so you've ended the world--what now?

Colin is ambitious. But he has a problem. The assistant to his boss really doesn’t like him. So while Colin works hard and turns in his work on time, the assistant will make changes to his reports and turn them in late to the boss, so it looks like Colin is incompetent. He’s not just trying to get Colin fired. He’s trying to get him killed. Because that’s how things work at Dark Enterprises. You don’t just get fired. You might get sent before the Firing Squad. Or you might get tortured. Or you might get sent to another plane to suffer for decades.

Obviously, Colin doesn’t want any of that. He wants to be promoted. He wants to be in middle management, learning more about the dark arts and helping clients get the results they are paying big bucks for. But Colin doesn’t feel like he can get there with his boss’s assistant sabotaging his work.

So when he gets approached in the company elevator by a creature offering to make his dreams come true for one small favor, Colin isn’t sure what to say. He knows it’s a bad idea. But he thinks he’s being followed, and he thinks it’s by the company’s Firing Squad. He worries that each day will be his last. So he decides to take his chances with the dark entity, and he asks for his promotion in exchange for the creature’s favor.

And just like that, Colin is promoted our of human resources and given the job of assistant to the CEO. And in fulfilling his promise, he unknowingly unleashes a great hunger into the world. He doesn’t think much about that as his life is going well. He has a new job. He has a hot date, thanks to his roommate who set him up with the hot guy in her yoga class. But then people start disappearing. It’s New York City, so people disappear all the time. But this is ore missing people than usual. And when Colin sees his former boss get eaten by the mysterious wish-fulfiller from the elevator, Colin knows this is not a small problem.

Colin may have unleashed a terrible abomination into the world. As thousands of people continue to go missing from the streets of New York City and the city shuts down in fear, Colin knows it will take all his resources to save the world and protect his job at Dark Enterprises.

Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World is dark and funny and filled with surprises. It’s a tale of ambition and its price in a world where anything is possible. Colin and his friends have distinctive personalities, and they all bring something interesting to the story. There are some references to torture and spiritual battles, so those who are sensitive to those topics may want to skip this one.

I really enjoyed Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World. There are a lot of fun touches, like Colin using pamphlets to try to figure out how to deal with the hunger he unleashed on Manhattan. The love story is sweet, but things get pretty cutthroat at the office. The writing is clever and creative, and while there some obvious story beats I knew would get hit, the road to get there was full of unexpected twists. This was the dark humor I needed this week, and I loved it.

Egalleys for Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World were provided by Ace through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.