»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. In a coming-of-age tale full of humor and wisdom, award-winning author Meg Medina gets to the heart of the confusion and constant change that defines middle school-and the steadfast connection that defines family.QualityLand is a fun dystopia that plays in a near future. No one in her family will tell Merci what’s going on, so she’s left to her own worries while also feeling all on her own at school. Things aren’t going well at home either: Merci’s grandfather and most trusted ally, Lolo, has been acting strangely lately-forgetting important things, falling from his bike, and getting angry over nothing.

So when bossy Edna Santos sets her sights on the new boy who happens to be Merci’s school-assigned Sunshine Buddy, Merci becomes the target of Edna’s jealousy. They don’t have a big house or a fancy boat, and they have to do extra community service to make up for their free tuition. For starters, Merci has never been like the other kids at her private school in Florida, because she and her older brother, Roli, are scholarship students. Merci Suárez knew that sixth grade would be different, but she had no idea just how different.

Die Känguru-Chroniken by Marc-Uwe Kling