The Employees tells the stories of a half-humanoid spaceship crew through semi-ordered interviews. Most of the interviews are short and many are dense enough that I needed to read them twice to really absorb what was being said. Oh, and it's based on a series of illustrations by Lea Gulditte Hestelund, who I'm guessing is the inspiration for the only character with a name, Dr. Lund.
I was surprised that despite all of the high-concept framing, it still worked as an engaging, entertaining novel. Ravn's critiques of productivity culture and gender work incredibly well, skillfully woven into the rest of the story.
This edition was translated from the original Swedish by Martin Aitken - something I wouldn't have noticed if I didn't read it on the back cover. The prose style was really beautiful at times, I assume preserved from the original.
People have drawn a lot of parallels between this and Ursula K. Le Guin, but from my perspective I liked it a bit more than The Left Hand of Darkness because The Employees was more focused and direct with its commentary and storytelling. It's somewhat less sci-fi feeling than most stories that occur on spaceships with humanoids.
All in all, pretty great: I would recommend reading each story twice to get the full effect.