Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis

Cloud isn’t just a place to work. It’s a place to live. And when you’re here, you’ll never want to leave.

Paxton never thought he’d be working for Cloud, the giant tech company that’s eaten much of the American economy. Much less that he’d be moving into one of the company’s sprawling live-work facilities.

But compared to what’s left outside, Cloud’s bland chainstore life of gleaming entertainment halls, open-plan offices, and vast warehouses…well, it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s more than anyone else is offering.

Zinnia never thought she’d be infiltrating Cloud. But now she’s undercover, inside the walls, risking it all to ferret out the company’s darkest secrets. And Paxton, with his ordinary little hopes and fears? He just might make the perfect pawn. If she can bear to sacrifice him.

As the truth about Cloud unfolds, Zinnia must gamble everything on a desperate scheme—one that risks both their lives, even as it forces Paxton to question everything about the world he’s so carefully assembled here.

Together, they’ll learn just how far the company will go…to make the world a better place.

Set in the confines of a corporate panopticon that’s at once brilliantly imagined and terrifyingly real, The Warehouse is a near-future thriller about what happens when Big Brother meets Big Business–and who will pay the ultimate price.

Review

Thanks to the publisher and author for a finished copy of The Warehouse in exchange for an honest review. Receiving a copy of the novel did not influence my thoughts or opinions.

An employee at two or three stars knows they have to work a little harder. And don’t we all want to be five-star people?

The Warehouse is an all-too-plausible future that we may find ourselves in if we do not correct our current course. Amazon currently has it as the #1 release in ‘Self-Help & Psychology Humor’ and if it doesn’t read like a warning label, you may need to prioritize your outlook on the nation. This is a terrifying look at what we are slowly becoming and it would be for the best that we take Hart at his word.

First off, CloudBurgers…

*vomits all over the floor*

The Warehouse made me rethink the amount of time and money I spend on Amazon. Yes, it does have a vast amount of convenience and typically lower prices, but what does putting all of my eggs into one superstore basket do for the rest of the economy? Are those Mom N’ Pop stores around my little hometown going to stick around for the long-haul, or are we soon going to find ourselves under the smile of one of the largest companies in the world?

This isn’t something you really think about as you peruse your wishlist or search reviews for the next best gadget to hit the market. It is only natural that Amazon is one of your top choices to make a purchase: things tend to be in stock, are typically cheaper than your nearby shopping center, and can be delivered to you within a pretty taut timeline. But what if they continue to grow? More big cities become like Detroit with ‘Closed’ signs up all over town; doors and windows boarded up, and off in the distance, you see a giant corporate building with high fences and armed guards.

Monopolies suck and that is why they aren’t a thing (they were at one point, and they may be at another point in time). But I digress…

Hart has written something truly powerful here, and while it can be used as a teaching moment, it is also a fantastic story that is highly engaging and, at times, quite humorous; other times, definitely disturbing (LOOKING AT YOU, CLOUDBURGERS). While things outside of MotherCloud are bleak, depressing, and downright awful, corporate looks to be a vacation destination. You get a job, housing, food, and the convenience of little to no travel for a workday. Who doesn’t want that? Unfortunately, all of these things come with hard restrictions and high expectations that most toe the line on. Much like items on King Amazon, employees are rated on a star system, and by golly, you better not find yourself going any lower than a 3 or your a$$ is grass.

The novel has three (3) distinct POVS, all of which you become quite acquainted with throughout the read. Gibson is the creator of Cloud; Paxton and Zinnia are both new employees at Cloud, each with their own motivations for being there and what they plan to get out of their time spent. While I enjoyed all of the characters to an extent, Paxton was the one that really stood out as he becomes caught in all of the chaos as it unfolds. I also probably felt a little more emotionally involved with him as his sights are set on more than just a life-saving job opportunity.

Overall, I believe just about anyone would enjoy a readthrough of The Warehouse. It is 370 pages, but they fly by as you become engaged in the story. Just know that you may never look at Amazon or Apple the same way again.

Speculative Fiction is a favorite genre, and Rob Hart does an incredible job of taking a situation we all know and are aware of and expanding it into a full-fledged horrific examination of what could be. This is the kind of book we should all be reading now. Speculative Fiction gives us a glimpse into what could be and forces us to reckon with issues we'd too often ignore until it's placed in caricature before our faces.

I'll be thinking about this book and what it says about us for some time to come.

The Warehouse by Rob Hart is a very highly recommended dystopian and espionage thriller set in a changed future where a mega-corporation is running the economy.

Cloud is a giant worldwide fulfillment company that controls almost all commerce, labor, and technological and economic development in America. Employees live in giant MotherCloud facilities where employees live, work, play, and consume all in one facility. Follow their rules and you have a job and, well, survival. Climate change has devastated the country, and after the Black Friday Massacres, well, people don't want to leave their homes to shop, especially when they can have their every need provided for by Cloud.

