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    Cover of QualityLand

    QualityLand

    Marc-Uwe Kling · 2017

    Welcome to QualityLand, the best country on Earth. Here, a universal ranking system determines the social advantages and career opportunities of every member of society. An automated matchmaking service knows the best partners for everyone and helps with the break up when your ideal match (frequently) changes. And the foolproof algorithms of the biggest, most successful company in the world, TheShop, know what you want before you do and conveniently deliver to your doorstep before you even order it. In QualityCity, Peter Jobless is a machine scrapper who can't quite bring himself to destroy the imperfect machines sent his way, and has become the unwitting leader of a band of robotic misfits hidden in his home and workplace. One day, Peter receives a product from TheShop that he absolutely, positively knows he does not want, and which he decides, at great personal cost, to return. The only problem: doing so means proving the perfect algorithm of TheShop wrong, calling into question the very foundations of QualityLand itself. Qualityland, Marc-Uwe Kling's first book to be translated into English, is a brilliantly clever, illuminating satire in the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and George Orwell that offers a visionary, frightening, and all-too funny glimpse at a near future we may be hurtling toward faster than it's at all comfortable to admit. So why delay any longer? TheShop already knows you're going to love this book.

    Science FictionFiction & Literature
    Open LibraryAmazon
    Stats for nerds
    7recommend
    13mentions
    13people
    2020–2026years
    54% recommend46% neutral

    Mentions per year

    2020202120222023202420252026

    What Hacker News says

    1. hollownobodyJan 2025
      Try reading Qualityland, by Marc-Uwe Kling. It's SF (funny SF) about this exact premise.
      thread
    2. hiluxApr 2024
      On a similar theme [near-future consequences of data-driven technocracy], read the hilarious _Qualityland_, by Marc-Uwe Kling.
      thread
    3. boilerupncNov 2023
      I’ve been having a fun ride reading “QualityLand” [0] .

      In that world - those who have QualityPoints can exert far more escalation force on all parts of their life (change the traffic signal now for 10 units) than lower level folks. Your comment reminds me of a world where paying fees gets you faster and better access. Sadly - Sounds familiar.

      [0]https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/406...

      thread
    4. te0006Oct 2023
      To do it some justice: a talking, very opinionated, intellectual, anti-capitalist, and overall absolutely hilarious kangaroo, which of course is some form of alter ego of the author. There is an english edition of a selection of Kangaroo stories here: https://marcuwekling.reimkultur-shop.de/marc-uwe-kling-the-k..., also one of QualityLand here: https://www.orionbooks.co.uk/titles/marc-uwe-kling/qualityla...
      thread
    5. emehexApr 2023
      This is the plot of QualityLand (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36216607-qualityland). Highly recommended!
      thread
    6. LaarlfDec 2022
      Qualityland written by Marc-Uwe Kling
      thread

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