A promising premise but it doesn't deliver. Unfortunately not well written and forgettable. ( )

Don’t get old, we’ll ship you out west. Don’t become a burden or embarrassment for your parents, they’ll trade you in for a new child, a better one. This is the world in the Age of the Conglomerates, and it’s about to come crumbling down.

So, basically it was just o.k. Not that I didn’t like it, the ideas were pretty decent and the characters were decent, it just felt rushed. First of all, too much was given away in the prologue. For a dystopian novel, which is what this one felt like it was trying to be, too much was spoon fed to me. It probably would have been better if the reader was allowed to discover some of the structure of this weird future on their own. Other than that, it just felt incredibly rushed, especially towards the end when everything started coming together. I’d be interested to see the next book by this guy, because his ideas are nice, but the expression needs some work.

NOTE: I reviewed this book about a year ago, but when I tried to move the book using the collections feature it totally disappeared, along with the review, and I had to add it back to my library.

I received this as an ER book. I'm certain the author was well intentioned, and the book has an interesting premise. Unfortunely, I believe the book is being published prematurely. There is too much "telling not showing", awkward writing, and the plot wanders around with too many loose ends for my tastes. Not every work will be a writer's best and I could easily see this story being revised in time. Even the best known authors have released substantially retold tales and this would be a candidate - decent idea in need of some polish. ( )

I thought the basic premise of this book was interesting and relevant. The Future is reminscent of Orwell's 1984 with Big Brother (in this case the Conglomerates) always watching. The Coots (senior citizens) are packed away to government retirement communities without a warning. A child who gets out of line can be kidnapped and thrown into the bowels of the city as a Discard. The Salter family represents all of these seperate aspects of this new society. Christine Salter, a high up administrator at a genetics facility, must deal with the transportation of her grandparents and the kidnapping of her sister. Though there were many elements of the story I enjoyed I did feel there were portions of the plot that tripped up my enjoyment. For example, Christine and her sister are depicted as having typical sisterly rivalry even though their ages seem so disparate. How can there be rivalry between a young teenager and a clearly grown woman who is running a mult-million company. Overall it isn't an awful book. It just felt like it needed to refined better before it hit the bookshelves. ( )

Wow, This is a rough one. It was the first early reviewers copy that I had managed to snag. Since then I have gotten a couple more, but I'm just getting around to writing a review of this one. I was brought up not to say anything unless you had something nice to say. Especially after I read all the negative reviews, I began feeling really bad for the poor author. But, since I signed up for this, I feel obligated to write something... Well, I guess I've done that. ( )

When signing up for Early Reviewer books, I was intrigued by the title and synopsis of this novel and proferred up my name accordingly. Unfortunately, I will have to echo many other reviewers in saying that the basic premise of the book is really the only decent part about it. The writing style and storytelling are amateurish and sophomoric, and I would not read it again nor recommend it to others. ( )

This story was interesting but not spellbinding. I liked the premise, I just don't think the author developed it enough. I would tell my friends it is worth reading. I am happy to have had the opportunity. ( )

There are some ideas that enticed me to read all the way through the book, but they never really went anywhere. The various plot lines sort of get resolved, but mostly they didn't seem all that connected to the interesting big ideas. The head-hopping POV was pointless and distracting. For a novel that was striving for "When companies rule the world, fear the bottom line" it's a shame that it could better be described as "estranged family members connect." ( )

"The Age Of The Conglomerates - A Novel of the Future" by Thomas Nevins.

The first book by Nevins is a fast paced thriller that takes place in N.Y.C. in the not so distant future. The United States government and the financial institutions have crumbled. "Out of the private sector, a new political force has assumed control, the Conglomerates."

The Conglomerates "control all aspects and the economy". There are two outcasts in this society. The "Coots" are senior citizens who have reached 80. They are stripped of their financial holdings and are shipped off to live in the Conglomerate controlled communities of the southwest. The second group of outcast are the "Dyscards", kids who are deemed difficult to deal with, flawed, or kids that were the negative result of genetic engineering.

