The kangaroo came to Germany as a guest-worker. His business model is to publish books that fiercely criticize capitalism and sell incredibly well. In The Kangaroo Chronicles (“Die Känguru-Chroniken”) the author Marc-Uwe Kling lives together with a kangaroo and writes funny songs and stories. ✺ society satire, to laugh oneself to death, for all who are not yet dead.«Įlisabeth von Thadden, Die Zeit ✺lways entertaining, but never without false bottom.« ✺ featherweight comedy with a dark wit and inventive pictures.« La Repubblica »Kling’s narration is formally captivating and imaginative – the most exciting political novel in a long time.« Literary Review ✺ highly informative and highly frightening book.« It is an enjoyable romp through an overwrought capitalist dystopia masquerading as a Utopia.« Kirkus Review »QualityLand contains enough tragicomic wit to tickle the reader. In addition to the pitch-black political satire, the novel’s portrayal of economic inequality highlights a problem that wreaks havoc on our own lives.« Publishers Weekly ✽espite the novel’s comic approach, the nature of the narrative is heavily political, holding up a black mirror to our own troubled times. »Sharp and biting, the most implausible aspect of Kling’s novel is the relative note of optimism that ends it. Visionary, profound and very, very funny. If the system is really so perfect, why are there drones that suffer from fear of flight, or combat robots with post-traumatic stress disorder? Why did the system rate him at level 10, only one level above the single-digit range, where people are considered “useless”? Why does his girlfriend Sandra Admin unhesitatingly leave him during a romantic dinner when QualityPartner offers her a better partner as an upgrade? And why the hell does he get a pink vibrator in form of a dolphin from TheShop? Peter decides to return the unwanted product, but that’s not at all easy.Īn astonishing futuristic satire about the promises and pitfalls of digitisation. Nevertheless, the machine-scrapper Peter begins to suspect that something is wrong with his life. No one is forced any more to take difficult decisions – because in QualityLand the answer to every question is: OK. And anyone who is registered with TheShop will receive all the products he or she wants, without having to order them, because the system knows what everybody wants. The self-driving car knows where you want to go. QualityPartner knows who is best suited to you.

In QualityLand work, leisure time and relationships are optimized by algorithms. The novel takes the reader to an unspecified western country, which for reasons of image was renamed.

QualityLand is a fun dystopia that plays in a near future.

Die Känguru-Chroniken by Marc-Uwe Kling