The narrative follows the point-of-view of three people. Gibson Wells is the founder of Cloud. The multibillionaire is dying from pancreatic cancer and is sharing his thoughts and the history of the company through blog posts. He is traveling on a bus across the country to visit each MotherCloud before he dies. Paxton, whose business was destroyed by Cloud, is lucky enough to get hired by Cloud and is assigned a job with security. Paxton begins helping look for the source of a new drug called Oblivion. Zinnia has also been hired, as a product-picker, but she is actually a corporate spy working undercover to find the secrets of the MotherCloud facilities.

Obviously, Cloud will be compared to a present day world-wide fulfillment company combined with the country-wide Mart stores. They are both big businesses that have been said to use/abuse their workers and Wells character seems to mirror the Mart founder. But now add to that view and take into account all the other e-commerce going on today, where people can order a wide variety of items through stores or shopping services and have it all delivered to their homes. We are already quickly becoming a nation of people who, maybe, have to leave our homes only for our jobs, unless you can work from home. Large businesses are already making health services and other amenities available at work. As for being tracked and watched? Yeah, that is happening too with facial recognition software, cameras, cell phone tracking, etc. Don't even get me started on social media and censoring information to control public opinion. The world building here is taking what is currently happening to the next level, which is memorable, cautionary, and terrifying.

The writing is excellent. Hart establishes the setting, introduces his characters, and sets up the plot, premise, and background. Then he does an excellent job juxtaposing the reality of MotherClouds with Gibson Wells' point-of-view. Everything immediately grabs your attention and imagination because it is so completely and utterly plausible. The characters are well-developed and presented as individuals. Paxton is the character to trust as he has no hidden agenda. Zinnia has a secret agenda and while we can follow her actions, she only shares a limited amount. Wells is concerned with his image, his legacy, so his voice is self-serving and delusional. The film rights have been bought by Imagine Entertainment for Ron Howard.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.

http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2019/08/the-warehouse.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2947729842
https://www.librarything.com/work/22914796/book/172446167
https://twitter.com/SheTreadsSoftly/status/1164583678099566595?s=20
and Edelweiss

Some of the best speculative fiction comes when a writer is able to extrapolate forward in a manner that is both engaging and plausible. And when that speculation leans toward the dystopian? Well – go ahead and sign me up.

That’s what Rob Hart has done with his new novel "The Warehouse;" it’s an exploration of a near-future that reads like nothing so much as a darkest timeline look at the future of our society as it relates to the corporate monoliths that consume all that lies before them in their quest for ever-increasing growth.

By spinning out the trends toward ubiquity among some of our larger corporations, Hart takes us deep into the shadows cast by the cheerful bright lights of “progress.” His tale of those tangled in that all-encompassing web – those at the top and at the bottom alike – offers a satiric, chilling and bleakly funny perspective on the potential endpoint of our cultural fascination with the biggest of big business.

The MotherCloud is meant to be everything to the employees within it. Their jobs are there, including the massive warehouse featuring scores of pickers devoting their every working moment to fulfilling the vast and varied orders for items all over the retail spectrum. But their homes are there as well – small, efficient apartments. Their leisure time, too – recreation centers and malls and restaurants (including the ubiquitous CloudBurger, considered to be the best burger in the world despite its low price). All of it – work performance, pay, home entry, you name it – tied to the wrist-worn sensor that must be on at all times and that keeps track of everything you do. You’re rated by stars, and if you fall too low – you’re out.

Paxton swore he’d never stoop to working for Cloud, the all-encompassing corporation dominating the American business landscape. And he certainly would never wind up at a MotherCloud, one of the massive live-work centers that have become both the workplace and home of a significant percentage of the world’s workers. He has his reasons to bear resentment toward Cloud and its founder Gibson Wells – reasons that torpedoed his own dreams – but in the end, he needs to work.

Zinnia is looking to land a gig at a MotherCloud as well, but for very different reasons. She is a spy, a practitioner of the art of industrial espionage. And she has been hired for a job – the biggest one of her career – to find out the truth behind some of Cloud’s seemingly impossible claims and retrieve proof. Finding out something that the world’s largest tech company doesn’t want people to know is a daunting task, but it’s one that Zinnia is ready to take on.

Paxton and Zinnia cross paths right at the beginning of their tenures. Paxton, despite his best efforts, winds up in a blue polo: security. It befits his work experience – he was a prison guard for years – but that was part of a past he hoped to leave behind. Despite her best efforts to land in tech support, Zinnia gets a red polo. She’s a picker, working the warehouse. Quickly and clumsily, the two of them connect – and Zinnia sees a possibility, a path to her goal. All she has to do is use Paxton.

But it might not be that easy.

Throughout, we get excerpts from the online musings of Gibson Wells, the founder and owner of Cloud and the richest man in the world. He’s slowly dying of cancer, rambling and whitewashing his way through the company history as the world waits to find out who will succeed him at the top.

