Review: The Warehouse by Rob Hart

The world is not what it was – unemployment rates are sky high, the Earth has been ravaged by climate change, and a global corporation called Cloud seeks to change that. Apart from being the largest global retailer, the company has stakes in security, government, travel, and technology; its influence is felt everywhere. This also makes them the largest and most stable global employer, with entire cities built to house its workers and serve the public.  

However, getting a job at Cloud is not that easy – of the millions that apply, those who are successful are held to incredibly high standards, and are expected to live and breathe their jobs. Cloud strives to be more than their employer – it wants to be their savior.

The size of the company makes them untouchable, and the more they grow, the more other retailers and industries are slowly removed from the market. In a cutthroat world of corporate espionage, Zinnia has infiltrated Cloud in order to steal secrets for the last of the company’s competition. Despite Zinnia’s experience and skills, she can’t help but be surprised at the sheer enormity of her new employer, nor the myriad secrets hidden away behind firewalls and office doors. The closer she gets to the heart of Cloud, the more dangerous her mission becomes.

Among the other recruits to join Zinnia is Paxton, an inventor forced out of the marker in the early days of Cloud’s expansion, who was forced to work in security to stay afloat. Now, with employment so hard to come by, Paxton has no choice but to work for the people who ruined his life, and help them keep a tight ship.

As we’re given a first-person view into the inner workings of the company, all that’s left to decide is whether Cloud is a savior, or the cause of the world’s problems.

The Warehouse is a clever social commentary that goes beyond an Amazon-esque insight into the intricacies of retail giants and their associated sway in the world’s economies or politics. Here, we are treated to the nightmare that is monopoly – what happens when power is not dispersed, and when accountability becomes an in-house act rather than a moral viewpoint. The answer; chaos, abuse of power, greed, and suffering.

Hart has penned a gripping adventure with more twists and unexpected horrors than you could imagine from the cover. The Warehouse is an eye-opening foray into a world without democracy, and where money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy privilege, power, and despotism.

The Warehouse by Rob Hart is published by Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers, a Penguin Random House company, and is available in South Africa from Penguin Random House South Africa.