“Colin is a low-level employee at Dark Enterprises, a Hell-like multinational corporation solving the world’s most difficult problems in deeply questionable ways. After years of toiling away in a cubicle, he's ready to climb the corporate ladder and claim the power he's never had. The only problem is, he’s pretty sure he’s about to be terminated. Like, terminated. That's tough, because his BFF has just set him up with a great guy. In fact, maybe he's a little too great. And asks a lot of questions. When Colin meets a shadowy figure promising him his heart’s deepest desire, he can’t resist the urge to fast-track his goals. In return for a small, unspecified favor, he asks for the one thing that will improve his life: a promotion.
But that small favor unleashes an ancient evil. People in New York are disappearing, the world might be ending, and Management is starting to notice. Getting to the top is never easy, and now it’s up to Colin to save the world. It's the ultimate power move, after all.”
During the last season of Buffyverse series Angel, our hero vampire took over running the law firm of Wolfram & Hart, which was a powerful national and interdimensional law firm, run by an ancient cabal of demons known as the Senior Partners, who worked through their powerful principal agents in the Circle of the Black Thorn. So here, there are some similarities with that company and Dark Enterprise here in this often amusing Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World. But here, there is also a large dose of corporate satire, mixed with horror and some romance.
Part of the fun of the book is Colin himself (though some of the secondary characters come off better), a man who desires power and wants to achieve his goals no matter who gets in his way - but he’s also more empathetic than other anti-heroes. In one way, I don’t see Colin as truly evil, it’s just he sometimes allows horrible things to happen to people and property in pursuant of his goals. But he also explains, near the end of the book, intends to continue working for Dark Enterprise, murdering people, because basically this is him doing self-care and actualizing his self worth! So beyond dealing with therapy issues, it also parodies relationships, along with taking a sledge hammer to all the selfishness we see every day as we struggle for success.
So it’s full of dark humor, with morally gray characters (especially our protagonist) and lots of death and the near destruction of New York. But while all of that is terrible, it's sort of humorous death and destruction (also note that due to its supernatural nature, Dark Enterprise can be rebuilt and restaffed rather quickly, as the entire staff can slaughtered, and the building heavily damaged and within days, it’ll was back to operating condition with the entire staff replaced). And that’s a great distinction. So while Colin really is a maniac, and boyfriend Eric is thicker than a Christmas Yule log, author Waddell is able to keep the balance between humorous fiction and a psychotic murderer as a hero.
Not sure if Waddell will write a sequel, but to be honest, there is a TV series somewhere in this book.
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