Landscape with Invisible Hand

I have enjoyed MT Anderson’s past books, Feed and The Tales of Octavian Nothing, so I was excited to receive a copy of Landscape with Invisible Hand. The title and cover made me a little reluctant to try the book because it did not catch my eye. However, there is a new movie based on the book coming out and once I understood that our main character, Adam, is an artist and that his fortune could change if he wins an art contest the title made more sense.
This Science Fiction dystopia turned out to be thought-provoking and to hold many truths about colonization and the implications of our past dealings with indigenous people. The Vuuv are an alien species that offer medicine, technology, and knowledge advancement and welcome Earth into their coalition for prosperity. Yet, the dirty underbelly of the deal is only the richest of the rich prospered, and with the automation of everything no one else could find jobs. As AI ramps up in our own society this offers good insight into the trajectory we could potentially experience.
Before the Vuuv arrived, Adam had a wonderful middle-class upbringing. As jobs became unattainable no matter how willing everyone was to do even the most menial labor it was interesting to see how everyone broke. Some people abandoned their families, others their former lives, and some tried to assimilate to be like the Vuuv, or perform for the Vuuv trying to be noticed. These behaviors hold the potential for many discussions on colonization and the impact on indigenous people and how they have coped over time.
Adam’s mother is forced to bring in tenants to live with them, among them is a teenage daughter Chloe. It is not long before Adam and Chloe are dating. With infatuation comes the amazing idea to sell per-minute episodes of their dating to Vuuv audiences. It is a wonderful idea that puts food on the table yet being on display sours the actual relationship. This has great potential for discussion about our current social media and reality TV. Many take these formats as truth but they are often highly staged and guided for maximum dramatic effect.
Adam suffers from a disgusting gastrointestinal disease that happened from bad water as a result of the Vuuv arrival and ensuing neglect of anyone not able to ascend to orbital housing. It could also be easily cured with Vuuv medicine which is too expensive to ever attain. As his condition worsens, he has an epiphany. I do not want to spoil the book by revealing it, but his answer to their problems is both a sad reflection on society, truthful and would likely work quite well.
Overall, this ended up being another great book by MT Anderson that has many literary merits and commentary on the past, present, and future of our society. This is ripe for a book club or school discussions on topics such as Social Media, AI, Economy, Hierarchy of Power, Colonization, and historical events to name a few. I do wish the book was longer to develop the characters and the Vuuv more, but it serves the purpose it was created for.

Aliens have invaded Earth and promise to share their technology. Of course most people are very excited about the idea that Earth will have advanced technology, but they don't realize the cost. Adam watches as his parents lose their jobs to this technology. Then his father leaves the family. His mother rents the house out to another displaced family. Adam hooks up with Chloe, the daughter of the family and together they put together a pay by the minute recording of their romance. They do this to survive. Only their loves fizzles in the process. Adam needs to find another way to help his family survive the alien's colonization.

What worked: This is a sharp, funny at times, satire on what would happen if an advance race invaded Earth. Only in this case it's colonizing our planet. There's a huge cost to receiving the so-called advanced technology. A cost that leaves people out of work and money almost useless. I thought it was very intriguing how Andersen shows how an alien race can take over a world and at the same time show their disdain for the inhabitants of the world. **Show kind of familiar?

Adam witnesses the after effect of the invasion and wants to help his mother and younger sister out. The whole idea of recording a romance using old 1950s culture and slang(aliens first encounter Earth in the 1940s), is creative, but what at first was an easy way to get money, grows old fast. We see this world through Adam's eyes. I wanted to see more of Chloe and how she really felt about all of this. At times she seemed almost too unlikable on how she viewed Adam. He has Merrick's disease, a terrible stomach disease based on having to drink unpurified water(the aliens don't need that). Her comments about this felt almost too petty.

I loved the glimpses into the Vuvv. There's lots of rich details-the condos in the sky; snobbery against the Earth inhabitants; and their love of anything in the 50s. Also I felt there was so much parallelism of this world with our own history of occupying countries and imposing our will on those people.

I also loved the humor woven throughout the novel. Adam's final realization on how he can beat the aliens seems almost genius. Let's just say he does take lemons and make them into lemonade.

Dark at times, humorous tale of life under the colonization of aliens. Biting humor that gives readers a new hero to cheer for.