#BlogTour-‘The Warehouse’ by Rob Hart

About the book..

Gun violence, climate change and unemployment have ravaged the United States beyond recognition.

Amidst the wreckage, an online retail giant named Cloud reigns supreme. Cloud brands itself not just as an online storefront, but as a global saviour. Yet, beneath the sunny exterior, lurks something far more sinister.

Paxton never thought he’d be working Security for the company that ruined his life, much less that he’d be moving into one of their sprawling live-work facilities. But compared to what’s left outside, perhaps Cloud isn’t so bad. Better still, through his work he meets Zinnia, who fills him with hope for their shared future.

Except that Zinnia is not what she seems. And Paxton, with his all-access security credentials, might just be her meal ticket.
As Paxton and Zinnia’s agendas place them on a collision course, they’re about to learn just how far the Cloud will go to make the world a better place.
To beat the system, you have to be inside it.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater of for my copy of ‘The Warehouse’ by Rob Hart which is available in audiobook,ebook and hardback from August 13th 2019!

The thing with dystopian novels is that they are meant mostly as cautionary tales of what could happen if we, as a society, maintain our present course. However, the world is currently in such a damn awful state that what could seem like a future shock, as in ‘it could happen in maybe 20-30 years’ now seems like a sideways step from where we are right now. As the meme goes, George Orwell is pictured ‘saying’ that ‘1984‘ was not meant as an instruction manual.’

And that is what makes ‘The Warehouse’ so terrifying.

It is way too close to home. The idea of a massive, tax free corporation that has taken over America with its 100 Mother Cloud bases seems so relevant, so visual, so doable that you hope that no one with power in Google or Amazon is skimming it for ideas. Because it is terrifying. And what makes it so terrifying? The rationale behind it is so reasonable.

The story is split between three narrators-Gisbon Wells (‘call me Gibb),Paxton , a newly recruited security worker and Zinnia, a packer.

Paxton and Zinnia arrive at the same time, on the same day, bussed into a recruitment drive for Cloud, survival of, literally, the fittest as they run to get into Cloud before the gates close on those who cannot get from their bus in time. This leaves a disabled man shut out as he cannot run fast enough, and is a throwaway line of a character which speaks volumes on how we exclude those who cannot keep up-they end up shut out of opportunities.

Paxton needs this job-his previous role as a prison security guard was merely a time filler for him to get his business off the ground.Except Cloud undercut him so badly that his business folded and he now finds himself, cap in hand, to the company which destroyed his life. His allocation to security detail seems logical,but is he a Trojan horse, someone with suspect motives trying to bring Cloud down from the inside?

Zinnia -not her real name-is undercover which the reader knows right from the start.Her yet to be revealed employers have sent her in to investigate and expose what energy sources Cloud are using-they get tax free status due to their environmental engagement but it is impossible, as Zinnia and the reader quickly realise, to run a compound as large as Cloud without using non renewable energy. It is this knowledge which she is hoping to uncover to bring Cloud down but she needs someone with security clearance to help her get closer to the truth…

Gibb is the founder of Cloud, and he is dying of cancer. Doctors predict he has a year left to live so he is going on a road trip to see as many of his Mother Clouds in action before he dies. His grassroots business model, Cloud, is the solution to everyone’s problems-he has, since childhood , been able to see gaps in markets and exploit it for his own gain. From running errands as a child in his neighbourhood for those too busy to do so,to being in charge of a multi billion dollar industry by completing deliveries made by drones for those too busy to shop, he is the living embodiment of the American Dream.

Work hard and this could be you too!

Seems so very simple, supply and demand. People have precious little time. Their high streets are closing down as the internet makes things cheaper, quicker to find and fast to deliver. We have seen this happen in our own town as it has moved from a market town, which supported local businessess and farms, to a satellite town where vast amounts of incomers, who cannot afford to live in cities, move here, yet work elsewhere and spend their money elsewhere.

Houses upon houses are being built with no facilities to support the people moving in so they go elsewhere. And then you see the boarded up cafes that used to sustain themselves with business courtesy of the footfall from library being in the centre of town,closed because the council moved the library out of town to a leisure centre-swim, get a beauty treatment, pick up your books, all at the same time,it’s a great idea! Except no buses go past it, it’s a long walk with library books so the footfall has decreased. Car owners can access it , but what about those on foot? Immediately a two tier system has developed,but that’s ok, you can visit virtually and download audiobooks and ebooks.So convenient! Excpet that means that there isn’t the need for so many librarians so there goes more jobs..

