The Warehouse by Rob Hart

A terrifyingly plausible read. The Warehouse is set almost totally on the campus of an Amazon-type company that runs almost all of America. Their huge warehouse campuses include living areas, recreation and stores. You never need to leave. All your needs are catered for. After all, Cloud is a family.




A really creepy, messed up family. At first things don't seem too bad; messed up and unfair, but not awful. But they gradually get worse. A chapter in the middle of the book exemplifies this perfectly; it's just a series of entries on our two main characters, showing how their other interests gradually drop away until they're working, eating and sleeping and nothing else.

There was a point where I thought it was going full-on Soylent Green. Happily, it didn't get quite that far. I also thought something quite different about the big reveal.

The characters were intriguing too. No one was really much good, apart from Paxton. Gibson had good ideas, but everyone was too eager to bend the rules for an easier life. It's probably true to life, but it's very upsetting.

I'd love to read about what happens after the end of the novel - there's definitely scope there for a sequel. Let's hope.

(I think the US cover is more arresting than the UK, but the UK is more accurate to the contents of the novel. I've added both below so you can judge, UK first.)

Paxton never thought he’d be working for Cloud, the giant tech company that’s eaten much of the American economy. Much less that he’d be moving into one of the company’s sprawling live-work facilities. 

But compared to what’s left outside, Cloud’s bland chainstore life of gleaming entertainment halls, open-plan offices, and vast warehouses…well, it doesn’t seem so bad. It’s more than anyone else is offering. 

Zinnia never thought she’d be infiltrating Cloud. But now she’s undercover, inside the walls, risking it all to ferret out the company’s darkest secrets. And Paxton, with his ordinary little hopes and fears? He just might make the perfect pawn. If she can bear to sacrifice him. 

As the truth about Cloud unfolds, Zinnia must gamble everything on a desperate scheme—one that risks both their lives, even as it forces Paxton to question everything about the world he’s so carefully assembled here. 

Together, they’ll learn just how far the company will go…to make the world a better place. 

Set in the confines of a corporate panopticon that’s at once brilliantly imagined and terrifyingly real, The Warehouse is a near-future thriller about what happens when Big Brother meets Big Business--and who will pay the ultimate price.