Some of the best speculative fiction comes when a writer is able to extrapolate forward in a manner that is both engaging and plausible ... That’s what Rob Hart has done with his new novel ... The Warehouse brings a keen satiric edge to its rendition of a corporate dystopia ... That's the real power in something like The Warehouse. It illustrates that greed knows no boundaries, and that even those with the best of intentions can eventually wind up making the most reprehensible of choices so long as they can talk themselves into believing that it is for some nebulous greater good. That’s the perspective we get from Gibson Wells, and it is vital to the novel’s success. The Warehouse is funny and bleak, putting forth an exaggerated but nevertheless still plausible take on the direction our world seems to be traveling. It is a sharp takedown of 21st century corporate culture that serves as something of a warning—our seemingly small individual choices can eventually have much larger consequences than we ever could have known.
...[a] whip-smart thriller ... Hart creates a world that seems as normal and plausible as your own neighborhood but, at the same time, is frightening and devoid of freedoms ... Hart has been making a name for himself with his critically acclaimed Ash McKenna series and as one of James Patterson’s co-authors. The Warehouse should be his breakout novel.
...[a] hugely engaging novel ... Hart has worked with James Patterson before and he has inherited something of Patterson’s breathless knack for narrative and suspense; it helps that he is a far better writer. There is a rich vein of social satire throughout...and also a palpable sense of anger at the injustice visited upon the underclass by their oppressors. Hart has surely read James Bloodworth’s excellent exposé Hired, and his keenly detailed descriptions of the indignities visited upon worker drones are horribly compelling. It helps, though, that in Zinnia he has an empowered and charismatic heroine, battling sundry thugs and her own conscience with the same determined sangfroid. This is a fine and gripping read, a literary blockbuster with brains. Perhaps the anticlimactic ending lets it down slightly, but until then Hart manages to stimulate both the imagination and the viscera alike.
... an entertaining read as a slightly dystopian cyberthriller. But start looking at how plausible it is, notice all the ways in which the things Hart describes—awful healthcare, limited employment opportunities, and global monopolies — are already here, and it becomes a horrific cautionary tale that makes you wonder if we're already too far into a disastrous future, or if there's still some hope for humanity ... Gibson, who resembles Donald Trump in many ways, is just one of many elements that make The Warehouse an outstanding read. Then there's Hart's attention to detail ... Hart's love for crime fiction is ever-present, but The Warehouse has a level of social critique that goes above and beyond his previous work to take on all of corporate America ... a fun, fast-paced read full of well-developed characters and a plot that builds to an explosive finale. It treads known dystopian ground, but the story's so close to our reality that it walks a fine line between a near-future thriller and a smart satire. Comparisons to Amazon are easy to make, and that's precisely what should worry us the most. It's also where things get meta because that's where most readers will buy the book. Nicely played, Mr. Hart.
Set in the near future, Rob Hart paints a grim, but thoroughly and helplessly entertaining, picture of what happens when Big Brother meets Big Business . . . and what the world we’re currently building might look like if we’re not careful ... Alarming as it is, at its core, The Warehouse is more than just a cautionary tale, it’s a thriller, and when you toss in the heart-pounding corporate espionage elements and the nightmarish situation both characters quickly find themselves in, it’s a damn fine one at that. Moreover, Hart touches on a number of other timely issues, skillfully weaving them into the story in a way that’s relatable and, at times, emotionally jarring. The character development is flawless, the pacing is smooth and steady, and the structure is on point, allowing Hart to brilliantly lay out his story, which is by far his best work to date. A serious contender for best book of the year, Rob Hart’s The Warehouse is a powerful, game-changing thriller that’s both thought-provoking and entertaining . . . and is sure to stay with readers for quite some time.
Cloud has all the trappings of a sinister tech company, and MotherCloud’s facilities, payment systems and promotional videos are outlined in excruciating, on-the-nose detail. One wishes the novel’s characters came with as much depth ... As a polemic, The Warehouse is full-throated and sweeping. As a story, though, it might leave customers less than satisfied.
David Eggers mashed Google, Microsoft and Apple in The Circle. Hart does something similar for Amazon and other online shops with more success ... this cynicism runs through a series of revelations towards the end of the book that are more disheartening than unexpected ... Rob Hart gives readers plenty to chew on...But aside from a couple of lengthy speeches, he never makes it feel polemical. He anchors his story on two flawed characters who somehow start a relationship that has a core of something real despite the lies between them. Paxton and Zinnia do unexpected things, they make bad decisions but they are the human heart in a machine that is designed to use them until they have no more usefulness ... a cautionary tale. But it seems the warning might be coming too late ... Given the strength with which he makes his point, Hart does not need to reference Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 or The Handmaid’s Tale, but he does. And while The Warehouse may not reach the literary heights of some of these dystopian classics, it makes a solid pitch to be the most possible, and therefore the scariest.
