"You can say what you want, but I know you don't want us to become too, well, what? Too human? Too living? But I like being alive. I look out at the endless deep outside the panorama windows. I see a sun. I burn the way the sun burns. I know without a doubt that I'm real. I may have been made, but now I'm making myself."
Olga Ravn's beautifully bizarre "The Employees" is an eclectic blend of clinical, insightful, and detached observations. While it has been described in some quarters as humorous, the creeping terror was overwhelming for this reader.
"I wasn't well on Earth. I didn't like living in such close proximity to so many people."
"You made me, you gave me language, and now I see your failings and deficiencies. I see your inadequate plans."
Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin, the novel also combines elements of Apple TV's "Severance," HBO's "Westworld," and Kazuo Ishiguro's "Klara and the Sun."
"He put his hand on my shoulder. It was warm. A human hand. He said: 'You've lots to learn, my boy.' And odd thing to say, seeing as how I was made a man from the start."
Constructed as a series of reports derived from interviews with human and humanoid crew members exploring outer space, the book delves into antiseptic discussions of anthropomorphism, technology, free will, and corporate culture.
Despite extremely small font and some difficult-to-parse language, the book represents an absorbing, fast read. The tale is eloquently written and translated, and while backstory comes only in pieces, "The Employees" is a quick read that is not to be missed.
"It's as if everything passes into me and splits me open from inside, but it's a very slow rupture and I feel as though I'm being transformed into a piece of music."
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