The employees A workplace novel of the 22nd century

The crew of a spaceship far from Earth struggle with conflicting emotions in this slippery and deeply resonant International Booker shortlisted novel from Ravn (Celestine). The inhabitants of the Six Thousand Ship, some human and others humanoid robots, become oddly attached to a collection of perplexing alien objects found on the planet New Discovery. In a series of disconnected, one-sided internal reports to an unnamed authority, the mostly unnamed crew members relay their intense, confused reactions to the objects. Humans express a longing for Earth--one employee's job is to "make sure the human section of the crew don't buckle under to nostalgia and become catatonic"--sometimes alleviated by being near the objects, while humanoids begin showing emotions well beyond their programming. (One, worrying about being the best employee, would "like to request some material concerning which actions require forgiveness.") When the humanoids' behavior takes a troubling turn, the company intervenes in a shocking manner. While initially disorienting, the fragmented style builds into an achingly beautiful mosaic of fragile characters managing their longing, pain, and alienation. This gorgeous, evocative novel is well worth the effort. (Feb.)

A workplace drama set in the 22nd century on a spaceship orbiting a distant planet. Aboard the interstellar spacecraft the Six Thousand Ship, Earth-born humans and their bioengineered humanoid counterparts work together according to well-established company protocols. Their mission is to curate and tend the mysterious, alluring, and perhaps even sentient objects brought up from the surface of New Discovery, the Earth-like planet whose exploration is the Six Thousand Ship's mission. The ship itself is tightly run, with employees in place for every conceivable need--be it laundry, reeducation, or cremation--and the labor does not seem to be difficult. It soon becomes apparent, however, that something is disrupting the workflow on the Six Thousand Ship. The objects are impacting their human and humanoid caretakers in different ways; eliciting erotic responses in some, paranoia in others, an uneasy sense of maternal responsibility or a near catatonic state of existential quandary in still others of the crew. In concordance with, or perhaps as the result of, the growing sense that the objects exist "in communion" with the employees, a rift between the human, and therefore mortal, and the humanoid, and therefore capable of being endlessly "reuploaded," workers is having deleterious--even dangerous--effects on workplace productivity. To address this problem, a committee of impartial mediators has spent the last 18 months interviewing crew members and compiling the resulting recordings into the document of this book. The result is both familiar in its petty irritations and clandestine attractions ("In the line in the canteen I suddenly realize I feel a kind of tenderness for Cadet 14") and unsparingly strange confessions ("I dream that there are hundreds of black seeds in my skin, and when I scratch at them they get caught up under my nails like fish eggs....I feel this has something to do with the objects in the rooms") that bode ill for the increasingly fractious crew. In place of a dedication, Ravn gives thanks to installation artist Lea Guldditte Hestelund for the material inspiration for the book, yet, even without knowing what Hestelund's work looks like, the world Ravn has created is familiar enough in its tropes and human(oid) emotions to infect the reader's imagination. A book that strikes a rare balance between SF philosophy and workaday feeling all while whirling through space. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.