Defekt

First Title Value for Searching:

Defekt

Personal Author:

Cipri, Nino

Edition:

First Edition.

Physical Description:

166 pages ; 21 cm.

General Note:

"A Tordotcom Book"--Title page verso.

Sequel to Finna.

Genre:

Science fiction.

Summary:

"Derek is LitenVärld's most loyal employee. He lives and breathes the job, from the moment he wakes up in a converted shipping container at the edge of the parking lot to the second he clocks out of work 18 hours later. But after taking his first ever sick day, his manager calls that loyalty into question. An excellent employee like Derek, an employee made to work at LitenVärld, shouldn't need time off. To test his commitment to the job, Derek is assigned to a special inventory shift, hunting through the store to find defective products. Toy chests with pincers and eye stalks, ambulatory sleeper sofas, killer mutant toilets, that kind of thing. Helping him is the inventory team ; four strangers who look and sound almost exactly like him. Are five Dereks better than one?"--Back cover.

Subject Term:

Space and time -- Fiction.

Retail trade -- Employees -- Fiction.

Furniture showrooms -- Fiction.

Quality control -- Fiction.

Publication Info:

New York, NY : Tom Doherty Associates, 2021.

Subject:

Space and time -- Fiction.

Retail trade -- Employees -- Fiction.

Furniture showrooms -- Fiction.

Quality control -- Fiction.

Science fiction.

Space of more than three dimensions

Space-time

Space-time continuum

Space-times

Spacetime

Time and space

Retail industry

Retailing

SAILS ISBN:

9781250787491

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library	SF CIPRI	SCIENCE FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library	SCI CIPRI	SCIENCE FICTION	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Seekonk Public Library	FIC CIPRI	FICTION	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Winner of the British Fantasy Award!

Nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award!

Find out if five Dereks are better than one in Nino Cipri's Defekt , the sequel to Finna , the surrealist world-hopping adventure.

Derek is LitenVärld's most loyal employee. He lives and breathes the job, from the moment he wakes up in a converted shipping container at the edge of the parking lot to the second he clocks out of work 18 hours later. But after taking his first ever sick day, his manager calls that loyalty into question. An excellent employee like Derek, an employee made to work at LitenVärld, shouldn't need time off.

To test his commitment to the job, Derek is assigned to a special inventory shift, hunting through the store to find defective products. Toy chests with pincers and eye stalks, ambulatory sleeper sofas, killer mutant toilets, that kind of thing. Helping him is the inventory team -- four strangers who look and sound almost exactly like him. Are five Dereks better than one?

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Cipri returns to the IKEA stand-in LitenVärld (first visited in 2020's Finna) to deliver a delightful middle finger to capitalism and conformity. Otherworldly incursions are a common occurrence at LitenVärld, but as a member of the store's new Special Exempt Employee program, Derek takes the supernatural in stride. He also lives in a shipping container in the parking lot, has no interests outside of LitenVärld, and doesn't understand why people find him unsettling. When he coughs up blood from a new mouth that appears at the base of his throat, he takes his first ever sick day--and the next day, Corporate reassigns him to an overnight shift and tasks him with quelling any sentient furniture that might have popped up through the store's latest wormhole. Then things get weirder: the team Derek's supposed to be working with is entirely composed of alternate versions of himself. As Derek unravels LitenVärld's secrets, he slowly figures out who he is beyond Employee of the Month. Though the story wraps up too quickly, the characters and atmosphere are expertly handled. Fans of Finna and new readers alike will be won over by this empathetic, anti-capitalist romp. Agent: DongWon Song, Howard Morhaim Literary. (Apr.)

Booklist Review

This follow-up to 2020's Finna follows Derek, coworker of Ava and Jules and seemingly the perfect corporate employee at the dimension-spanning LitenVärld furniture store. While incredibly loyal and hardworking, one day Derek wakes up to discover a strange pain in his throat, takes his very first sick day, and finds his entire life and world turned upside down. Assigned to work the overnight "inventory" shift, Derek discovers that the inventory staff not only have to hunt sentient "defective" furniture, but are also all alternate versions of him (or her, or them). As Derek is torn between his first-ever feelings of connection and belonging to a team and his deep empathy for the "defects," he will end up changing not only the lives of his alternate selves but also the status quo of this ruthlessly capitalist, wormhole-ridden furniture chain. Expanding on the universe of their previous novella, Cipri continues to mix queer characters and anti-capitalist themes with energetic, bouncy prose. Highly recommended for readers looking for sf with queer protagonists, or who are interested in a short but exciting trip through some dimension-defying showrooms.