“The Warehouse” brings a keen satiric edge to its rendition of a corporate dystopia. The ubiquitous Cloud is so blatantly, obviously inspired by a specific company that I’m not going to insult your intelligence by naming it. That specificity allows for a wonderful gallows-humor undercurrent to the entire thing, giving the narrative that sense of timeliness that marks the very best of near-future speculative fiction.

The dynamic between Paxton and Zinnia is compelling not just because of their different motivations, both for being at Cloud and for being with each other, but because of the sheer gravitational force of the setting in which that dynamic plays out. The idea of any kind of relationship developing in a place like this – a place where your every move is monitored and filmed, a place where you go weeks without ever seeing the sky, a place that is both massive and claustrophobic – is fascinating. When the only culture available is corporate culture, things get skewed fast.

The combination of monolithic ruthlessness and disingenuous positivity is a beautiful distillation of the vaguely sinister nature of today’s corporate ethos. This world is a very plausible endgame, a 21st century magnification of the company towns of yesteryear. It’s not so much that the 1% of the 1% are exploiting the people beneath them … it’s that they’ve found a way to make those who are being exploited somehow grateful for the opportunity.

THAT’S the real power in something like “The Warehouse.” It illustrates that greed knows no boundaries, and that even those with the best of intentions can eventually wind up making the most reprehensible of choices so long as they can talk themselves into believing that it is for some nebulous greater good. That’s the perspective we get from Gibson Wells, and it is vital to the novel’s success.

“The Warehouse” is funny and bleak, putting forth an exaggerated but nevertheless still plausible take on the direction our world seems to be traveling. It is a sharp takedown of 21st century corporate culture that serves as something of a warning – our seemingly small individual choices can eventually have much larger consequences than we ever could have known.

Rob Hart’s new novel, The Warehouse, takes place in a not-too-distant future, where the Cloud conglomerate supplies every need, is the major employer, and controls most governmental regulations (or lack of). Unlike the typical Evil Corp scifi, the owner of Cloud isn’t a shadowy mastermind. Instead, founder Gibson tells familiar platitudes about hard work and bootstraps, about how there were just too many environmental regulations holding back industry, and recounts folksy stories about dedicated Cloud workers who really had no place else to go.

Working at Cloud can be a boon — when Paxton and Zinnia apply, there are dozens of other applicants, all of whom need a job very badly. There simply aren’t any other jobs, which is simultaneously dystopian and a logical extension. No one is forced to work at Cloud or to stay at Cloud, it’s just the only employer hiring.

This is such a depressingly believable setting. Cloud has safety harnesses for dangerous work, but the time spent using them hurts productivity, and without high productivity, workers will be cut. There’s a clinic, but sick days hurt productivity numbers, and workers are encouraged to pop a painkiller and get back to work. The company provides safety equipment, healthcare, and so forth, it’s really the worker’s failure to take advantage of them. Every part of this is believable, because of course we all need income to survive, and of course, a low salary in Cloud currency is better than nothing, even with fees to transfer dollars in, and fees to transfer Cloud points back to dollars, and a predatory credit card system tied in…
Rob Hart’s new novel, The Warehouse, takes place in a not-too-distant future, where the Cloud conglomerate supplies every need, is the major employer, and controls most governmental regulations (or lack of). Unlike the typical Evil Corp scifi, the owner of Cloud isn’t a shadowy mastermind. Instead, founder Gibson tells familiar platitudes about hard work and bootstraps, about how there were just too many environmental regulations holding back industry, and recounts folksy stories about dedicated Cloud workers who really had no place else to go.

Working at Cloud can be a boon — when Paxton and Zinnia apply, there are dozens of other applicants, all of whom need a job very badly. There simply aren’t any other jobs, which is simultaneously dystopian and a logical extension. No one is forced to work at Cloud or to stay at Cloud, it’s just the only employer hiring.

This is such a depressingly believable setting. Cloud has safety harnesses for dangerous work, but the time spent using them hurts productivity, and without high productivity, workers will be cut. There’s a clinic, but sick days hurt productivity numbers, and workers are encouraged to pop a painkiller and get back to work. The company provides safety equipment, healthcare, and so forth, it’s really the worker’s failure to take advantage of them. Every part of this is believable, because of course we all need income to survive, and of course, a low salary in Cloud currency is better than nothing, even with fees to transfer dollars in, and fees to transfer Cloud points back to dollars, and a predatory credit card system tied in…

The basic struggles of survival and keeping a 5-star employee rating take a lot of effort, and it’s designed that way, not in a dark conspiracy to create complacent sheeple, but with familiar metrics about maximizing productivity. Fahrenheit 451 and the rest of the dystopian warning novels weren’t dramatically destroyed, they just weren’t advertised, in a world of bombarding advertisements.

