Will I love The Warehouse?

You and I may already have one foot in this near-future world with its chilling look inside the warehouse of a retail giant: Amaz… uh, Cloud. The company is named Cloud. Can powerful bosses possibly be benign overlords? Is a miserable existence good enough in a wretched world? Hmm, maybe not.

I loved the characters – a reluctant hero and a cold-blooded spy who join forces as an unlikely couple searching for the truth behind a colossal global company. I never guessed the ending, and that's always a plus.

This is my favorite introduction to the state of automation and autonomy in manufacturing. In a near future, a Sam Walton type has made a fortune through drone delivery and warehouse automation. The warehouse automation is based on a well-intentioned, but shallow, interpretation of the outdated Fitts Law in human factors that divide different jobs between robots and humans. Except humans can’t match robot speed and endurance. The tension is whether a corporate spy who has infiltrated a warehouse to steal secrets is there to expose the inherent cruelty or, worse, to replicate the work practices at a competitor’s facility.