Hart’s near-future worldbuilding is all the more effective for what it doesn’t show. There’s a functioning society somewhere out there, but we never go beyond the arid, nearly abandoned wasteland surrounding MotherCloud. We get a general sense of how Wells has captured political power through posts in which he mentions successfully lobbying for laws that allow Cloud to operate with zero regulatory oversight and pay workers in high-tech company scrip, but all this is secondary to the action in MotherCloud; Hart wants us to experience dystopia through Paxton and Zinnia ... polished ... Hart guides the action with a steady hand, showing an impressive command of pacing and structure that keeps the book moving at a speed between mystery and thriller ... avoids the easy out of painting Wells and the company he started as monstrous caricatures ... The high points of the novel come when our leads realize just how completely Cloud precludes the possibility of any real connection, and how radically things would have to change to allow for any improvement. Hart’s effective storytelling means the same connection exists between reader and character as well, making The Warehouse an enjoyable journey with a meaningful payoff.
... combines the paranoia of 1984, the dystopian undercurrents of Soylent Green, and the menacing influence of corporations in modern-day America into one thoroughly-engaging feast for the imagination. Cloud’s operations are all too believable — feeling like an amalgamation of an old company town and a modern tech campus — and the realistic touches make the unsettling horror of the novel so damn effective ... Although the eventual reveals at novel’s end are a little underwhelming, the story that gets you there is engrossing enough to make up for it, and the journey taken by both Zinnia and Paxton (as well as the reader, since you’re constantly assessing what you would do in their place), makes for a tense near-future adventure that will haunt you for days after you’ve turned the last page.
Reading The Warehouse is a kind of nightmare. Its near-future dystopia seems startlingly plausible ... The novel doesn’t even bother with character development. Why should it? The only thing that matters in this book is the vastness of the nightmare. For this purpose, cardboard will do just as well as flesh and blood ... As an up-to-date incarnation of the beatific, ruthless redeemer archetype, Gibson elevates The Warehouse to the zone of indispensable satire and dark spiritual inquiry, the space where Dickens, Kafka, Orwell and Koestler reign. These titans of the genre have shown us what it looks like when evil wears the mask of goodness, how it feels when our salvation asks us to abandon all hope and what happens to us when the shining light of progress becomes an all-consuming darkness. I hope they don’t make a movie out of this book. It’s already impossible to wake up from.
The Warehouse is a thriller of ideas, and its interplay of taut action and incisive cultural commentary gives it shades of Fahrenheit 451 and Jurassic Park. The storyline isn’t nearly as exciting as Crichton’s was—in fact, for stretches it’s downright slow, and could have done with some trimming—but Hart makes up for that with his deep character work ... When The Warehouse lives in this dissonance between good intentions and corporate desolation, it really shines. Hart creates a fully believable surveillance state ... But Hart doesn’t quite turn scolding; he never loses sight of what makes tech seductive, its instant feedback and drone-delivered convenience.
This is pretty cheeseball stuff, but the real food for thought in The Warehouse is in the story of Cloud’s ascent, which is achieved less through force than by exploiting recognizable fears of climate change and gun violence ... Cloud has eliminated mass shootings, reversed global warming, created record-low unemployment rates and made shopping faster and easier than ever. Are we certain that the average person wouldn’t willingly trade his freedoms for all of that?
... already all the rage based on the many stellar blurbs about it, and it definitely lives up to the hype. This sci-fi/thriller is so engrossing that you will find it nearly impossible to put down before the dynamic finale. It also should cause more than a few nightmares and chills as its fictional parts start sounding more and more like our reality.
... very well constructed; a lot of thought clearly went into Cloud and the near-future world it dominates. It’s an exciting, well-paced, suspenseful tale laced through with insightful commentary on today’s politics and commerce.
It is the only book I have read in the dystopian genre so far that I can confidently say is likely to happen ... Rob Hart’s book is a deep study of the drive and choices that led to this future, the effects on the people of the world, and the comfort that it provides ... I really enjoyed this book. It was seasoned with commentary on a number of issues that we face today – the access to guns in America, the reliability on delivery systems like Amazon (not yet drone operated but that’s in the works), green energy, the business versus the government model, law and order, and waste management ... I love books that offer more food for thought. The Warehouse truly led me down that lane and I am grateful for that. It is always a pleasure to challenge preconceived notions and get new insights.
The most subtle and interesting part of the novel is an occasional third point-of-view character: Gibson Wells, the immensely rich founder and owner of Cloud ... reads as a treatise against the evils of big corporations and rampant capitalism. It raises important questions about our future but offers few solutions. The best alternative to Cloud suggested in the book is, in the words of one character, 'to pull this system down and smash it to pieces.' Perhaps the best lesson learned from this novel’s dire predictions is to consider how to prevent them from coming true in the first place.
Hart...tapped a real vein of the zeitgeist with this stand-alone thriller about the future of work that reads like a combination of Dave Eggers’ tech nightmare, The Circle (2013), the public’s basic impression of an Amazon fulfillment center, and Parzival’s infiltration of IOI in Ready Player One (2011) ... Hart has written a hell of a prosecution of modern commerce and the nature of work, all contained in the matrix of a Cory Doctorow–esque postmodern thriller that might not turn out the way you hoped. Part video game, part Sinclair Lewis, part Michael Crichton; it adds up to a terrific puzzle.
... [an] intelligent Orwellian thriller ... Hart’s detail-oriented worldbuilding, which credibly extrapolates from the Trump administration’s antiregulatory agenda, makes this cautionary tale memorable and powerful. This promises to be Hart’s breakout book.