I enjoyed the way different storylines and character goals interacted with each other. There’s just enough foreshadowing that I would realize OMG, she’s in on it! or OMG, it was him all along! as Paxton or Zinnia did, and then I’d realize, duh, the information was there the whole time. I also didn’t feel the Protagonist Immunity in this novel, I thought it was perfectly likely that Zinnia’s investigation would get her killed or that they’d get fired.

My only concern was the CloudBurgers. In a dark scifi novel, that surprisingly tasty and affordable meat is never a good sign, and it’s not a good sign here. I was a bit disappointed by this reveal because I thought the rest of the novel was a little more subtle and thoughtful.

Readers of this dystopian page-turner will also enjoy Feed, Only Ever Yours, and Followers. There’s also a great Doctor Who ep, Kerblam!, about another Amazonian processing plant, and the workers who must account for every moment of their time, monitored by ankle bracelet, watched by robot Coworkers, while telling themselves how lucky they are to have an income and an annual visit home.

I enjoyed the way different storylines and character goals interacted with each other. There’s just enough foreshadowing that I would realize OMG, she’s in on it! or OMG, it was him all along! as Paxton or Zinnia did, and then I’d realize, duh, the information was there the whole time. I also didn’t feel the Protagonist Immunity in this novel, I thought it was perfectly likely that Zinnia’s investigation would get her killed or that they’d get fired.

My only concern was the CloudBurgers. In a dark scifi novel, that surprisingly tasty and affordable meat is never a good sign, and it’s not a good sign here. I was a bit disappointed by this reveal because I thought the rest of the novel was a little more subtle and thoughtful.

Readers of this dystopian page-turner will also enjoy Feed, Only Ever Yours, and Followers. There’s also a great Doctor Who ep, Kerblam!, about another Amazonian processing plant, and the workers who must account for every moment of their time, monitored by ankle bracelet, watched by robot Coworkers, while telling themselves how lucky they are to have an income and an annual visit home.

The world of The Warehouse is a bleak world and sadly much too close to our real world than I would like to acknowledge. People can no longer really exist outside of the world of Cloud and living in the world of Cloud is an existence not worth living. It's a life where people have learned to be happy with a sterile existence of working until they fall onto a thin futon, doing the same thing every single day, eventually just going through the motions, day in and day out. The only other choice is to be out from under the protection of Cloud, in the world that Cloud helped to destroy, a world that is barren and hot and has barely enough for survival.

We follow Paxton, a member of the security team for Cloud, and Zinnia, a picker, who processes orders for Cloud, and Gibson, the founder of Cloud. There can be no happy ending in this world, at least for a very, very long time, if ever. But there are a few who are trying to change things and I can only hope they succeed. Thank you to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC.

The Warehouse by Rob Hart is easily one of my favorite reads of 2019. Think Big Brother meets The Circle and Amazon with a dash of corporate espionage and Soylent Green. If that description doesn't make you want to pick it up I don't know what will! Anyway, I loved all three perspective characters, but I will say that Zinnia is my favorite. I following this corporate spy as she tries to infiltrate the Cloud. We don't know a whole lot about the wider world, but I snapped up all of the hints we get about their near future world. Overall, I highly recommend this novel especially if you're looking for a timely, thought-provoking dystopian horror. I am going to have to read more from Rob Hart in the future.

The Warehouse by Rob Hart

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I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In the near future, society has nearly collapsed. Water is running out, the homeless population has increased, and global warming is in full effect. The one good thing in this society? Cloud. Cloud is a giant, internet retailer (like one you may know that starts with an A) that has expanded into every single facet of every day life.

Paxton and Zinnia are not thrilled about needing to work at Cloud – one had their life ruined by the company and the other has a hidden agenda – but they accept that jobs are scarce and they need to survive somehow. As Zinnia digs more into Cloud with Paxton’s unknowing assistance, they’ll start to discover just how far the Cloud rabbit hole goes.

The Warehouse was recommended to me by Netgalley because of my interest in other science fiction novels. I have to say that their recommendation was spot-on. The Warehouse takes a scary look at a very possible future for the world. It was so chilling because there wasn’t a single part that didn’t seem plausible. Not only is it great sci-fi, but it’s a critical look at the course we’re on.

I also loved the characters, especially our leads, Paxton and Zinnia. Our leads are fully-fleshed out, with goals, weaknesses, and plenty of relatability. Paxton and Zinnia share the book POV with the founder of Cloud and the juxtaposition of the working man against the public figure is both excellent and cringe-inducing.

The book is well-balanced and well-edited with plenty of twists and turns to keep you turning pages. Well, except for one reveal that I definitely guessed fairly early in the book, but still punched me in the gut. The ending, for better or worse, is a little ambiguous. I would’ve liked more spelled out, but it leaves you with a sense of where things could go.

I would recommend this book to sci-fi fans, thriller fans, dystopia fans, and anyone who wants to see a very possible snapshot of the future.

I would recommend that everyone go out and buy something in a brick-and-mortar store.

