He is 'the monster lurking beneath the surface of the world' who 'most heroes hope never to be in the same room as,' but he also turns out to be a pretty decent employer. This brings notoriety, retweets, and the attention of supervillain Leviathan. Deciding superheroes are the equivalent of natural disasters, she calculates the terrible cost of their existence accordingly, publishing her findings on a blog she names The Injury Report. Have you ever wondered what happens to bystanders during those epic, glorious superhero fights we see in (insert superhero franchise here)? Hench tells you, and it doesn't pull its punches.Īnna copes with her traumatic experience by turning to data. The conference is interrupted by superhero Supercollider, who's swath of destruction leaves Anna severely injured and without a job - and she's the lucky one. This is where the story turns, and Walschots first reveals how very well she writes devastation and trauma. Until this moment, Hench is funny, full of a matter-of-fact, affectionate despair at everyday economic hardship. Have you ever wondered what happens to bystanders during those epic, glorious superhero fights we see in (insert superhero franchise here)? Hench tells you, and it doesn't pull its punches. (The villain wants to make sure there's a woman standing up with the rest of his goons.) (The gig economy sucks.) Anna is our delightfully acerbic protagonist, hired by a middling supervillain to do data entry at his start-up, until one day she finds herself center stage during a villainous press conference.
Henches who survive a supervillain-foiling find themselves back at the Temp Agency, struggling to stretch that last paycheck until the next no-benefits, probably-short term job. Turnover is high and contracts often end abruptly, as superheroes with an array of impossible powers are very much also active. In the world of Hench, people willing to work ("hench") for supervillains go to an employment agency.
It's smart and imaginative an exemplary rise-of-darkness story, one I won't soon forget. Hench is an engrossing take on the superheroic. We might be less familiar with how to estimate lifeyears lost, but be assured (note, I don't write reassured) there is a method to calculate that loss, too.Īnd in Natalie Zina Walschots' debut novel Hench, she examines what happens when the ability to calculate the human cost of disaster is coupled with a superhuman ability to organize and manipulate data. They are blazoned across every story, destroyed property valued to the last cent.
In 2020, we are familiar with the economic costs of natural disasters.
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