The story centers around the Salter family. Christine Salter is the director of genetic development, highly esteemed among the Conglomerates and reviled by the "Dyscards". Her younger sister, a recent "Dyscard", and her grandparents are sentenced to live in a "Coot" community. Unknowingly they soon find that their lives are intertwined and their survival depends on each other.

"The Age of the Conglomerates" starts off running and doesn't slow down. A quick read and enjoyable book. ( )

The Age of the Conglomerates tells a story of a not too unrealistic future where senior citizens and problem children are segregated from society and babies are constructed in a lab. This future story is told through the different voices of a single family. The story starts of interesting but about halfway through the plot falls apart as character development gives way to a quick wrap up of the plot and the ending is anti-climatic and unclear. Despite these criticisms, it is a quick read and would make a good young adult science fiction read.

When I first opened The Age of Conglomerates and read the Prologue, I was a bit worried. The premise, the banks failing and big business taking over and cleaning house, seemed a bit pedantic. The descriptions sets up a tone that isn't really reflected in the rest of the book, thankfully, but if there wasn't information about the society he's crafting that's vital in that prologue, I'd say skip it. It should have just been weaved into the book, but as it's not, you have to wade through the first few pages.

What this book reminds me of the most is Jennifer Government, but a bit more insular. If you like that kind of broadly writ thriller, you'll probably enjoy this. It's not great writing or going to change the world, but it's good for a trip to the beach. Good and evil are drawn pretty broadly, with large corporations and a for-profit mindset being the ultimate evil, but this story centers around one particular family. A family that happens to span the whole range of society. This conceit happens to be one thing that aids the writer's cause here. The writing is fairly direct and might not be the most engaging at times, but there's a shorthand to families, and roles within them, that helps the author out.

I wasn't that drawn in at first by the main character, Christine. She works as a geneticist, heading up a ward that produces designer babies. But she has these grandparents... In the second chapter we meet them as they're being transported to these camps out west where older people go when they hit 80, their property being seized by the state. Their relationship, as the grandmother's Alzheimer's hits hard and the grandfather tries to hold onto her, both physically and mentally, drew me in a bit. That helped me be more sympathetic to the other characters.

About half-way through the book, the pace starts picking up. Stakes start to get higher, and things go wrong. The chapters become shorter, more staccato. It's when the pressure is on and things are starting to draw together that the writing style works the best. The action is telegraphed in, building the tension. In the end, all of the plot threads are tied together, in a convergence of characters, both major and minor. There are certainly things I wish were fleshed out more, and some motivation that was more deeply explored, but it's fun enough, and a quick read. ( )

Synopsis: In a dystopian vision of the near-future, the United States is controlled by a group known as The Conglomerates. They exercise power in the pursuit of profit, removing young misfits who are not "productive" ("Dyscards") and the elderly ("Coots") from society. The story brings together a set of characters from each group: those outcast from society, as well as Conglomerate insiders becoming uncomfortable with their roles in the new social order.

Certain aspects of the backstory seem plausible, and helped draw me in to the world the of the book. In the near future, in the midst of crisis in which many government programs like Social Security and Medicaid collapse, a group that is part political party, part corporation, rises to power, and, by dominating all three branches of American government, manages to hold absolute power. The powerful maintain control by instituting a surveillance society, putting all personal and financial interactions under a watchful eye. These sorts of things are staples of stories about dystopian futures, but the particular set of them that the author chose seems timely.

Other aspects, however, just seemed too far fetched, which pulled me back out: The idea of groups being outcast from "normal" society, and consequently forming their own societies, is an interesting one, and another staple of science fiction. The way that this theme is handled in this book, however, just doesn't feel credible. First is a program in which everyone over 80 is involuntarily stripped of all their possessions and shipped off to Arizona, never to be heard from again. Apparently, their children and grandchildren are fine with this idea. Second is the notion of "designer babies" through genetic engineering: another science fiction staple, but the twist here is that "problem" children are disposed of in order to make way for these "superbabies": parents can call up a goon squad to come "discard" their children, also never to be seen again. In return, they are given new "genetically superior" children. While there are certainly many parents who don't take sufficient responsibility for their offspring, the idea that millions of parents would intentionally "throw away" their kids just stretches it too far. Overall, I simply had a hard time taking the premise of the book seriously.