I gave it a 4/5 on my Goodreads account which translates to “I really liked it.”

4 stars

You can read all of my reviews at https://www.NerdGirlLovesBooks.com.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick and easy read that I found hard to put down. One reason people have told me they don't like science fiction books is because it all seems too weird, alien, technical or far fetched. I think even those people would like this book. It's also more dystopia than science fiction, which helps.

The book really made me think about how much Amazon and Costco have infiltrated our lives. They just make things so darn easy, right? It's not hard to imagine how the companies could lull people into complacency just like in the book, and end up taking over the world.

In a not-to-distant future, the world is a mess. The climate is unforgiving, with extremely high temperatures making being outside almost impossible. Consequently, agriculture is almost non-existent and the population is dependent on Cloud, a mega company that delivers anything you could ever desire by drone. It employs more than 30 million people all over the world in their live-work facilities, where people work 12 hour days and are paid in credits they can use to purchase anything they need, from - you guessed it - Cloud. The employees live at the facility, work there, and entertain themselves there. Cloud not only provides for all consumer needs, it provides health care, banking, energy, and has taken over most of the services that state and local governments used to provide for citizens. Cloud employees can literally, live, work and die, at a Cloud facility and never leave.

The story is told from three different characters' perspective. Gibson, the founder of Cloud, is writing an autobiographical memoir blog as he takes a tour of Cloud facilities throughout the country. He's dying of cancer, and wants to visit as many locations as he can before he dies. Throughout his story, Gibson attempts to justify some of the more questionable decisions he made on his journey to world domination. At times he casts himself as the victim in the scenario, rather than the people he subjugated to his will.

Paxton, a former prison guard, thought he was living his dream when he invented a kitchen gadget that made the perfect hard boiled egg. He quit his job at the prison and started his own company. As CEO, Paxton believed he was on his way to building a successful business. But a reluctant partnership with Cloud crushed those dreams. As demand for his product increased, Cloud exerted pressure on Paxton to provide his product cheaper and cheaper. Not able to meet their demands and survive, Paxton shuttered his company and found himself in the unenviable position of taking a job with the very company that destroyed his dream. Hoping to obtain a mindless job on the warehouse floor, he is instead given a position in the security department of the facility.

Zinnia is a corporate spy tasked with infiltrating Cloud to learn its secrets. The job will provide her with enough money to flee the US and set herself up in another country, away from her questionable job. A coincidental encounter with Paxton on the bus to the Cloud facility gives her the opportunity to use him to perform her job. She just didn't count on caring whether or not she hurt him in the process.

Told in alternating chapters, the story unfolds in a brisk pace. There isn't much background given about the characters, other than a few hints here and there. While normally this would annoy me, I think it works in this book because the whole point of Cloud taking over your life is that it takes away your desire to ask too many questions. You are stuck with dealing with what is in front of you as it comes. The monotony in the book shows how people left with little choice can so easily learn to accept life as it is, and quell any curiosity they used to have.

As Paxton learns more about how things are done "the Cloud way", he is of two minds. Part of him wants to question how things are done and make things better. Part of him wants to blindly follow orders and not think about anything. Even as he realizes what working and living at the Cloud facility is doing to him, Paxton can't decide if he wants to accept his fate or fight it. Zinnia is used to working alone and not feeling anything. Can she focus on the job and get it over with so she can move on to her new life, or will she finally allow herself to have a bit of happiness? The ending of the book will delight some people, and annoy others I normally don't like books that end this way, but for this book, I think it's fitting.

I highly recommend you read this book, even if you think that you don't like science fiction novels.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Cloud is the biggest employer in the United States, with large complexes of housing, warehouses, and areas for entertainment for the employees. Paxton applied to work and live in one MotherCloud campus when his business failed due to Cloud's cheaper pricing, and Zinnia is there as a corporate spy. Cloud's creator is sure he can make the world a better place, but at what cost?

The irony of linking this novel to Amazon at Girl Who Reads is not lost on me. Cloud tracks its employees with a CloudBand, which monitors location, biometrics, directs employees where they need to go in the facility, serves as ID and wallet, and as an entry point to various places within the MotherCloud. Deliveries are made via drones so that people don't even need to leave their homes anymore. Cloud is a conglomerate that has taken over multiple small businesses, the FAA, has its own information network and blogging platforms, and has driven some small towns to become ghost towns. Every employee is rated on a five-star metric, with bonuses and Cut Day dependent on those ratings. Employees have to hustle constantly throughout their shifts and scramble for even the smallest scraps of recognition in a system guaranteed to grind them down.

Sound familiar? It should, and that's the point.

