Rating:

Bosses from Hell

Author: Bentley Little

There is no denying it – the corporate world is full of hellish bargains, backroom backstabbing, evil schemes, and nose-diving employee morale. What better “normal” location to showcase the unique, insidious horror of the everyday? What if the amoral creature that lurked in your work corridors wasn’t just your terrible boss, but a demonic presence with a mysterious goal, a goal that made you (and everyone else) entirely expendable, physically and mentally? What if there was more to it all than corporate profits, and what if termination was a lot more ominous than unemployment and failed mortgage payments? What if the blinking lights of the cameras scattered across your office were doing more than recording data in the event of a potential crime? What if someone really was watching you, all day, every day?

Ostensibly, it’s a good idea. Littles’ claim to fame is finding dreadfulness in the ordinary. He takes real world terror and gives it that supernatural twist, sometimes engaging in a biting sarcasm and sometimes with a keen coldness that leaves us shuddering, suddenly aware of the reality of horror in the most mundane of places. Life is scary. Little wants us to know that and wants us to know that the boogieman is as ordinary and inescapable as your next-door neighbor. . . or your heartless CEO.

Compware, a video game firm, is experiencing a downswing and the power’s-that-be are seeking the typical solution: a fancy consulting firm. At first, everyone is afraid of the usual. The consultants will come in, suggest a reorganization, and a lot of people will be fired. But the stakes from the enigmatically named BFG firm are far worse. It starts with a little strangeness. The fractious lead consultant, Regus Patoff, doesn’t seem quite right, merging from corporate boardroom speak to profanity and racism at a moment’s notice. But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Soon he is visiting employees in their homes, installing cameras in the bathroom to talk about toilet paper usage, and demanding employees engage in strange retreats where they hunt dogs. And then . . . then people start to die in inexplicable ways. But hey, death saves the company money! None of that pesky severance pay.

As a few employees start to examine BFG, following rumors and trails of glittering viscera, their suspicions increase. But a job is a job, a paycheck is a paycheck, and despite the literal hell-on-earth of work, they stick it out. The consultants have to leave eventually, right?

Image by Eugene Kucher from Pixabay

The ideas in The Consultant oscillate between comically sardonic and downright stupid, before landing squarely in the stupid camp. This is one of those parodies that goes so far in trying to make a joke (or a gruesome point) that it belies even the tenuous logic of fiction. It’s too out there to really fit. Why would no one just quit? Why would employees keep their heads down as they see killings and supernatural feats? I suppose you could make an argument for the herd mentality, but the transition from normal to consultant-lead-hellscape is too abrupt, and everyone’s reaction too underwhelming to really fit. We’re left questioning the logic instead of flowing with the story. It’s ridiculous, not scary.

The Consultant mostly zombie-lunges through a sequence of vignettes, including the usual weird horror novel rape scene (which is entirely unnecessary) and animal cruelty, before finally starting to spoon feed the surviving protagonists some answers. For example, the meaning of the lead consultant’s name is an utterly absurd revelation, handed to our characters who seem too lazy to really escape what can only be described as insane torment. The consultant’s reason itself falls flat, and the consulting firm’s “intention” is just as lazily revealed as it is underexplained and over-accepted. But who cares, at this point, we realize that this isn’t going to be a creepy or a clever read, and we’re just racing for the finish line.

I had so looked forward to The Consultant, gleefully anticipating some workforce parody and some Bentley Little creepiness to brighten my very long days of jury duty. Alas, this book was a failure from beginning to end, an idea phoned in, poorly executed, and haphazardly ended. I didn’t even care. I was just glad for the ending. Little is a master author in so many ways, but this book is not worthy of his pantheon.

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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