By the end of the book, several plotlines that have remained separate come rushing together. Though the way in which they do so is mostly predictable, it does work a bit better than some other parts of the book. There are still elements that don't make much sense, though, and there are many loose ends: the primary plot thread through the last few chapters is a clear McGuffin, and most of the threads that have been set up earlier are not really resolved in satisfactory ways.

The main problem with this book is the poor writing: it feels very amateurish, alternating between being too repetitive and leaving out important information. The author apparently feels the need to remind us every few pages of the book's title. Much of the phrasing is very awkward: for example, one of the characters is constantly referred to by the unwieldy title "the Chairman of the Conglomerate Party". (Of course, he's the only Chairman in the book.) The characters are not totally flat, but are nearly so, and mostly follow standard conventions for a book of this type; I had a hard time connecting with any of them. The motivations behind the characters actions are often unclear, and those actions sometimes go against what little understanding we do have of the characters.

Note: This review is of a pre-publication edition of this book. ( )

While Nevins' idea for The Age of the Conglomerates is intriguing, the book is poorly executed. Nevins' writing style leaves something to be desired and is heartily ordinary and unoriginal. The characters were a bit predictable and the dialog was pretty insincere. The Age of the Conglomerates is a novel with a promising premise, but Nevins certainly didn't pull through ( )

The Age of the Conglomerates, Thomas Nevins's premiere novel, has a description that simply drips with promise and potential -- potential that is, almost instantaneously, diluted amongst amateurish writing and poor idea management.

To summarize the plot is, frankly, somewhat worthless, as one of the novel's biggest flaws is that lack of focus and direction in any of the three main storylines. Christine, a doctor; her discarded sister, X; and their grandparents, the "Coots" George and Patsy, all seek to find solace and acceptance in a world that we're repeatedly told is out of their hands to control.

The main problem here is with the word "told": rather than subtly show us a world gone awry due to economic and political turmoil, Nevins chooses instead to utilize lengthy expository passages that are uninteresting and blandly constructed, the novel's prologue being perhaps the most hackneyed among them. One almost gets the sense that perhaps Nevins is shooting for a clichéd, pulpy style, but the novel noticeably lacks that level of self-awareness, the ironic wink that is the mark of a truly talented writer.

At the risk of implying that Nevins is not a talented writer, I will instead assert that the novel does not reflect his skills at their peak. Short, declarative sentences are the rule of the day, which leads to a book that speeds along at a rapid pace but which doesn't really engross the reader stylistically.

As for the plot, which I've alluded to already but deftly sidestepped, my own evasiveness is a sadly apt metaphor for the story. There appears to be little cohesion between the plots save for a sudden tying-up at the end, a literal and figurative gathering of the threads that had been separate throughout. But that ending is incredibly unsatisfying, mostly because the device of the "Baby Brigade" appears too suddenly and without any justification or explanation. One doesn't get the sense of the stakes of the mission, so the whole mission feels too hack to be believed.

Similarly unbelievable are several of the plot twists, particularly those involving character loyalties, which are telegraphed so obviously that one is inclined to insist for much of the novel that there's no way that guy could possibly be on her side -- oh, but he is! Such turns are executed too matter-of-factly, without any suspense or description, and it makes much of the end of the novel feel too convenient and expected. Even the romantic threads are drastically undertreated, to the point that the emphasis on love and loyalty at the end again feels forced.

Generally speaking, the novel reads as if it feels too rushed for its own good. Nevins's ideas about the nature of power and class in a world driven by economic gain, I fear, are the only portions of the novel that were completely fleshed out during the writing, leaving a novel that wants to be suspenseful and thought-provoking, but is instead a lifeless head-scratcher.

