I have written of my appreciation of Richard Morgan before, I think he's a great sci-fi author. I'm currently in the middle of reading "Market Forces" and I am enjoying it as much as I had hoped. This was Morgan's first novel without the Kovacs character and I guess it can be described as a cross between the first Mad Max movie, a John Pilger documentary and a Bret Easton Ellis novel. Thus far it's an exploration of a future where corporations and free market economies dominate most of the planet and corporate tenders are resolved by suited business executives taking part in savage Mad Max style car battles. The main protagonists work in a financial field known as "Conflict Investment" where companies invest in and profit from coups, dictatorships, revolutions and general political instability in the third world.

"Conflict Investment" may seem rather dubious in this day and age but last nights Simon Mann interview on Channel 4 pointed at exactly this type of intervention where a wealthy businessman (and allegedly some governments) bankrolled an attempted coup of the government of Equatorial Guinea in order to profit off that countries oil. Sounds a bit like what's happening in Iraq.