Human Resource


Fiction - Humor/Comedy
176 Pages
Reviewed on 02/20/2015
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

Chase Soundly is a novelist, comedian and scriptwriter. Human Resource is his first comic novel. When he's not swimming in ice flows or long distance cycling he's most likely hiking with his dog Smiler and their two cheeky mountain goats: Gary and Larry.

You can visit him at http://chasesoundly.com

    Book Review

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Human Resource is a humorous contemporary fiction novel written by Chase Soundly. Jim Botcher is such a promising student that Clundon University is video-streaming his graduation ceremony rather than calling him in from his studies of lichen in volcanic areas. He is, in fact, considered the best student they've ever worked with. His guaranteed professional and academic future disappears in a storm of infamy when a video of him hand-farting and twerking his bare bottom goes viral. Stripped of any certifications, stipends and academic honors he may have earned in the past, Jim now has to go to an employment agency to find a job. They don't have much for a man with no job experience and an embarrassing lack of credentials from the university he's been attending, but the counselor sets Jim up with an interview for a middle management position with Blanket Software.

Chase Soundly's humorous novel, Human Resource, is zany and sly as it lampoons what used to be called personnel management and now has been dehumanized into human resources. At first, reading it had me remembering hours wasted in boring motivational manager-meetings where schemes for simultaneously downsizing staff, and increasing productivity and morale, are extolled and presented to barely awake and doodling managers who've heard it all before. Human Resource surprised me, however, as I continued reading because, like Jim Butcher, I started getting involved in the world he had found himself in, and the strange people he's come to know and in a way care about. Human Resource turned out to be an adventure story as well as a humorous book, and it's very good at what it does. Human Resource is highly recommended.

Kim Anisi

Human Resource by Chase Soundly is a rather unusual story. It begins with a very important conference call that unfortunately became delayed, so the young man at the other end of the line decided to occupy himself with something different. Little did he know that his webcam would not only send his antics to the girl on the other end, but also to another, rather shocked audience. This little accident ends Jim's chance of advancing in his career, and he lands up having to take a job he has absolutely no qualifications for: the job of an IT manager. And a company that hires an IT manager who barely has any idea about IT or managing, already seems a little dodgy, right? Wait until you meet the people who work there....

I usually don't read comedy, but the summary of Human Resource by Chase Soundly sounded interesting enough, and it fortunately turned out to be almost my kind of humour (meaning I didn't find everything funny, but had to laugh at some stages and found the whole crazy idea quite entertaining). As funny as the book is, it also shows a bit of the sad reality of the working world as it is these days. Some of the characters are weird - very weird, and you could only hope that none of them would ever be responsible for working your IT solutions (but you never really know, do you?). What I also liked about the book was the unpredictability - it was just a really nice read!

Mamta Madhavan

Human Resource by Chase Soundly is the story of Jim Botcher who has all his degree certificates nullified and has no real references to get the job of his liking. To his chagrin, he finds himself thrown into the alien world of Information and Technology when he would rather stay away from it. He is honest with Johan Angus about his background when meeting him for a job interview, and soon he finds himself joining Blanket Software. His colleagues are all quirky and weird in their own ways. The plot takes a slight turn when Jim finds himself being pulled into another world after meeting Cecilia Wandstrasse at the Annual Board Meeting.

The plot is engaging and entertaining. Jim Botcher's character has been portrayed well. His meeting with Cecilia Wandstrasse and getting pulled into another world pulls the readers into the story, which has satire and humor. All the characters in the story make the plot humorous, provocative, comical and thoughtful. The other key character of the story, Plunkett, is also sketched well. The dialogues are crisp and laced with humor, which gives good pace and movement to the story. Cecilia Wandstrasse adds to the glamour quotient and lends another dimension to the story. The author's style of writing is simple and elegant. He has a way with words that readers will find appealing. Humor and satire are not easy topics to handle and the author pulls both off in this story with finesse, and without going over the top.