Perspective is everything, and we have perspectives not only of the employees but of the creator of Cloud himself via blog posts scattered throughout the novel. He presents himself as someone who values hard work, who is striving to do good in the world, that just wants to see everyone with a job that pays well, a place to live, and the ability to have leisure time and the day to day things that make life feel livable. Beneath this glittering surface is the reality for the workers that make it happen. While there are supposed to be safety measures and protections, those are ignored because they impede productivity quotas. Harassment and drug use is overlooked if quotas are met and it will mean paperwork and incident reports aren't filled out. Humanity is ground down in situations like this, and it's brilliantly shown in sections that reflect the banal day to day activities that Paxton and Zinnia go through.

While there are some unanswered questions left at the end regarding the characters' future, that isn't the point of this novel. Like all good speculative fiction, it's meant to make you think and question the status quo. Is this the future we want to see? It's not that far off from our present, so that's a question we should all ponder.

This is not a book that I would have purchased, but I received an ARC and am so glad that I did! This book was enjoyable and shows what our world would be like if small businesses disappeared and everything was handled by cloud based businesses.

It's so hard to add anything more to the rave reviews for The Warehouse by Rob Hart. The book's changing points of view are clearly delineated and each uniquely interesting.

Gibson Wells is essentially the Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos of the book. Is he the antagonist or a victim whose story provides background history? It's hard to say. Gibson's childhood ambition is actually sweet in that way kids who start successful lawn mowing businesses or lemonade stands are. He starts running errands for the neighborhood adults who don't have the time to stop at the grocery store. He begins employing bigger kids who can lift more weight and that's what defined Gibson as a meglomaniacal entrepreneur. He truly believes everyone is capable of the same kind of soul-destroying, back-breaking work regardless of their education, ethnicity, or disabilities. He, like plenty of conservatives today, thinks everyone should be working -- but only if it's for their companies with their unrealistic workloads, terrible health insurance, and control through their digital currency rather U.S. currency.

The MotherClouds are monstrous cities where people never "need" to leave unless they are cut for not living up to their employee rating system. But you can't simply walk into a MotherCloud city and fill out an application. Nor can someone live there without working there. It's a mall with apartments, urgent care, bars, and the warehouse operations of the biggest company in the world. Due to the desperation and lack of work anywhere else, people will go to extremes to get through the first stages hoping for Cloud employment. But if you didn't do well at Cloud, don't even bother applying anywhere else because are they own those places too.

"Everything was polished concrete and glass, the feel of the color blue, and Zinnia had a sense of every surface being violent."

Author Rob Hart does an exceptional job in describing the moving conveyor belts and the absurd warehouse shelving systems which sometimes require employees on the floor (the pickers in red polo shirts) to harness themselves to the shelves and manually climb up Ninja Warrior style. Only the minute it takes for tethering a cable to the shelving unit is "precious time" that slows a picker down so even the trainers say it's not worth taking the crucial step for safety. There are two bathroom breaks during the workday and the pickers could be anywhere, even a 10-20 minute walk from the nearest bathroom.

Speaking of amenities like bathrooms, those living quarters people have to rent in order to be a Cloud employee don't have bathrooms. It's dormitory style with men's, women's, and gender neutral facilities. Naturally a perv in middle management has figured out how to corner women alone and trap them by placing "out of order" signs on the bathroom doors. Coming from the mind of a male author, I wasn't surprised this happened, but I was annoyed that the main threat to the female protagonist is men.

That female protagonist goes by the name Zinnia, but she's a corporate spy who changes her name with each job she takes. She's a Latina woman who knows she has to put up with all the worst of the worst in order to get her real job done. Through her scenes, it's evident she's always thinking a few steps ahead of everyone else in the room just in case she needs a backup plan. Espionage is about impossible as you can think when it comes to a place like a MotherCloud facility which requires all people to wear tracking devices that operate as everything for them. Those watches swipe open doors, tap into their currency account to pay for things, monitors their health, can answer questions, or issue commands. Supposedly Gibson Wells isn't fond of camera surveillance but he hardly needs it when those watches can tell management when you went to the bathroom.

Paxton is the male protagonist we're supposed to feel sorry for. He's a former prison guard who hated that job and then gets placed in Cloud security. He's as down on his luck as everyone else who considers employment with Cloud. Broke, single, childless, and desperate. Paxton follows the new rules of male protagonists. He wants to hook up with Zinnia but respects her boundaries -- things the original James Bond types would not have done. And as much as he says he hates the power dynamic of law enforcement, when something goes against the rules, he takes the time to consider whether or not to do anything about it.

Another thing that Hart does with ease is let readers know that there are disasters outside the walls of the MotherCloud. He mentions plastic a lot. Plastic bottle. Plastic wrappers. Plastic mattress. Yet the MotherCloud facilities proclaim to be ever-so high on their pedestal of environmentally conscious and being the greenest organization. Gibson Wells is responsible for detrimental laws like the Freedom from Harassment in Construction Act (people aren't allowed to protest non-union construction) and the Red Tape Elimination Act where large corporations could skip any paperwork like environmental impact studies since it would impede job creation. There's even the American Worker Housing Act and the Paperless Currency Act allowing the Cloud organization to pay less than minimum wage. Gibson Wells even privatized the FAA to make his drone deliveries easier for the company. 

