Mike Williams

But there was also something, for me at least, deeply relatable about...

shopping centre complex growing up, working in these places, knowing these characters, these people who seek power and bureaucracy, the idea of you're being watched and being watched in the community as well as within the shopping centre.

I think there was also something interesting about the repetition of the word complex.

And yes, the building itself, Lau might have been referring to, but also the nature of the

What if this was sort of a shopping industrial complex in the sense that this key store, this multinational store, KAG, keeps growing and devouring the smaller shops around it.

And it's just so convenient.

So, you know, all these smaller shops are dying off.

And yes, the fabric is sort of unwinding.

But hey, they're making money.

The people have jobs and the consumers, they're happy because this stuff is just so irresistible.

Yeah, that's right.

It sort of simmers out throughout the book.

And looking back now, you can sort of see the signs a bit clearly.

It really unfolds.

What the motive is exactly is a little bit unclear.

There's a frustration there.

And there's certainly lots of characters that turn in on themselves and they want competing things, which is pretty interesting.

Not anymore.

I was saying that I did go there yesterday and I did some reading in a mall.

Oh, really?