Tuesday, October 9, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Severance by Ling Ma




Severance is a really interesting short novel, one that reminded me of a few other novels in the very basics of its plot and its plot structure but definitely felt unique in how it approached this plot.  On the surface, it's a post-apocalyptic piece of scifi, set after a disease called Shen Fever wiped out most of the world, with the story alternating between following our protagonist, Candace Chen, before the fall of society and afterwards.

What makes this different from some similar plot setups (for example, Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven comes to mind) is that the disease in question isn't simply some plot device for starting the apocalypse.  Instead, the concept of Shen Fever - that it makes its victims obsessed with constantly repeating an ordinary part of life over and over until they die - is contrasted with the ordinary lives of people in general, both before and after The End, to create a rather interesting dynamic.  The result is a post-apocalyptic novel with some interesting thoughts about our lives today, although I still felt this short novel (just under 300 pages) is probably slightly too long.

-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------------
Candace Chen was an office worker in New York City working at a company that helps publish and export bibles of all type around the world.  She had a routine that she followed every day, even if her boyfriend wanted something more and hated New York City for it.

And then The End came, in the form of Shen Fever.  Shen Fever was a fungal disease which was incurable, and spread around the world.  But it was not a normal disease - its victims would find themselves compelled to repeat a routine action of theirs over and over....until they fell over dead as a result.  With all of the world hit by the disease, New York City soon became deserted, with those fortunate to not catch the illness fleeing for anywhere else.

Candace finds herself with a group of nine survivors, all office workers, led by a religious IT guy Bob, who seeks to bring them all to a place of safety.  But can Candace trust Bob and the rest of them with her life and her secrets? And what is left for her to do in this world if she can't?
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The Descriptions online on Amazon and elsewhere for Severance list it as a "witty" "satire, and I need to lead off this review by suggesting otherwise.  In a way, Severance can be read as a satire of boring routine lives, although I'm not really convinced that's the author's intended message.  It definitely is not "witty" however - unless people have a VERY different sense of humor to me, and I don't think this is a case of me missing things here.

This is not to say Severance is bad.  It definitely is not, and is certainly one of the more interesting books I've read so far this year.  The book draws blatant parallels between the killing disease Shen Fever and the routine behavior of city dwellers, as well as the routine behaviors that we fall into after catastrophes, and it's a fascinating dissection of the same.  To do this, the book splits time between flashbacks to the protagonist's childhood, her life in New York City from its beginning until The End, and what is happening after The End when the protagonist is one of a few left alive and functional.

This works because of its protagonist (I won't use the word "Heroine" here), Candace Chen.  I often state on this blog about how a protagonist is unique in some way, or different from typical protagonists, etc.  The key to Candace Chen is that she's not different - maybe she's different from the typical protagonist, but she's very much like people everyone knows in real life - the office drone, who does things by routine and rarely ever questions it, except for occasional wondering if there's anything more, which they never act upon.  Candace isn't as social as many typical office drones might be - I'd call her introverted, but I'm not sure that's the right word since she is willing to go into social scenes if others drag her to same, but again she'll be doing those because of those things being the thing to do rather than any other thing.  We've all met people like that - hell, some readers may even find themselves feeling like Candace at times, which makes her an excellent guide in this world.

Still, while I found Severance very thought-provoking and interesting, and despite it being rather short (under 300 pages in hardcover)....I kind of found it too long still.  It contains an interesting premise, raising some interesting questions about routine lives, and yet....I kind of felt like it got a little repetitive to an unnecessary degree (and yes I'm aware that's ironic in a review of a book about boring routine).  This very much feels like something that could've been explored in a 200 page novella.  The ending as well is just kind of there - it works and I'm not sure what would've worked better, but it sort of just leaves things there.

Regardless, Severance is definitely worth your time, as its at least thought provoking and interesting, even if I'm not sure it ever finds much substance beyond its ideas.

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