This author's debut novel reads as a very brief sci-fi/chick lit hybrid. The idea of a future gone wrong through oversurveillance and desire for power is not new, but the author introduces some technological uses that are rapidly becoming a reality, such as designer babies. If a concentrated effort was made to build a more complete world, through either expansion into a series or elimination of characters and plot points, this would be a more enjoyable read for those who enjoy the "what-ifs" of science fiction. ( )

Whew. I'm hurt that a fairly interesting concept is battered down to fit in a dainty carboard box. The techniques that Mr. Nevins uses do not demonstrate any great storytelling or thematic prowess. Indeed, the entire novel (?) can be summed up in the words "nothing unheard of." If striving for classic status or immortal themology, Nevins fails, churning out another pulp fiction heap that hopefully won't reach shelves. It saddens me to think that bad books like this get published. It is rife with grammatical errors, cliche characters and foolish gaps of reality (as another reviewer demonstrated, a 1994-esque laptop possessed by a teenager, "new," in approximately 2018). I strongly discourage any from reading The Age of the Conglomerates: A Novel of the Future. ( )

I could not finish this, and I finish nearly every book I start. It's incredibly bad, Dan-Brown-bad, only-book-on-the-airplane-and-I'm-reading-the-Skymall-catalog bad. It appears to be a mainstream attempt at science fiction (pardon me, at A Novel Of the Future), but it exhibits the worst cliches of the genre.

http://books.kenficara.com/2008/05/th... ( )

The Age of the Conglomerates: A Novel of the Future by Thomas Nevins

Big business, The Congolmerates, takes over the US, maybe the world. The Dyscards are kids who, supposedly, can’t be controlled and are sent to one of several dumping grounds, letting the parents start over with a new manufactured child. Coots are baby boomers in their old age. All of their personal property is confiscated and sold by the Conglomerates who transport them to Arizona and other places where they get very little food, clothing, medical care, etc. A cut of the take is given to any existing family members who sometimes choose when it’s time for their elders to be carted off.

First, what I liked about the book: good basic idea

Next, what I didn’t like: hmm, pretty much everything else. The short, staccato sentences were quite difficult to get through and constant use of the character names was, at best, annoying. Around page 60, when talking about X becoming a Dyscard, the writer improves but soon reverts back to bad habits.

The author is continuously jumping from subject to subject, both in his narration and in the thoughts of his characters, contributing to the staccato style of writing. Take for instance the first chapter, Christine’s World. Christine’s thoughts jump from thinking about her upcoming date, to her work, to her grandparents, her mother, then back to her date, to work, etc. While most of us may actually think in this fashion, it doesn’t make for an easy read. There is also much too much redundancy. For example, when talking about the Border Patrol the author repeats the same thing over, and over, and over…. .

I enjoyed the concept of the book but felt it need to be quite a bit longer. The characters needed to be fleshed out a bit more by giving us a more in depth study on the past lives. How did A & Dee become leaders of the Dyscards. How, when, why did Gabriel learn martial arts. What was Christine’s childhood like with her mother & how did the close relationship with her grandparents come about. Although each of these topics is touched on briefly, it would have been nice to get a bit more information.

All in all, I wouldn’t read it again or recommend it to anyone. ( )

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Normally I just post links to my blog reviews, but as this is an Early Reviewer book, I feel obliged to make this review as handy as possible. Regrettably, that means everyone will find out that this book is one of the absolute worst things I've ever read. (Note: I will append links to blog posts about this book as they appear.)

Now, I've hated other books before, but I don't think I have, in the last ten years, read a book cover-to-cover that was quite so inept as this one. I don't hardly even know where to start.

I'll try to start with kindness, viz. the only rather good line in the entire book: "The Conglomerates might try to strip the elderly of their dignity, but dignity was a quality that had eluded the Conglomerates and hindered their ability to control the words of the dignified."

Pretty good line. Too bad it's surrounded by abominations like "They were determined to see a future--for the babies." and "Nice trick with the shower though. You really outsmarted him." and "She gave Aunty a hug, which demonstrated their difference in body type."

I don't even know where to start with sentences like those. Let alone an entire book full of them. As part of a 500-word spoof, they would be fine, but this book takes itself a little too seriously for that kind of ballast.

I'm amazed and astounded this is being published by a major house, even if the author is an employee of said house.

Anyway, this is a dystopian novel, (fine), except dystopias seem to attract writers who never read speculative fiction. Now, I'm not out to defend SF as a seamless bastion of great writing, but, as a genre, it's been around long enough to iron out some of the boneheaded errors that its pioneers made. This book does not benefit from the last hundred years of trial and error and makes some of the shameless errors one might associate with a 50s pulp paperback.

