The
Warehouse
Big shop of horrors
Release 13 A u g u s t
Writer Rob Hart
Publisher Bantam Press
Price £12.99In the future, no-one shops on
the high street. Instead, they use
Cloud. It’s cheaper, and with their
fl eet of drones, it’s easier, too.
Cloud’s the biggest employer in the
world, and it’s always hiring.
But something sinister is going
on beyond Cloud, and it’s down to
corporate spy Zinnia and former
CEO (before Cloud put his company
out of business) Paxton to fi gure
out what that is.
You’ve likely already worked out
who the targets of The Warehouse’s
angry satire are. With its huge
warehouses staffed by exhausted
workers and its insistence on
its staff living on site, wearingExhalation
Be good
Release Out now
Writer Ted Chiang
Publisher Picador
Price £16.99One of the most striking
impressions caused by the latest
set of stories from the magnifi cent
Ted Chiang is how unusual it is to
see such an interest in exploring
how humanity will respond to
technological advances partnered
with such a level of empathy. The
characters in the shorts assembled
here are, for the most part, people
doing their best, muddling through
the challenges presented by
advancements for which there is not
always an obviously “right” solution.
In ‘The Lifecycle Of Software
Objects’, we begin with a zoologist
helping to create a new digital pet
and observe how, over the course of
many years, the team’s responsibility
towards their creations shift as the
fad fades. With the technology tosupport the critter phasing out and
the AI caught between child, pet and
pet project, they must decide whether
to allow them independence they
may not be ready for, to pause their
existence, or to soldier on regardless.
Other stories are more explicitly
about how we’ll react to specifi c
advances. ‘Anxiety Is The Dizziness
Of Freedom’ follows two characters
in a world where we can see how
parallel versions of us may have
reacted to a situation differently,
while ‘The Truth Of Fact, The Truth
Of Feeling’ is an affecting tale of a
father exploring a new device that
records memories. Chiang’s refusal
to go for an easy condemnation
is both surprising and delightful.
Characters learn, they progress,
and there is hope for humanity in a
genre that doesn’t often offer it. Even
the parrots in ‘The Great Silence’,
marvelling at our determination
to talk to extra-terrestrials while
ignoring them into extinction, offer a
heart-breakingly tender farewell.
Jonathan Hatfull
BOOK CLUB
Exhalation // The WarehouseGPS trackers, and acting like one
happy family, Rob Hart’s fi ctional
corporation is a scathing parody of
the likes of Amazon and Google.
What’s particularly damning
is the way that everyone in the
novel accepts that this is the way
things are. ‘The market dictates’ is
a chilling phrase that gets thrown
around, and ought to raise the hairs
on the backs of the necks of even
the most dedicated Prime user.
But while the satire is on point,
the other parts of the story aren’t
as smart. Zinnia, in particular,
doesn’t feel like a real person,
especially when she’s rambling
on about protein bars or taking an
calculating attitude towards sex.
Still, the plot moves along at a
decent clip, and every shot taken at
rampant consumerism is on target.
If nothing else, Hart’s depiction
of Cloud’s CEO is brutal enough
to make you think twice before
slipping on a smartwatch.
Sarah Lines
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