Readers are no doubt asking, why would anyone root for a man like Gibson Wells? There's a subject eluded to from the beginning called the Black Friday Massacres. 

Rating: 5 stars

If you ever wondered, "how did we get here?" when you see Amazon and Google running the world, just read through The Warehouse in a weekend and you'll see. It started innocently enough. It started as a solution to problems. It started as the answer to people's prayers, until it became the evil people wish they could conquer.

Part corporate espionage, part "IS THIS NON-FICTION/IS THIS OUR OVERLORDS OF AMAZON?" - The Warehouse could be seen as a cautionary tale about how our world change and is changing.

Paxton works at Cloud - a huge tech company that takes up most of the American economy. He's also moved into the company housing/workspace. Any and everything can be purchased via Cloud. Cloud is putting small businesses out of business.....sound familiar?

You kind of already know what you are getting into with this book. Just watch Black Mirror - same effect. Still, Rob Hart writes a terrifying looks at the way our world is slowly turning.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I didn’t think I would like this book. Honestly, The Warehouse was a recommendation based on a book I had read previously (nothing alike, by the way) and, even though it didn’t sound like something I would normally read, I threw caution to the wind and decided to give it a shot…and then put it off for as long as possible. Corporate espionage – not really my thing. Yes, I know that sounds terrible but I have a point and it’s a good one. Trust me. Keep reading.

I dreaded reading this. I was one hundred percent certain that I was going to hate it and fully prepared myself to eye-roll my way through. After putting it off for as long as I could, I opened the book…and… COULDN’T PUT IT DOWN!!! After all the hell I was giving myself for grabbing a book I knew I wouldn’t enjoy, here I was staying up late trying to keep my eyes open just a little longer because I couldn’t read it fast enough! Imagine my surprise.

What did I enjoy about this book? A simple question that has a simple answer: Practically everything! Honestly, I don’t really have any complaints. The plot was unique and also terrifyingly possible in the best Blake Crouch kind of way. I immediately connected with the characters, their relationships and their parts in this weird and scary world. Paxton is a complete puppy and I want to keep him. I found the pacing was on point and at no time was I bored or confused. There was a bit of monotony throughout this book but that was done by design and done well. My only disappointment was the ending – I was hoping for something a bit…more but even that wasn’t badly done so I can forgive.

If I loved it, why talk down so much at the beginning? Well, I wanted to make a point. As readers, we tend to stick to our comfort zones and there’s nothing wrong with that. Life is short – read the books that you know you’ll enjoy BUT by only reading within our happy little bubble there are so many hidden gems, like The Warehouse, that we miss out on. I’m not saying pick up every book that doesn’t interest you because it just might be a new favorite but step out of the bubble once in a while…you never know what you might find.

The near-future plausibility of Rob Hart’s latest book is terrifying in its realness and I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who enjoy reading about the “what could happen” in the future. It hits home in a hard way. All I can say is that if and when Hart’s vision of the world comes to pass….stay away from the Cloud Burgers!!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book to read and give my honest opinion.

The Warehouse is a book about all the evil go ons that take place in a corporation
It is like a 1984 type book
It is a thriller about what the world I the future could be

Thanks to NetGalley and Crown for an ARC of this book.

I feel so disappointed by this - there's a great premise here and only so-so execution. This reminded me a lot of Dave Eggers' The Circle, which similarly worked with a dystopian "actually, [tech thing] is bad" premise to similarly underwhelming results, IMO. "Near-future society where Amazon has taken over everything" is a great place to play in, and this does some great work in playing up the soul-crushing monotony. Then it makes the mistake of name-dropping a bunch of better dystopian worlds in its final third- Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale, Brave New World, even The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas that only made me think about how much I wanted to read those instead of finish this. The villain of the book is never quite as sinister as they need to be, and the ending was unresolved in a way that wasn't satisfying.

This felt like the novelization of a film (and this has already been optioned by Ron Howard, so soon it _will_ be a film), and I'd rather read the book that movie was based on.

Rating: 4 stars

This latest release by Rob Hart imagines a dystopian future where climate change has radically changed the world, and an all-encompassing corporate giant has radically changed society. In "The Warehouse", most of the world’s trade is handled by a mega company named Cloud. Cloud has also taken over government functions, agricultural functions, just about any product, service or oversight you can think of is now administered by Cloud. Mom and Pop farms and stores have been driven out of business.

The story is told from three perspectives. First there is Gibson Wells. He is the founder of Cloud and he’s dying of cancer. We hear from him mainly via blog posts about his future, and his past. We learn what drove him to start Cloud, and what continues to drive him to ensure its success. Then we hear from Zinnia and Paxton. They meet on the day that they are hired to work at a Mega Cloud facility in an unnamed location. Zinnia is a ‘red shirt’, or order picker. Paxton wears a blue shirt, and works for Security. We learn about their history and their Cloud experiences in their alternating voices throughout the book.

