The Employees

A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

By: Olga Ravn

Narrated by: Hannah Curtis

Shortlisted for the International Booker prize, The Employees reshuffles a sci-fi voyage into a riotously original existential nightmare.

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.

©2018, 2021 Olga Ravn & Martin Aitken Gyldendal (P)2022 New Directions Publishing Corp.

Didn’t find the humor BUT …

It was actually haunting (imho) the text stayed with me, it made me uncomfortable (in an existential sort of way.)

Not the best thing I ever listened to - BUT - it is worth the time and the discomfort.

Unusual, Dark Science Fiction

Based on the title, I was surprised that this story takes place aboard a spaceship in deep space. The “employees” are robots, humanoids, and humans. It’s very unusual in the way it’s structured and has a dark, haunting vibe to it as it unfolds. The mystery of what was going on kept me intrigued. I recommend it for anyone who likes dark, unusual, sci-fi.

The format was interesting as an audiobook

I should have read the book directly to get a feel for the chapters, some of which were just a few words particularly toward the end. I think I shorted myself on the experience by listening to the audiobook

Yearning for more

it's a shame how short this read is, even when preformed so beautifully. The way it's written through logs that intertwine is so much fun and yet so haunting. it reads like grief and left me feeling so. I loved this little read and want so much for more details and explanations of the objects and the ship and how things operate, but qhat we have makes it very special as a sci-fi novel.

Absurd Corporate Sci-Fi Existential Epic

LOVED this read, what an incendiary satire of professional work in the modern world. Brilliantly conceived form, a book I could not put down.