For instance. This book takes place in 2048. So a person in the first part of middle age would have been a teenager, when, 2028? Close enough. Even if it were 2018 this would still be a good example.

So a character finds her old laptop, a heavy clunker that sounds straight out of 1994. It even has a dialup modem! Can you imagine! That screeches! And, when she finds this laptop, she uses it to log into an email account she hasn't accessed in years because.....it's on her laptop!

Or consider the golf courses some late-in-the-book characters use because that's where the water is. They've been abandoned, you see, so there's all this water just sitting around. Right. In Arizona.

Naturally, the golf course we see is accompanied by palatial homes and a strip mine, because the mine honchos want to live and golf right next to their huge hole in the ground.

Sigh.

I wish there were good things I could say about this book. And I guess there are. The author knows the form of the thriller. But knowing form does not a good book make. I laughed in disbelief at this book regularly. I kept starting other books to avoid going back to this one. If it hadn't been my first ER book, I would not have finished it. It's a total disaster.

There is, somewhere, maybe, a good book in here, but finding it would require scrapping the whole thing and starting over. Clever names, for instance, like Coots and Dyscards (which the author is obviously quite proud of), are very difficult to accept as plausible. Constant exposition displaces storytelling. The whole thing is just.....

Yeah. I think I've said enough.

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links:
http://thmazing.blogspot.com/2008/05/...
http://thmazing.blogspot.com/2008/05/...

This title was so attractive to me that the Librarything algorithm got it just right to pick me as an early reviewer. I was really excited to have scored this book. However, the best thing about this book was the title.

The whole work felt expeditiously executed. The ideas seemed both too numerous, and vague, the predictions unsupported. The writing was poorly edited: so much so, that I wondered if the writer's pals at Random House, where he works, didn't want to hurt his feelings with corrections.

For a start, Nevins's version of the future is already out-dated - imagine that in 50 or so years there would still be cell-phones in use and old computers lying aroung with email capabilities!

The dystopia Nevins envisions is an America bankrupted by the meeting of massive boomer pension requirements with decades of personal borrowing beyond assets, winding up with CEOs of powerful companies "united in greed" taking over government and operating the country as a "Conglomerate", to their own continued personal benefit. Not a bad idea, although anti-corporate in a juvenile way. However, the lifestyle achieved does not seem consistent with personal benefits accruing to these leaders.

The action plan of the "Conglomerates" involves the appropriation of the assets of the elderly and their resettlement into camps; the genetic modification of the children of the rich, to order; and the family-requested and paid-for resettlement of unmanageable children, ostensibly to other camps, but actually to dumps in the New York subway. Whew!

The inelegance of the writing is well-demonstrated in the tin-eared use of the casual "Coots" as the official word for the elderly, apparently a homage to the writer's father, and "Dyscards" for the cast-off children, a term one could imagine they would like, but would be too biker-glam for the "Conglomerate" bureaucracy, surely.

The main characters are part of a family that conveniently embodies each of these categories, and consequently the family dynamics are forced off-key: the grandparents, old "Coots", are fabulously in love, still. Their daughter (invisible and unexplainable in the story) is unable to stay married, and has had one natural child who is possibly the highest-ranking geneticist in the country (ie a key "Conglomerate"), and two genetically-modified children, one of whom is a "Dyscard", a wild punk. (How did that happen? The mother has already paid once to have this child. Shouldn't she get her money back instead of having to pay to discard her? What can the explanation be?) Neither of the older children can stand their mother or each other. Whew, again!

And what about the handful of genetically-modified mutant babies that the "Dyscards" are trying to save from the "Conglomerates" at all costs? Where does that come from? Although they have no connection to any part of the story, they appear suddenly to provide the locus for the narrative, which improbably winds this family's lives back together as the writer works them through the scenario of the "Coots" and "Dyscards" needing each other to fight the "Conglomerates". Enough said.

I see that the other reviewers are forcing themselves to finish the book responsibly, as I am, but I guess there is not much to look forward to in the last 20 pages.

