The Employees cover art

The Employees

A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century

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The Employees

By: Olga Ravn
Narrated by: Hannah Curtis
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About this listen

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. Fiction Literature & Fiction Satire Science Fiction Space Opera Comedy Funny Employment

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Most relevant
An unassumingly bleak view of a futuristic world, as both humans and humanoids suffer from deprivation of the personal and the intimate. Related in short stark statements, the almost lone identifiable character seems progressively to lose hope and commitment.
A wake up call to cherish our humanity and reject AI

Beware of what we wish for

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This book hypnotised me. It's the most peculiar, melancholy experience. Listened to it a month ago and it's remained with me still. I don't think I'll ever forget it. Narrator is perfect.

Beautiful. Disturbing. Sad. Memorable.

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What a fantastic story which slowly opens up thought the employee statements … challenging the reader to think and piece together various elements … each statement adds more and the full picture unfolds.

Sci-fi at its best - putting imagination to work

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