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Hench

A Novel

by Natalie Zina Walschots

Narrator Alex McKenna

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Length 14 hours 14 minutes

Language English

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Bookseller recommendation

“Even supervillains need a good temp, and Anna is just fine at vaguely villainous data entry. On one job she is asked to point some sort of device at the mayor’s kid’s head, putting her directly in the path of the superhero SuperCollider. During her recovery, she begins to tally up the damage, human and monetary, that superheroes cause. Hench explores how we excuse the cost of what is ‘right’. This is an excellent book about what “the end justifies the means” can look like.”
— Izzy • Off the Beaten Path

Bookseller recommendation

“This smart, funny, and thought-provoking novel follows Anna, a hench-for-hire. She has the same concerns that we all do: paying the bills, finding love, avoiding getting killed by superheroes. But when she gets caught in the crossfire during a showdown between a supervillain and a hero, she is gravely injured in both body and soul. As she recovers from her wounds, she begins to uncover the true cost of heroism, setting her on a path that will change her life, and the relationship between heroes and villains, forever. Perfect for fans of The Boys and The Incredibles, Hench manages to be delightfully original while drawing heavily on the works that inspired it.”
— Emily • Inklings Bookshop

Bookseller recommendation

“Super witty, super charged, and super villainous! Anna is a normal temp hench, working for ho-hum villains to make rent. But when she finally steps out from behind her desk, she's severely injured by a superhero. The pain and unpaid time off leads her to start running the numbers on the damage to humans and material objects caused by the so-called good guys. Burning with revenge and hatred, Anna soon captures the attention of the online world and a true villain- Leviathan. Soon Anna is using her gifts with numbers and burning passion to ruin superheroes to use, but when the chance to get more than even against the hero who hurt her appears, it might just be her own fall she's engineering. Absolutely recommending this book, especially on audio. It's narrated by Alex McKenna, who brings the large cast to life. McKenna captures Anna's snark, Leviathan's otherness, and Supercollider's pompous entitlement perfectly! ”
— Kate • Fountain Bookstore

Bookseller recommendation

“Hench is absolutely terrific! Walschots has found a fresh, original, feminist angle on the tropes of superheroes and supervillains in this smart, lively novel. Anna is barely subsisting from temp job to temp job — even supervillains need someone to do their data entry — when she becomes collateral damage in a superhero’s intervention. Injured and jobless, she fights back by collecting data on the negative effects caused by superheroes. As Anna’s research goes viral, she’s tapped for a new job with the supervillain, giving her an opportunity to use her skills to fight back against the so-called forces of good. Very highly recommended!”
— Carol Schneck Varner • Schuler Books (Okemos)

Bookseller recommendation

“In a world where super heroes and super villains are commonplace, there are some very interesting opportunities for employment. For example: henching, or signing on to handle basic (and usually boring) tasks for your local villain—think data entry. But when Anna's employer is brought down by the hero Supercollider and she's badly hurt in the process, she starts to wonder what the difference is between the good guys and the bad guys. If you've ever watched a superhero movie and wondered who's going to pay for all the damage after the baddies are beaten, this is a book you will enjoy. Anna's dry humor and astute understanding of human nature makes her a delightful narrator--and Alex McKenna, who performs the audiobook, does a superb job of bringing her to life.”
— Caitlin • Brilliant Books Audio

Summary
About the author

“This book is fast, furious, compelling, and angry as hell."" -- Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author

The Boys meets My Year of Rest and Relaxation in this smart, imaginative, and evocative novel of love, betrayal, revenge, and redemption, told with razor-sharp wit and affection, in which a young woman discovers the greatest superpower—for good or ill—is a properly executed spreadsheet.

Anna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn’t glamorous. But is it really worse than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy?

As a temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called “hero” leaves her badly injured. And, to her horror, compared to the other bodies strewn about, she’s the lucky one.

So, of course, then she gets laid off.

With no money and no mobility, with only her anger and internet research acumen, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks.

Because the key to everything is data: knowing how to collate it, how to manipulate it, and how to weaponize it. By tallying up the human cost these caped forces of nature wreak upon the world, she discovers that the line between good and evil is mostly marketing. And with social media and viral videos, she can control that appearance.

It’s not too long before she’s employed once more, this time by one of the worst villains on earth. As she becomes an increasingly valuable lieutenant, she might just save the world.

A sharp, witty, modern debut, Hench explores the individual cost of justice through a fascinating mix of Millennial office politics, heroism measured through data science, body horror, and a profound misunderstanding of quantum mechanics.

Fiction Science Fiction

Natalie Zina Walschots is a writer and game designer whose work includes LARP scripts, heavy metal music journalism, video game lore, weirder things classified as “interactive experiences,” and, unfortunately, experimental poetry. Her first novel, Hench, was a finalist on the 2021 season of Canada Reads and nominated for a Locus Award for Best First Novel. She plays a lot of RPGs, participates in a lot of Nordic LARPs, watches a lot of horror movies, and reads a lot of speculative fiction. She lives in Nova Scotia with her partner and two cats.