When you start reading authors whom you had heard nothing of before you’re kind of playing a quality raffle: they open a bag, you stick your hand in, grope around for a while and eventually come out with a ticket. Rarely it’s valid for that perfect combination of an interesting idea with good writing, but at least often you can manage to get one of the two.
Mallcity 14 by Shaun A. Sanders is a not-too-sublte parable about our consumerist society, extrapolating it to a point where it got out of control sometime in the future and the measure of status is not even how much you own anymore, but how much you owe. Saunders takes the concept to its logical extreme, where even people who are conscripted into the army must get in debt and pay for their own weapons, armor and, eventually, medical care.
It’s a short enough book, which is a good thing considering it doesn’t have much to say, but its central idea is good enough that it warrants spending some time with it. Saunders unfortunately doesn’t propose any alternatives, but at least has the guts to admit that even in what he later portrays as an idyllic socialist village, someone always has to pick up the tab.
In the end it’s a book that likely won’t preach to anyone but the choir, but those in the choir that do read it will at least have a decent time.