DNF Early Review – Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World by Mark Waddell (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy/Humor
Length: 377 pages
Publisher: Ace
Release Date: October 7, 2025
ASIN : B0DSHQDPZW
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 3/5 stars
“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 he asks a lot of questions . . .
When Colin meets a shadowy figure promising his deepest desire in return for a small, unspecified favor, he can’t resist the urge to fast-track his goals. 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.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this on ebook to review through NetGalley
Thoughts: I wanted to like this, but I was really struggling. It’s not bad, it’s just not really good either. I’ve read way too many of these books where a strangely normal person works at a huge evil corporation and gets themselves in trouble someway or another. It’s strangely cutesy, kind of horrific, and for some reason, it was completely boring to me. I read the first 30% of this and realized I was just completely disengaged from the story. I didn’t like Colin, I didn’t like anyone around him; I thought the premise was corny and far-fetched, and was completely uninterested in finishing this. I have a lot of review books to get through right now so I decided to DNF this; giving this 3 stars like I normally do for DNFs because who knows maybe the last two thirds of this were amazing.
The story follows Colin, a low-level employee at Dark Enterprises who has been bullied pretty much his whole life. He just never stood up for himself and thought working for an insanely evil corporation like Dark Enterprises might give him a step up in life. However, Colin is still just a data analyst, and now he’s being bullied by his manager. That is until a dark entity offers to give Colin whatever he wants in exchange for a teeny favor. What Colin wants is power; what he asks for is a promotion. The teeny favor he pays for the promotion ends up being a bit more impactful than he thought.
I always think I am going to enjoy these types of darkly humorous books about ordinary people working for evil corporations or entities or even taking on traditionally dark roles, but a lot of them fall flat for me. There are a few stand outs; Murderbot series by Martha Wells, some William Gibson books, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, or Starter Villain by John Scalzi. However, there are a lot that miss the mark for me, like The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Naylor, How to Become a Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wrexler, among others. This one missed the mark for me.
Colin is just dull, and I think that is kind of the point. He is dull but also a complete butt. Even when he is being evil, he doesn’t really even put a lot of oomph into it. The whole thing comes off as very… boring. I didn’t like him, and I didn’t like anyone else in this book. I honestly couldn’t care less what happens to any of these characters.
Also, a lot of this is just so, well, silly. The dark sacrifices…wow…so surprising how that was dealt with. The dangerous working atmosphere that seems standardized while the corporation tries to stay up to code and maintain policies. Rather than come off as funny, it felt more tired and silly to me. I just didn’t enjoy it. As someone who has worked corporately a good portion of my life, I somewhat appreciated the tongue-in-cheek here. However, the whole thing went past funny into the stupid and silly region for me.
This is easy to read, and if you enjoy this type of over the top blandness punctuated with scenes of intense gore and suffering, then this might be for you. I usually enjoy dark humor and poking fun at corporations. Unfortunately, between the unlikable characters, how boring this was, and how contrived everything felt, I just had no pull or desire to read this book.
My Summary (3/5): Overall I wasn’t a huge fan. The writing is fine and easy to read. However, the characters were bland and boring despite their horrific actions. The plot was slow, and the world here just seems contrived. This wasn’t a story I enjoyed, and wasn’t one I was sucked in to…rather it was one I kept avoiding picking up and finishing. If you enjoy the types of stories involving normal people who get pulled into incredibly evil situations in a dark humor type of way, you might enjoy this. For me, those types of stories are very hit and miss, and unfortunately, this was a miss for me.
