Calvin Kasulke

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on audiobook from my library.

Thoughts: This was fairly entertaining even if it didn't make much sense. I listened to this on audiobook and I would not recommend doing that. In the audiobook they say the emoticons out loud and this ends up being incredibly repetitious and annoying. I did like that they used a full cast for this audiobook though, that made it easier to listen to.

Gerald is working on a spreadsheet to help him figure out what winter coat to buy when he is sucked into the Slack channel. Now he has to figure out how to get his co-workers to help him get his consciousness back into his body and out of the Slack channel. At first the Slackbot seems like it is useless in helping, but then it seems to change and become more nefarious.

This is kind of a goofy collection of Slack conversations around both Gerald's improbable situation, and general office chatter. It shows how little people work at times and shows how important our digital presence has become.

I had a couple of issues with this. One was the repetition of the emoticons and how awful that was to listen to on audiobook. The second was that nothing is ever explained very well. We don't know why Gerald ended up stuck in Slack and we never really get to understand the wolves (at least I didn't). It was a fine quick read aside from those issues. It was kind of like Office Space but with a bit of additional weirdness thrown in.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this was fine. It was a fun and quick listen that had some weirdness and some humor in it. There is a lot of typical office behavior in here that is entertaining if you've ever worked in an office. This really did not work well as an audiobook (although I did appreciate the full cast). The story also didn't worry about explaining why these inexplicable things were happening. Worth a quick read if you can get it from your library.… (más)

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The premise of this silly little book is that employee Gerald accidentally uploads himself, rather than his spreadsheet of coat purchase options, to his workplace messaging app, Slack. I have no experience of what Slack is but I assume it’s like Microsoft Teams!

As Gerald tries to convey his plight to his colleagues, and tries to find out what’s going on with his body (and how to get back in it), the story is told through various chat logs which means it’s a short read and really easy to blow through in a couple of sittings. It’s impressive how much plot and character could be expressed in so few words on the page. Somehow it even packs in a surprisingly cute romance! It leaves a lot for your imagination to fill in the blanks, which for me was the fun.

(view spoiler)[I will say on the romance element it is a bit weird and potentially some people will see it as problematic that Pradeep has sex with Gerald’s body. I thought about this and Gerald hadn’t been in his body for quite a long time at that point, and Slackbot had taken it over which was the real violation. Gerald’s mind and consciousness was fully elsewhere. (hide spoiler)]

There were also a few other bizarre subplots where I have no idea what was going on (what was with Doug and pears?) but I really did enjoy the ride!

Recommended if you want a short, weird bit of silliness to pass the time!



View all my reviews… (más)