Reviews with content warning for Death - The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

Aprecio mucho haberme cruzado con Los empleados.
En principio, su formato resulta una propuesta diferente, refrescante: Ravn nos invita a conocer los sucesos que están teniendo lugar en la nave 6000 a través de los testimonios de sus tripulantes humanos y humanoides. Con muy limitados datos sobre quienes testifican y con información brindada a cuentagotas, esta obra se propone como un interesante trabajo para sus lectores, quienes debemos ir construyendo esta historia. Historia que, a su vez, se configura como una especie de mosaico siendo que son voces diversas -algunas en un estado cuasi febril, otras en instancias de crisis existenciales así como con trazos de ¿protesta?- las que le van dando su forma.
Este trabajo hace un uso de la ciencia ficcion en un formato para mí renovador con el fin de plantear comentarios y debates necesarios en relación a las diferencias de clases, la relación de explotación laboral y lo humano.
En términos de sensaciones, su lectura se asemeja al estar despertando de una ensoñación. Con un lenguaje por momentos etéreo, la autora logra que nos conectemos con esta historia -sobre todo en su segunda mitad- y el trabajo que la misma implica.
Recomiendo, principalmente, para interesadxs por la ciencia ficción y/o ficción especulativa y para quienes les aventure el trabajo y construcción propia propuesta.

Content Warnings

owenwilsonbaby's review

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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.

Content Warnings

mbrogs2024's review

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dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.0

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turpial23's review

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challenging emotional mysterious 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

5.0

On the surface, this seems like another scifi book about a space ship. In truth, this beautifully written stories get at the core of what does it mean to be a living creature, a human, or an object. It broke my heart in the best way possible, and I can't wait to read it again. Also #diasporafeels.

Content Warnings

displacedcactus's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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

This is a short book told in a sort of epistolary format -- everything is excerpts from employee interviews. It does a good job of being unsettling without being really graphic, so it could be a great read if you're looking for something Halloween-season-appropriate that probably won't give you nightmares. It's kind of like if Annihilation and Finna/Defekt had a baby. Each excerpt is short, most are only a paragraph and the longest were barely over a page long on my tablet, so it's really easy to read if you only have a little time, too. That said, the format means that while you get multiple snippets from some employees interspersed throughout, there's no real way to latch on to the characters. If it had been any longer, it would have been difficult to go along for the ride with the format, in my opinion.

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stardustdreamer's review against another edition

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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

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netthauser's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

Poetic and fragmented. I love the disjointed and unreliable statements and piecing things together was a thought exercise. The book has some thoughts about humanity and posthumanism.

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