The Warehouse by Rob Hart
I received a free copy from NetGalley in return for an honest review. This in no way impacts my opinions.
I’ve always had a thing for dystopian fiction, and near future efforts in particular. When this one popped up on Netgalley, I jumped at the chance. And it was a good one.
Cloud is a massive fictional online retailer which sounds awfully like a massive non-fictional online retailer who shall remain unmentioned. Cloud essentially run all retail in the US, courtesy of a horrific event known as the Black Friday Massacres,which keeps shoppers in their homes these days.With the planet baking due to global warming, and jobs scarce, people turn to Cloud for employment, and this leads us to our main characters..
Paxton was a former prison guard turned inventor, who lost his company to the whims of the Cloud, and seeks employment there to take them to task for stealing his livelihood. Zinnia is a corporate spy, and one of the best. She is employed by someone to infiltrate Cloud and dig up some dirt on their seemingly great reputation. Gibson is the founder of Cloud, and considered a genius and a visionary for many for his forward thinking ways. But he’s dying, and plans to visit as many Cloud factories as he can before he passes, while naming his successor along the way. Here’s my thoughts on the story.
Worldbuilding
I have to be honest, I think this was the weakest part of the novel. While the world, and Cloud the author alluded to was more than interesting, I feel like it could have been drawn on a bigger canvas, rather than being a series of snapshots of certain parts, This is no doubt in part to the story being told from the perspective of three characters, but I never quite got the feel for how vast the Cloud facility was. That being said, what we could see was beguiling, and at times troubling. The earth is on its last legs, so hot that people can’t remain outdoors for too long, The facility sounds vaguely impressive, and the colour coding of the employees is a differing nod to Brave New World. Comparing the Cloud facility to an airport gave me the best sense of it, but I’d have liked to have seen a little more description on the part of the author. But don’t let this put you off, because…
Score – 3/5
Characters
The characters, at least as far as I’m concerned, are the people who tell the tale.Paxton is “the good guy.” As mentioned, he lost his job to the Cloud(as most people did), and seeks employment there with the intention of giving someone a piece of his mind. He ends up with a job (shirt) that he most certainly does not want. But, watching him buy into the Cloud, into their philosophy and practices is possibly the creepiest part of the book. How he accepts the barely acceptable standards of living and employment is helped in part by his relationship with Zinnia. Zinnia, on the other hand, is always cynical, and her struggles to overcome her employers security system is a big part of her story. She is whip smart and dangerous, but is limited by the tracking capabilities of the Cloudband (you’ll see). What’s particularly galling is that the local pervert and a bunch of drug dealers have overcome it, but Zinnia for all her smarts cannot. In addition, she milks Paxton for insider information, but as the book progresses, she struggles with her burgeoning feelings for him. Gibson might be the most intriguing. As he’s staring into the face of his impending death in the face. He’s writing a blog as he struggles to do public appearances, but his posts seem genuine, and you can hear the idealism in his voice as he tells his story. But with each post, you can hear (read) the cracks in his facade and you wonder how genuine he is. There are other characters who play a role, such as cynical. cynthia, who shows Zinnia the cracks under the wallpaper of Cloud, or idealistic Dakota, who pushes Paxton to solve their drug problem.
Score – 5/5
Plot
Also a zinger, the plot weaves a number of different threads all building up to the final payoff. There is crossover too. Paxton’s efforts to solve the drug smuggling problem revolves around the ability of dealers and buyers to move around untracked, which is Zinnia’s biggest issue with her mission. Obviously, she needs to stick around Paxton to pump him (innuendo not intended) for information, then her feelings for Paxton begin to interfere with her plans. Then Gibson announces he’s coming to their facility, and both their original goals look like they could be realized.
Score – 4.5/5
Writing
I like the style adopted, although I like interesting twists on traditional writing style. The “chapters” are written art varying lengths, some of them really short, But they make sense. Despite my perceived failings on behalf of his world drawing (as opposed to building), he can really hammer (think Mjolnir) home the banality of the daily routines is terrific. The differing roles of the polo shirt, and the pseudo class system it evokes also fits nicely into the dystopian genre.
Score – 4/5
Personal Enjoyment
It’s pretty darn gripping, and once you pick it up, you will find it hard to put down, On another note, like 1984, this is a future that is not outside the realms of possibility, or an extremist tale to make us quake in our boots. This could happen, and the book is all the better for it. Oh, and this is a warning about the future, I will warn you about one thing – Cloudburgers. Enjoy!
Score – 5/5
Verdict
I enjoyed this book a lot, except for the ending, which I felt was a cop out. However, others have loved it, and I think it’s purely a me thing,
Total Score – 21.5/25
