible but chillingly familiar geo-political climate that he illustrates; in the characters that reek of auto-erotic caricature and yet are so well-drawn, so believable and sympathetic and damn plausible. You can see Y.T. dropping out of school because of girls like Haley McDonald's. You can see NRA franchises competing against La Cosa Nostra in the burbclaves. You can imagine Hiro Protagonist sub-contracted by Jennifer Government to fend off Violet ExxonMobil. You wonder how the milieus of these novels aren't linked.

But even if you haven't read Snow Crash, even if you aren't making those comparisons, you will find this one wholly enjoyable. It has an immediate start, thrusts you headlong into the story-already-in-progress but makes sure to catch you up just as quickly. And it never loses this momentum. The chapters coming at you fast (each about 3-5 pages) and are fairly dialogue-driven. Before you know it, you'll find you've burned through 100 pages. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. The narrative draws you in, the prose gets out of the way, and the characters encourage you to get invested.

Borderline 5 star review. There is a whimsy to this tale that draws on a lot of familiar dystopian capitalist tropes (e.g., the libertarian anarchy of free market capitalism run amok); it borders on cliche but doesn't quite cross the frontier into hackneyed territory. That it gets that close, that the prose taps its toes on cliche's fences is where we lose the fifth star in the rating. But that the narrative goes there so unabashedly, in all of its over-the-top banality -- that is a beautiful thing.

I have not read a better business novel! And I believe I have read almost all business novels that exist. I would compare it with 'Yes Minister' in its satire and with any thriller in its pace. After working in the industry for a decade, everything reads so eerily true! I recommend it to everybody planning to work in business (with a pinch of salt) and everybody in the business world or connected to it.

The book is well written and is a very easy read and fast. And you do not have to know anything about the business world to understand it either.

It is one of my all time top 10 reads.

Having worked for a huge, Fortune 15 company for the past four years, I felt like the book was written about some of my experiences, yet I was laughing or completely jaw dropped for nearly the entire book. I read it completely on the bus for my commute, and got a few of my neighbors on the bus interested in the book just from my laughs.

The only reason I rate it 4 stars instead of 5 is that I think the first surprise in the book (around page 100) was actually more exciting for me than the climax. The book ended exactly how it should have, and it was never clear in my mind until the very end what Jones (the main character) was going to do, but after the bombshell in the beginning of the book, nothing else would surprise me!

Generally speaking, I'm all about anti-corporative works, myself being fortunately able to escape the corporative world and make a decent living by my own.

This book, which is not bad (it's simply highly forgettable), has one major flaw: it's not funny enough. It's advertised as funny, as some kind of Scott Adams, but it's not. It begins funny, then suddenly it's dark (which I can get), but it seems the writer lost the purpose of the book.

Well, anyawy, I didn't feeel I lost precious moments of my life by reading it, so...

If you ever worked for or with a big company, you'll find this book Company hilarious. Things like these will actually make you laugh:

* Endless voicemail forwards: "This is Greg Smith, Gretchen, can you please forward this to my staff. This is Mike Jones, Mary, can you please forward this to my direct reports. This is ..."
* Nobody really knows what the company does or wants to have to explain it to someone else.
* All your "customers" are internal customers. (I remember a big campaign ... nobody was allowed to call a company team a customer even though we made tools for other teams.)

Company is a funny book and a fast read. Good entertainment.

As I started reading this book I kept feeling that it was a long string of Dilbert-like situations. My copy came with the donut on the cover and the donut is very prevelent throughout the story as a whole fiasco is created at the beginning of the book when Roger (one of the Sales people) complains about a missing donut. This leads to an employee firing and the dismissal of the food services department. The donut may also symbolize the company as a whole. The more I read the book I kept thinking of Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil, where Robert DeNiro is kind of running things in the background or the Wizard of Oz where the wizard is just a plain man who hides behind a curtain.

The main protaginist is known mostly as Jones (his first name is Steven). Jones has a habit of asking a lot of questions even though all the employees tell him not to question anything. Little by little Jones gets to the bottom of what the company (Zepher) is really about. He has to decide if he wants to upset the balance or go along while being mesmerized by the mysterious "Eve."

This was a fun book on corporate philosophy and the treatment of the workers as individuals.