An office worker makes a deal to get ahead in Mark Waddell's comedic fantasy novel, Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World. Colin Harris is one of many Dark Enterprises employees around the world who make the bureaucracy of evil--such as harvesting human screams--possible. After years of diligence, however, he's now in danger of being (literally) terminated for spurning his boss's sleazy advances. With death imminent, he can't refuse when a shadowy entity offers him a deal. All he has to do to seize the power he's always craved is unleash an unspeakable evil.
At first it seems Colin's got it all: a shiny new job, revenge on his former co-workers, and even a budding romance with a guy everyone says is way out of his league. Maybe he'll even get to "ascend to middle management." Then people start disappearing by the thousands. However, Colin isn't just some bumbling good guy caught up in an evil corporation. Even his eventual heroism is dubious: "To heck with everyone else. I was going to save the world, and then take from it everything I'd ever wanted."
With plenty of jokes about shady executives, corporate drudgery, and ritual sacrifice, Waddell (The Body in the Back Garden) has created a romp that will have readers wondering how Colin will get himself and the world out of the mess he's created. This is a great fit for fans of Django Wexler's How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying and office-villain narratives such as Natalie Zina Walschots's Hench and Hannah Nicole Maehrer's Assistant to the Villain. --Suzanne Krohn, librarian