  Bookmark and Share  Authors are like rock stars these days
with their personalities and personal beliefs getting in the way
of their scribblings. Throw out a name like Dave Eggers, for
example, and you’ll find everyone’s got an opinion, whether
they’ve read the man’s pretentious barrel-of-monkeys bullshit
books or not. Which I haven’t. See, it’s almost impossible for
readers to pick up a book without preconceived notions of the
message held within.  Australian author Max Barry and his latest
novel, Jennifer Government, are no exception. Former Hewlett-
Packard employee Barry has been touted as this generation’s
George Orwell (Book Magazine and the Washington Post aren’t the
only publications to make the connection), with his new book
presenting a future of company-sponsored surnames, the abolition
of taxes, every service requiring credit card payment (including
hospitals and the police), and a world divided into the
countries America owns (all of them) and those it doesn’t
(except France). His reputation as