The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett

Published by Orbit on April 11, 2011

If Upton Sinclair and Philip K. Dick had collaborated to write a Sam Spade novel, they might have produced The Company Man. Poor working conditions and inadequate wages cause conflict between labor and management, leading to murders in the slums that are investigated by a noir-coated private detective, and it all takes place in an alternate history where mysterious machinery seem to be speaking to those who toil or dwell beneath a vast city. I'm not sure when I've read a science fiction novel quite as odd as The Company Man.

The company in question is McNaughton Western Foundry Corp. which, by 1919 (when the novel takes place) has become the world leader in technology. It is so powerful that it averted World War I by threatening to cut off production of products (like airships) that could be used militarily. Credit for McNaughton's innovative technological breakthroughs is given to Lawrence Kulahee, an eccentric inventor who died in 1904. The company continued to grow despite his death, as did the former fishing village of Evesden, near Puget Sound, now a thriving metropolis with smokestacks and slums and dozens of murders each month. One of the murders -- of a man found floating in a canal -- prompts police detective Garvey to contact Cyril Hayes, who plays a murky role in McNaughton's security force. As Hayes tries to determine whether the nameless corpse is affiliated with McNaughton, he's assigned to investigate the union movement, which is suspected of sabotaging the corporation's factories. The lovely Samantha Fairbanks is asked to keep an eye on Hayes, who has a problem with opium and alcohol. Notwithstanding his addictions, Hayes has an unusual talent: he can establish a telepathic connection with people that grows stronger the longer he's in contact with them. Hayes' twin investigations of the murder and union violence eventually converge but only after he begins to believe all the underground workers who claim that McNaughton's mysterious machinery is trying to talk to them.

Hayes has the kind of troubled soul that's standard for genre heroes, but Bennett managed to give him an interesting background and enough personality to make him memorable. The other characters aren't particularly special yet neither are they trite. While Hayes is hardly the first science fiction character to be blessed (or cursed) with some form of telepathic power, Bennett's description of its operation places it outside the ordinary. The story is, at times, surprisingly poignant, although it's generally quite dark. Perhaps at the novel's end Bennett tries to do too much, giving the story an almost mystical quality, an upbeat tone that seemed out of place in a decidedly downbeat novel, but that didn't impair my enjoyment of the strange story that Bennett concocted. There's room for a sequel here; if Bennett writes it, I'll read it.

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