144 pages
English language
Published Dec. 27, 2021 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.
Derek is LitenVärld's most loyal employee. He lives and breathes the job, from the moment he wakes up in a converted shipping container at the edge of the parking lot to the second he clocks out of work 18 hours later. But after taking his first ever sick day, his manager calls that loyalty into question. An excellent employee like Derek, an employee made to work at LitenVärld, shouldn't need time off.
To test his commitment to the job, Derek is assigned to a special inventory shift, hunting through the store to find defective products. Toy chests with pincers and eye stalks, ambulatory sleeper sofas, killer mutant toilets, that kind of thing. Helping him is the inventory team — four strangers who look and sound almost exactly like him. Are five Dereks better than one?
What happens when a worker drone suddenly slowly wakes up and becomes sentient? Questioning his existence in the world and his role in the corporate machine. The drone in the book is Derek, the drone in the real world is you. When do you wake up?
"His solitude had mass, and shifted Derek’s personal gravity toward it, pulling him down into a spiral of despair."
I realise this is going to be a really strange review, but bear with me... If you'd asked me at any point before the end of this novella, I'd have said that I was loving it, and it was probably worth five stars. It's funny and makes nice digs at corporate culture and, perhaps most importantly, has a very relatable main character. In fact, I'd say I identified with Derek even more strongly than I did with Murderbot while reading All Systems Red. Then I got to the acknowledgements and found the author wrote "Every job has at least one fucking Derek -- an otherwise inoffensive coworker that still somehow manages to earn your ire at every turn,..." and, to be honest, it felt like quite the slap in the face. So, if you're not the kind of reader who identifies with characters, go wild -- it's an enjoyable short …
I realise this is going to be a really strange review, but bear with me... If you'd asked me at any point before the end of this novella, I'd have said that I was loving it, and it was probably worth five stars. It's funny and makes nice digs at corporate culture and, perhaps most importantly, has a very relatable main character. In fact, I'd say I identified with Derek even more strongly than I did with Murderbot while reading All Systems Red. Then I got to the acknowledgements and found the author wrote "Every job has at least one fucking Derek -- an otherwise inoffensive coworker that still somehow manages to earn your ire at every turn,..." and, to be honest, it felt like quite the slap in the face. So, if you're not the kind of reader who identifies with characters, go wild -- it's an enjoyable short read. As for me, though...
A genius, hilarious, anti-capitalist and more than worthy followup to FINNA, one of my favorite reads from last year. This novella has clones produced in alternate dimensions to be the perfect unquestioning subservient employees, defective furniture coming to life, body horror, and capitalism turned effortlessly into a sci-fi-ish villain that's all too recognizable. It's a blast.
*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.
Defekt follows an employee trying to keep doing his best as his world cracks and gets stranger despite his efforts to fit in and follow the manual. I love the chapter openers from the employee manual. The overly cheery corporate-speak helps to establish the tone of the book, especially when the MC is very familiar with this document (or with others like it). It’s informing the world and the characters’ inner lives at the same time, and it’s very funny on top of all that. The MC is in the perfect middle zone between technically being an unreliable narrator and also never actually lying to the reader (and not trying to either). The book is so observant and the MC is so clueless, and it was so wonderful to view this strange hyper-corporate world through …
