The Employees
A workplace novel of the 22nd century
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for the International Booker prize and the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize, The Employees reshuffles a sci-fi voyage into a riotously original existential nightmare
Longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award
Funny and doom-drenched, The Employees chronicles the fate of the Six-Thousand Ship. The human and humanoid crew members complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew becomes strangely and deeply attached to them, even as tensions boil toward mutiny, especially among the humanoids.
Olga Ravn’s prose is chilling, crackling, exhilarating, and foreboding. The Employees probes into what makes us human, while delivering a hilariously stinging critique of life governed by the logic of productivity. It was shortlisted for the the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The crew of a spaceship far from Earth struggle with conflicting emotions in this slippery and deeply resonant International Booker shortlisted novel from Ravn (Celestine). The inhabitants of the Six Thousand Ship, some human and others humanoid robots, become oddly attached to a collection of perplexing alien objects found on the planet New Discovery. In a series of disconnected, one-sided internal reports to an unnamed authority, the mostly unnamed crew members relay their intense, confused reactions to the objects. Humans express a longing for Earth—one employee's job is to "make sure the human section of the crew don't buckle under to nostalgia and become catatonic"—sometimes alleviated by being near the objects, while humanoids begin showing emotions well beyond their programming. (One, worrying about being the best employee, would "like to request some material concerning which actions require forgiveness.") When the humanoids' behavior takes a troubling turn, the company intervenes in a shocking manner. While initially disorienting, the fragmented style builds into an achingly beautiful mosaic of fragile characters managing their longing, pain, and alienation. This gorgeous, evocative novel is well worth the effort.
