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Our world is constantly changing. Not long ago, we did our shopping at small, family-run stores. That gave way to the convenience of big, impersonal retail chains. But with the growth of the Internet, brick-and-mortar stores gave way to online shopping. And author Rob Hart takes a look at what could be next in The Warehouse.
The story moves into a massive MotherCloud facility with Paxton, a failed business owner who has nowhere else to turn. With the rest of the world becoming a wasteland, Cloud is the best company to work for—and the best place to live, too. Or at least that’s what everyone seems to think. For Paxton, his tiny apartment and his security job are constant reminders of his failure. When he meets Zinnia, things begin to look up—but he has no idea that Zinnia isn’t just another employee; she’s a corporate spy.
From the beginning, The Warehouse is a captivating story of a bleak future where the world and nearly everyone in it is controlled by one massive corporation. Each MotherCloud facility is its own compound. It’s where the air is clean and the streets are safe, but it’s also where people are grouped by their job, where they live in cramped apartments and work long shifts every day, carefully monitored by a company-provided wristband. When it starts, the situation seems almost comical—because it takes a setup that’s definitely familiar and takes it to extremes.
As the story progresses, though, it becomes less comical and more terrifying. It’s an eerie place where no one is free. People work long, hard days, always in fear of their star-rating dropping to a point where they’ll be sent away to the nothingness outside the facility. And as Cloud’s secrets begin to come out, it becomes all the more horrifying.
Still, what’s most terrifying about The Warehouse is that it seems all too possible. This world controlled by one huge corporate superpower hits a little too close to home. Though Hart doesn’t fully illustrate the circumstances that lead to this terrible reality, it seems entirely plausible. And that makes the story both entertaining and eerily haunting.
Clever, tense, and completely captivating, The Warehouse is the kind of book that you’ll struggle to put down at the end of the night. It’s also the kind of entertaining and insightful novel that’s guaranteed to leave you with a lot to think about.
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