Nice face, shame about the legs. ( )

I was excited during the first part of the book as to where the author would be heading with this story, yet the more I read the harder it was to make myself finish the book. The plot is bland, character development is lacking and the finish was underwhelming at best. Some aspects of the plot did not make logical sense. I would not recommend to read. ( )

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhmjqgq... ( )

Thomas Nevins’ first book, The Age of the Conglomerates: A Novel of the Future is a roller coaster ride that shows the promise that this author has to offer. The first three chapters grabbed me and pulled me into the story as the main characters are introduced. The rest of the book continues the saga of this realistic tale of the future. Essentially in Nevins’ future, there are three groups of people: The Conglomerates that rule the business world, the Coots, which are the unwanted older people that “have no use in society” and the Dyscards, which are the unwanted younger people that are holding back the business people. Nevin weaves a tales that intertwines the lives of people from all three groups. Towards the end, the writing gets choppy and as is one of my pet peeves with a lot of authors, the story wraps up much too quickly considering the storyline build up in the first half. All in all, I rate this book 3 out of 5.. ( )

Thomas Nevins’ The Age of the Conglomerates is a gripping story reminiscent of the dystopian novels that predate it (1984, Anthem), but with a modern twist.

The setting is in 2048, and not much removed from the current state America is in now. One man, the Chairman, is running the show, with little to no opposition from other governmental bodies.

The story follows the protagonist, Christine Salters, who is the director of genetics at the New York Medical Center, her would-be boyfriend, Gabriel Cruz, her teenage sister, Ximena Salters, and her grandparents, George and Patsy Salters.

In the beginning of the novel, it is difficult to get past the fact that the plot seems to be so heavily influenced by 1984 and other works in the same vain. However, once the story picks up momentum, it is clear that the two stories are very different. Unlike the others, the setting of this story is not so drastically different from the time it was written, and the technology described is not totally made up. It is not a science fiction novel as much as a dystopian thriller. It is much easier to imagine than the others, and frightening because of that fact.

As a novel, the story lacks a bit, but it is forgivable. There are some strings left untied at the end of the tale, such as what happens to the Chairman and the rest of the citizens of the nation. The denouement seems a bit rushed since the chapters and sections become drastically shorter, and the narration falls into a different pace than the rest of the novel. There are some other things the novel leaves to be desired, like a deeper understanding of Christine and who she is. Ximena and the parts about her seem gratuitous at best, since her characterization is especially shallow.

Despite the flaws, the novel is still a fun and quick read. ( )

As often as I can, I use my off period at school to read a book. For the past two days, I have been struggling to spend it reading "The Age of the Conglomerates" when every impulse in my brain suggests I should do otherwise. I find the book poorly written, uninteresting and obviously derivitave, and find it no great surprise that the author, Thomas Nevins, is currently employed by a major publishing house. I can't imagine any other scenario in which this book would be allowed to be published.

The writing clunks along, exposing the author's main weaknesses with abandon (as when describing Christine's thoughts about her New Year's Eve dress--the writing drips with the author's obvious appreciation for women in tight red dresses, with little thought of how a woman in a tight red dress might actually think or feel.) Similarly, X, the achetypal tough, sarcastic teenage girl, is horridly unrealistic and implausible. At no point did I understand her motivations or those of her parents--why send her away? Why is she "strangely not frightened" after waking up in a subway tunnel? Why does Thomas Nevins think that naming her X for no reason is appropriate, and why oh why does he think that her telling people her name stands for "ten" is witty and clever? Why must Christine's grandmother be described in such a gruesomely cliched manner ("She had winked, which added a twinkle to the light in her eye"--"that light in her eye that she got when she had something up her sleeve")?

There are problems with narration, as when flitting between third-person omniscient and limited. Many novels have been able to succeed despite this particular shortcoming (The Great Gasby comes to mind) but let me make it clear that The Age of the Conglomerates is nowhere near Gatsby. The narrative issues are simply more on the pile.

To wrap up: the writing is poor, characters are weak, and the plot is dull, predictable and derivative. From the moment I read the gigantic nod to "1984" in the first chapter, I knew this would not be a good dystopian novel, but I had no idea quite how bad. I'm sure Thomas Nevins is a wonderful human being, but I simply can't see this effort as anything other than outrageously terrible. ( )