The haberdashery has gone, everything is so much cheaper online! No bookstores so Amazon it is! Or add an extra ten pounds to every book you want to buy in a physical bookstore for the train/bus/petrol you spend getting to a brick and mortar shop. On a micro level we are witnessing shops shutting every day, people staying at home waiting for the deliveries of online goods, the postman etc so we don’t go out as much. And it’s all for our convenience isn’t it great!On a macro level, the hours we are working and not working are blurring in order to keep up with supply and demand of a 24/7 society.

Added to that you have the social aspect of Cloud-Rob Hart drops into the narrative names like ‘Black Friday Massacres‘ and the ‘Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire‘. Shopping in person isn’t safe any longer. Apart from the risk of being shot in present day America whilst doing your daily business being high enough as it is, it is not much of a reach to imagine this taken further,especially after video footage of the apalling behaviour witnessed in real life over subsequent ‘Black Friday’ shopping events.And the sheer hassle of dealing with real life people. Cloud has everything you need-reasonable prices, drone delivery, avoids waiting in all day or travelling to find what you need, quick , convenient and sustainable. What could be wrong?

This is the problem which niggles away at you-the need for convenience to fit a 24 hr lifestyle, the outsourcing of thinking whilst pretending it is opening up new avenues of information, the general seeping mistrust of people in power, fake news and who is watching you. The Cloud bands which have to be worn to save you carrying money,and record your work progress etc seen as  convenience yet is constantly spying on you.

How far are we, as people, supposed to go in this bid to free up our time whilst having our every actions and deeds spied upon?

This is the underlying creeping horror of ‘The Warehouse’-on a micro level it is watching the colour coded people of the story running around like Pacman trying to meet quotas and targets whilst Zinnia and Paxton plot and scheme to stay one step ahead as Gibbs gets closer and closer and closer…

On a macro level you are seeing a fearful dystopian America outsourcing its people, its ideas, everything to a cpmpound which is parsed as having everything you need there-education, health facilities, food-so you don’t need to go anywhere. They have you trapped by need and trapped by greed.

And it is a terrifying notion. People are colour coded to denote roles yet it’s dehumanising. They exist to fulfil the need of those outside the Cloud who are those who want strawberries in January and don’t care about the environmental damage it does.Just deliver it as quickly as possible. And the tech is too close to home to not be scary-our mobile phones are very rarely used for calls,they are mini computers for our convenience yet how many times have you disabled functions on it, only to see on Facebook a sponsored ad for something you were talking about, to your husband,in the security of your own bedroom? Last time it happened to me was yesterday.

Oh boy. I have just scrolled up and seen how long this review is-apologies!-to boil it all down to a nutshell, ‘The Warehouse’ is a warning, a wake up call to us before we let a giant coprporation outsource our very lifestyles and thoughts. The tension is ramped up beautifully through the novel as all three narrators get closer and closer to the heart of what is going on to the point of a shattering climax and finale.

Cloud is such an innouous name-at once insubstantial in nature but it covers all of us and contaisn so much of our knowledge, deeds, pictures, infromation, essays…how many times in a week do you backup your images to the cloud and think it’s safe? It’s made me think about every time I did that to save an assignment at uni, that sigh of relief that your work is safely locked away and not subject to the whims of electricity or hardware, never once thinking who else had the keys to the locker you thought was just yours, and who else might be reading your work.

It is impossible not to read this book and shudder, it is all too believable, and the line between fact and fiction seemed to be reaching blurring point quicker all the time. In this stunning dystopian novel there is a highly visual metaphor for today’s society-mass convenience, but at what cost individuality and conscience?

Bravo Rob Hart, you have left me with so many things to think about with regards to freedom of choice. In choosing America,’ the land of the free and the home of the brave’ as the base of The Cloud, you have challenged notions of what being individual autonomy is, and it looks an awful lot like a warehouse where we are running down designated paths in designated colours with every move, thought and action being monitored.

Terrifying, prescient and timely, this is a novel which is going to hit that dystopian sweet spot for thriller lovers, and I predict it is going to be a massive, summer hit.

About the author…

Rob Hart is the author of the Ash McKenna crime series and the short-story collection TAKE-OUT. He also co-wrote ‘Scott Free’ with James Patterson.

His new novel, ‘The Warehouse’, coming from Crown in August 2019, has been sold in more than 20 countries and been optioned for film by Ron Howard.

He’s worked as a political reporter, the communications director for a politician, and a commissioner for the city of New York.

He is the former publisher at MysteriousPress.com and the current class director at LitReactor. He lives in Staten Island with his wife and daughter.

Links-https://robwhart.com/

http://randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.com/p/services-to-publishers-authors-blog.html

Twitter @robwhart

@annecater