Is Cloud as benevolent as it seems on the surface? Each push to make an employee to work harder, and use fewer resources seems to be rooted in Wells’ patriarchal view that basically hard work is good for the soul. But how far can a person be pushed, watched, and controlled, and are the motives actually as benevolent as they seem? A group of disrupters is attempting to form a Union. As you might expect this is something that Security is tasked with stopping. Zinnia has a hidden agenda, and despite her better judgment finds herself attracted to Paxton.

This book works on many levels. It’s a great dystopian novel. While I was reading this book a special came on CNN about the far reach of Amazon, which Cloud is clearly based on, and whether or not in the long run it will be good for society. I only watched the intro of the program because I didn’t want it to influence my reading and reviewing experience. It did make me ponder though. The book has a touch or romance. Not the lovey-dovey stuff, but romance based on finding camaraderie and comfort that we all needs as humans. The book is also a bit of a morality play. Will the characters ultimately do the right thing? What is the right thing? Will Cloud be taken in a new direction? Who wins?

I’m still sorting out my feeling about the ending. At first I was frustrated with it, but now I applaud author's skill in the final scenes. I don’t want to say more and spoil the story. Do yourself a favor and pick this book up soon. I think this is obviously great for Sci-Fi and Dystopian readers. But that is not my go-to genre and I really enjoyed the book too. I like that it was fast-paced, talked about problems that we all could be facing in the near-future, and made me think about the choices I might make if I switched places with any of the characters.

‘Thank-You’ to NetGalley; the publisher, Crown Publishing; and the author, Rob Hart; for providing a free e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting premise that falls a bit short. There were lines of the story that could have been great to follow and those that didn't further the plot (cloudburger).

The Warehouse is set in what likely is the not so distant future. One company, Cloud, founded by Gibson Wells, is the answer to a world where climate change and inhospitable conditions, make it the retailer of choice(though it encompasses so much more than just retail). Actually, for most people, it is the only way to safely shop and isn't the world wonderful when drones will deliver all your needs and wants right to your door.
Getting a job in 'The Warehouse' isn' easy, as more people are applying than there are positions to fill. It's a dream come true for those lucky enough to get hired, and those who don't make the cut will try again and again. After all, not only are you employed, but housing is included, and the commute to work.....well, what commute, you live where you work. But there is a high price to pay if you don't meet your assigned quotas, and everyone is just a 1-star review away from termination.
The story follows 2 new employees, Paxton( former CEO of his own company), and Zinnia, who has a compelling reason to work for Cloud. The POV shifts from Gibson( who is dying) to Paxton, to Zinnia, as we learn how Cloud began and the reality of working for and living at The Warehouse. Dark secrets are lurking behind the monopoly known as Cloud, and this was engaging and a thought-provoking read. I flew through this story( on my Apple Ipad with my Kindle app), and the ending did not disappoint.
Whether the author wanted to draw a parallel with the way Amazon continues to grow and dominate, I can't say, but I was certainly thinking about how they have changed the way people shop, get deliveries, watch movies, read books, and pay for the privilege of all Prime has to offer(and continue to look for new markets to conquer).
I received a DRC from Crown Publishing through NetGalley.If you enjoy dystopian fiction with a hefty dose of reality, I recommend The Warehouse.

I found the premise of this book deeply intriguing: in the near future, our environment has been devastated, and the economy is largely fueled by Cloud, a thinly-veiled Amazon-type company. Most citizens have no choice but to work for Cloud to survive, and in fact, as the book opens, we see people racing and essentially knocking each other over to try to get the available jobs. Paxton is forced to work for the Cloud when it pushes him out of business; Zinna has been hired to infiltrate Cloud for reasons that aren't clear until the end of the book. Not surprisingly, Cloud turns out to be a modern sweatshop that takes advantage of the employees' desperation.

The book presents a chilling vision of what could happen if large monolithic companies are allowed free reign, and if regulations protecting workers are weakened. I enjoyed the world building, and I enjoyed the POV switches that allowed us to get to see why the villain behind Cloud doesn't see himself as a villain at all, but as a savior. I also enjoyed the intrigue of following Zinna as she tried to infiltrate the corporation.

There were a few small things I didn't enjoy as much (the burgers, which just felt unnecessary), and one large one: there wasn't any real resolution. My guess (hope?) is that this is the first in a trilogy, because that's the only way the ending makes sense to me. If that's the case (but I can't find any indication that it is), I'd give this book 5 stars, because I'd definitely pick up the next one. However, if this is a stand-alone, I feel let down by the ending, and in light of that I'd give it 2 stars. So, I'm giving the rating the benefit of the doubt and putting up four stars here. However, it's difficult for me to recommend the book to others unless I know for sure at least one more book is coming. I really hope so!