Hench
By Natalie Zina Walschots
(416 pages, fiction, 2020)
Anna does boring things for terrible people because even supervillains need office help. As a data entry temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. But at her newest assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the “ultimate superhero” leaves her badly injured. Compared to the other bodies strewn about, she’s the lucky one.
So, of course, then she gets laid off.
With no money, insurance or mobility, only her anger and spreadsheet skills, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks. Because the key to everything is data: knowing how to collate it, how to manipulate it, and how to weaponize it. By tallying up the human cost these caped forces of nature wreak upon the world, she discovers that the line between good and evil is mostly marketing. And with the help of a new supervillain, social media and some good old-fashioned social engineering, she can control that appearance.
Smart, fast and compelling, this story will make you look at superheroes and supervillains in a whole new light.
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Nora Cascadden
