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plainjanereads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Poignant read, gave me a lot of space to think for such a short read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Minor: Death and Murder
maeverose's review against another edition
3.0
I don’t know that I fully understood it but this book is an experience. It feels kind of like a weird nightmare or dream that leaves you feeling a bit gross and unsettled. I’m not sure if I liked it or not but I think I did? I’ll have to re read this sometime.
It’s very abstract and nothing is explained to the reader. There’s multiple povs but few of them are named and we don’t have any way of knowing how many there are or when exactly it switches to a new person. This is done intentionally. It’s very disorienting, and I was left at the end not fully knowing what I just read. I’m pretty sure the main takeaway is that people, whether human or not in this case, are not meant to spend their lives working and are meant to live for themselves. How we need connections to other people and to nature and the world around us. It’s not natural for any living thing to dedicate their entire life to work. That’s not living. And of course exploring what it means to be human and whether AI can become human, which yes is an overdone theme in sci fi but personally I’m not sick of it yet.
Definitely check content warnings. Body horror, trypophobia, and questioning of reality are the main things I would say to be aware of.
It’s very abstract and nothing is explained to the reader. There’s multiple povs but few of them are named and we don’t have any way of knowing how many there are or when exactly it switches to a new person. This is done intentionally. It’s very disorienting, and I was left at the end not fully knowing what I just read. I’m pretty sure the main takeaway is that people, whether human or not in this case, are not meant to spend their lives working and are meant to live for themselves. How we need connections to other people and to nature and the world around us. It’s not natural for any living thing to dedicate their entire life to work. That’s not living. And of course exploring what it means to be human and whether AI can become human, which yes is an overdone theme in sci fi but personally I’m not sick of it yet.
Definitely check content warnings. Body horror, trypophobia, and questioning of reality are the main things I would say to be aware of.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Body horror, Death, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Moderate: Blood, Gore, and Violence
Graphic trypophobia descriptions. A significant theme throughout the whole book is existential questioning of reality and what makes someone human. It’s also a very abstract book and is very disorienting, with a lot of body horror (most of which isn’t exactly gory, but some is)fromtheyellowchair's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Child death
directorpurry's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Murder, Medical content, and Body horror
Minor: Violence
owenwilsonbaby's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
‘He tells me about the bridge and the woods near his childhood home, about the stream that flowed under the bridge, how they used to swim there, and a lot of other things from the place he calls Earth. He's shown me a stream that runs down in the valley. Obviously I can't leave the ship, but he's pointed it out to me from the panorama room. The stream glitters, and it runs like a silvery thought through the landscape. He put his hand on my shoulder. It was warm. A human hand. He said: 'You've lots to learn, my boy.’ An odd thing to say, seeing as how I was made a man from the start.’
I can’t lie, I was almost in tears at the end of this novel. I don’t want to be reductive about a refined and original piece of writing, but the best way I could describe it to my sister without spoilers was like an expanded version of that ‘cells within cells’ scene in Bladerunner 2049, based on Nabokov’s Pale Fire. It has so much to say about people being exploited by capitalism, to the very end, and demonstrates this by stripping characters of names, instead turning their individual narrative passages into witness statements. As such, it might be difficult for some readers to piece together plot and character threads, but I feel like once you adjust to the book’s narrative style, you get swept up in it regardless. There are so many lines of beautiful prose about humanity and the qualities and meanings of being alive, of community, connection, memory, experience and survival. It sort of feels like a novel that is inherently about climate change without ever mentioning that overtly? Or at least collective responses to it. There were so many images in this that made me want to cry. I really loved it.
I can’t lie, I was almost in tears at the end of this novel. I don’t want to be reductive about a refined and original piece of writing, but the best way I could describe it to my sister without spoilers was like an expanded version of that ‘cells within cells’ scene in Bladerunner 2049, based on Nabokov’s Pale Fire. It has so much to say about people being exploited by capitalism, to the very end, and demonstrates this by stripping characters of names, instead turning their individual narrative passages into witness statements. As such, it might be difficult for some readers to piece together plot and character threads, but I feel like once you adjust to the book’s narrative style, you get swept up in it regardless. There are so many lines of beautiful prose about humanity and the qualities and meanings of being alive, of community, connection, memory, experience and survival. It sort of feels like a novel that is inherently about climate change without ever mentioning that overtly? Or at least collective responses to it. There were so many images in this that made me want to cry. I really loved it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Body horror, Murder, and Grief
radtj's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Racism, Body horror, and Confinement
stardustdreamer's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide and Death
Moderate: Murder, Blood, Body horror, and Genocide
vessel's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
It's very clear from early on that the author is a poet. The book is built from interviews with a number of anonymous characters, and these interviews very much read like prose poems.
With a purposely murky and unclear timeline outlined by unreliable narrator after unreliable narrator, the story leaves the reader to fill in the gaps left out by the characters' confessions. It could be a frustrating reading experience for those looking for clearly defined characters and a classic plot arc with clearly delineated beats, but The Employees is more of a poetic exploration of the meaning of "humanity", and definitely more of a mood piece. It left me with a profound sense of sadness, and many lines I still think about regularly.
With a purposely murky and unclear timeline outlined by unreliable narrator after unreliable narrator, the story leaves the reader to fill in the gaps left out by the characters' confessions. It could be a frustrating reading experience for those looking for clearly defined characters and a classic plot arc with clearly delineated beats, but The Employees is more of a poetic exploration of the meaning of "humanity", and definitely more of a mood piece. It left me with a profound sense of sadness, and many lines I still think about regularly.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
Minor: Murder and Mental illness
robinks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
A fascinating read. It usually bothers me when stories are not in chronological order, but this one was fairly adept at slowly revealing pieces of the puzzle. It also asked some difficult questions about what it means to be human.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror
Moderate: Murder and Death
sidekicksam's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This short, weird book is written in the form of HR statements taken from the crew of the Six Thousand Ship, after some major event has disrupted the ship's regular workflow. The crew consists of both human and humanoid workers, who care for the ship and the objects they have retrieved from the planet New Discovery.
Delightfully weird in a non-absurdistic sense, and coming together nicely in the end, this short book is packed with criticism, exploration of what it is to be human, and vagueness to keep you at the edge of your seat. Some things did go a bit over my head as the writing style is quite sophisticated, but short but powerful as we say in Dutch (sweet doesn't really work in this case).
I felt the book resembled a documentary style film, both reminiscent of Wall-E and I, Robot, as well as other help-we-made-a-robot-with-feelings-but-it-didnt't-pan-out-as-we-thought-it-would sci-fi stories. But it could also really work as an art installation of the objects in a white room, surrounded by these statements on the wall (I actually saw something like this in Melly the other day so that might be why).
Delightfully weird in a non-absurdistic sense, and coming together nicely in the end, this short book is packed with criticism, exploration of what it is to be human, and vagueness to keep you at the edge of your seat. Some things did go a bit over my head as the writing style is quite sophisticated, but short but powerful as we say in Dutch (sweet doesn't really work in this case).
I felt the book resembled a documentary style film, both reminiscent of Wall-E and I, Robot, as well as other help-we-made-a-robot-with-feelings-but-it-didnt't-pan-out-as-we-thought-it-would sci-fi stories. But it could also really work as an art installation of the objects in a white room, surrounded by these statements on the wall (I actually saw something like this in Melly the other day so that might be why).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder and Death