Hench

A Novel

By: Natalie Zina Walschots

Narrated by: Alex McKenna

Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

“This book is fast, furious, compelling, and angry as hell." (Seanan McGuire, New York Times best-selling author)

The Boys meets My Year of Rest and Relaxation in this smart, imaginative, and evocative novel of love, betrayal, revenge, and redemption, told with razor-sharp wit and affection, in which a young woman discovers the greatest superpower - for good or ill - is a properly executed spreadsheet.

Anna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn’t glamorous. But is it really worse than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy?

As a temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called “hero” leaves her badly injured. And, to her horror, compared to the other bodies strewn about, she’s the lucky one. So, of course, then she gets laid off.

With no money and no mobility, with only her anger and internet research acumen, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks.

Because the key to everything is data: knowing how to collate it, how to manipulate it, and how to weaponize it. By tallying up the human cost these caped forces of nature wreak upon the world, she discovers that the line between good and evil is mostly marketing. And with social media and viral videos, she can control that appearance.

It’s not too long before she’s employed once more, this time by one of the worst villains on earth. As she becomes an increasingly valuable lieutenant, she might just save the world.

A sharp, witty, modern debut, Hench explores the individual cost of justice through a fascinating mix of millennial office politics, heroism measured through data science, body horror, and a profound misunderstanding of quantum mechanics.

©2019 Natalie Zina Walschots (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Three words: Lobotomized Super Villains!

You know somethings gone wrong with the world when the superheroes are lobotomizing super villains...

Long Live the Queen

Hench is an absolute gem! The best book I have read (ahem, listened to) in quite some time. Five stars all the way around. Excellent narration, brilliant storytelling, unpredictable plotline, and entirely refreshing in multiple regards. I won't deign to analyze the plot for you or rave senselessly about its many novel approaches to a saturated genre; however, I will say that what Walschots has accomplished, here, is nothing short of invigorating--a real boon to the maddening dirth of engrossing fantasy and sci-fi currently available. Adding to this excitement is the knowledge that this is her first novel. I cannot wait to see what comes next.

(Edit) Note: I must say, personally, I found nothing at all off-putting in regards to the narrator. Listen to the sample, first, if you are concerned, but after having listened, myself, to well over 600 books, I speak from some amount of experience when I say that we could do far, far worse than listening to Alex McKenna read superhero fantasies to us.

Best of Superheroes

I love it. If I read comics, this would have been a holy grail of it. Hillarious, cynical, but also masterful in working with cliches. Performace was the most suiting with the book. I want to see it become a legend.

Very good!

Kept me interested throughout! Eagerly awaiting for the next installment! I really loved this book!

Excellent work

First, I must disagree with the negative reviews of the voice actor. The most nasal voice? That character has to live with nose clips on! Totally appropriate. This actor isn't as slick about switching between voices as the highly trained RSC-type actors, but if she's as young as she sounds, that'll come. She has a rich, textured voice, and expresses the characters with a sincerity that papers over the medium-ness of her ability to distinguish them solely by voice.

The writing is *outstanding!* The author's supple command of language, pace, character, drama, dimensionality, and how to play with tropes, is top-of-the-line. Truly outstanding. Original, playful, exciting, funny, intelligent, with a rare oxygen-filled environment for human beings across the human spectrum, it's absolutely wonderful.

90% Awesome 10% Falls into a weird space

Hench is amazing for the most part.

The narrator was excellent, though I suggest listening to a sample before purchase as her voice may not be for all listeners.
I sincerely hope Alex McKenna returns should there ever be a sequel.

Without spoiling much, the main character works in data entry for a supervillain and after an event realizes how much damage in time and money superheroes cause in pursuit of justice. There is a bit of blindly ignoring the damage from the villain side. While understandable from the main characters perspectives it still sits weirdly.

While I don't know if a sequel is on the horizon, I sincerely hope there is.

Better than The Boys...and the boys

I'm often leery of recommendations based on everyone's insistence on the similarity to another franchise. (See: proliferation of gritty fairy tale reboots, dystopian YA trilogies, the fantasy landscape after Twilight took off) While the premise is certainly similar to that imagined in The Boys or that Brandon Sanderson series, Hench was absolutely the best of the lot. It has interesting things to say about workplace culture/corporate America, superhero tropes, the way sudden onset disability is treated, etc. It's not steeped in misogyny (both The Boys and Sanderson) nor is it a long winded allegory for the Mormon afterlife (took me buying and spending time reading the entire series to find THAT one out, I'm still irritated at the waste). Extremely enjoyable and interesting, I have already recommended it to multiple friends and is firmly in my to be reread pile. While I'm hopeful there is a sequel coming the ending is satisfying and complete.

A wild fun ride

I don't know what I was expecting but this book grabbed me and just got better and better and was a very entertaining listen. Sort of American Gods meets Marvel Comics meets Katniss Everdeen as a 21st century gothgeek. I like world building where the world is our world with a little tweak and the Superhero and Villain universe was well-executed and over the top funny and engaging. Great characters and story. My only issue was as some others have said the narrator wasn't the best, some of the individual characters' voices were pretty annoying. i found myself wishing I was reading the text so I could imagine a different voice for them. The story was so good that I could overlook it or at least try to ignore it most of the time. The ending promises a next novel and I sure hope the author delivers one so we can continue the story.

So Enjoyable and Unique

This is the only review I’ve ever written, but I had to celebrate how unique this story is.

It was an easy read/listen and I did not find it predictable. It was something I didn’t want to stop listening to.

The end was a little abrupt, but the more I think about it, it matches the bizarre universe the author created and the “moving on” life of the characters.

I also though the narrator did an absolutely fantastic job.

Highly recommend this!

I’d also like to note this book doesn’t even fall into a genre I would typically read.

great time to be had

nifty premise was well executed by author. voice work was great. worth checking it out.