Sick of the corporate grind? Wishing that you could have a little Helly R./Mark S. romance? Maybe some in-office rebellion to spice things up? If you feel like you’re living in a fluorescent lit, pizza party surveillance state – you’re not alone. No, seriously. They’re cloning you right now to double your productivity. You and your clone soon be working together as a unified corporate entity. You will never be alone again. But hey, look on the bright side. While your clone does all the work, you can start a little 9 to 5 revolution by slacking off and reading. Looking for relevant material? Like the latest email in your inbox, I hope this list of 10 sci-fi books for fans of Severance finds you well.
The Circle
The Circle by David Eggers is a corporate psychological horror story that feels eerily similar to the present tech industry moment. The stage is set on the sunny west coast, where a new social media mega-corporation called The Circle has put down its roots – and is now spreading its tendrils through the internet. A combination of Instagram, Bank of American, and the government of Oceania from Orwell’s 1984 – The Circle knows everything about you. Your habits, your net worth, and probably your 24/7 location. The novel circles around Mae Holland, a dyed in the wool corporate shill ready to sell her soul for company stock. A fresh out of college employee, Mae is willing to do anything to appease her higher-ups, including sell out her friends, coworkers and romantic partners in the process. Mae is Mr. Milchick if he never realized just how much Lumon sucks. Don’t be a Mae. If anything, be an Irving.
The Employees
It’s Severance... IN SPACE! The Employees by Olga Ravn is centered around a mixed human and android spaceship crew, who are sent to the planet New Discovery to make, well, new discoveries! Contracted by an interstellar mega-corp, the employees of the ship go about their business with drone-like efficiency, until they recover mysterious artifacts from the planet’s surface that alter their minds. Told through a non-consecutive series of data logs, The Employees paints a portrait of brainwashed workers that are slowly unlearning all the know. The emotionless employees and their robotic counterparts begin questioning everything – the mission, their purpose, and their place in the universe. Naturally, their corporate overlords don’t take too kindly to the unproductive existential crisis, and orchestrate a tragedy in order to save their bottom line.
The Space Between Worlds
Intrigued yet terrified by the idea of doppelgänger selves? Micaiah Johnson is too. Her novel The Space Between Worlds is set in a universe, well, multiverse where travel between parallel worlds is possible – so long as your alternate self is dead at your destination. Naturally, corporations have figured out a way to profit off of this, and the multiverse is soon straddled under the weight of ultra-rich oligarchy. Cara is hired by one of this mega-corps to collect valuable data from other worlds – uniquely qualified for the job due to the bad luck of her numerous dead alternates. When one of her few remaining doppelgängers bites the bullet under mysterious circumstances, Cara begins considering giving her two weeks. When her employers get wise to her suspicions, they might just counter with a different offer: termination, effective immediately.
We Are Satellites
We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker is about a brain altering sensation that’s sweeping the nation! Society has been transformed by the Pilot – a brain implant that helps with everything from academic achievement to social interconnectivity. While it’s not quite “Severance” procedure bad, the idea of sticking a computer chip in your head to help with productivity isn’t exactly an enticing offer, but when it’s government subsided and everyone else is doing it, the un-Piloted couple Val and Julie consider their options. We Are Satellites questions the lengths that human beings are willing to go to fit in with the herd, even if “fitting in” involves outfitting your cortex with a mini-Macbook. While it might be Elon Musk’s wet dream come true, that doesn’t mean it has to be yours too.
The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories From Dirty Computer
Written to expand upon the world of her third album, Janelle Monáe’s The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories From Dirty Computer is set in a world dominated by a corporate regime. The government of New Dawn establishes control over the civilian populace through thought policing, manipulating their memories in order to establish dominance. Seshet is one of many memory librarians – government workers who delete or change people’s memories according to New Dawn’s directives. After she learns that her lover is working for an insurrectionist cell plotting New Dawn’s downfall, Seshet begins to question if she’s on the right side of history after all. Queer lovers rebel against totalitarian corporate control? It’s Severance‘s Irving and Burt all over again.
The Echo Wife
Looking for messy alternate-self relationship drama without the unsexy corporate vibes? Sarah Gailey’s The Echo Wife is novel you need. It’s the tale of Martine – a clone of the brilliant scientist Evelyn Caldwell. Martine was supposed to be Evelyn’s better half, obedient and kind and subservient – but all that went out the window when she started having an affair with Evelyn’s husband. When Evelyn’s husband ends up dead, his two (ex) wives decide to work together to stage a cover-up. How do you get rid of a body? Clone it first, then no one will realize that it’s gone. If innie Dylan and Gretchen’s love affair went deliciously, ludicrously, soap operatically sour, you’d have this novel.
Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is the story of a group of adults looking back on their boarding school education – one that they very nearly didn’t survive. While at the Hailsham school, Kathy, Ruth and Tom spent their days living in an uneasy scholastic dream. They were tutored in creativity and art, and told little about the outside world. As they reflect upon their time, they realize that they were being nurtured in the way that farm animals are nurtured – to prepare them for slaughter. Spoiler alert: the trio are clones, raised to serve as organ donors for society. Like the innies of Severance, the children’s lives are sacrificed in order to serve a greater social “good” – that isn’t actually very good at all. How would you feel if someone died to give you a new liver? Probably same way you’d feel knowing that someone was suffering doing your job for you – not very good.
Company
Company by Max Barry is the story of Stephen Jones – a young graduate hired to work as an assistant at Zephyr Holdings. What is he assisting? He’s not exactly sure. Nothing at this bland corporate office building makes sense. The head secretary is paid to do absolutely nothing, everyone talks in unintelligible corporate-speak, and the highest office priority appears to be sussing out who stole the donut from the break room. After being promoted on a whim, Stephen begins pulling double duty as a sales rep and donut detective – though he’s not exactly sure what he’s selling or who he’s selling it to. As he attempts get to the bottom of the donut box, he uncovers a massive corporate conspiracy that stokes rebellion in the rank and file. This book is Severance‘s cousin, raised on Monty Python and Black Mirror.
Severance
Yes, there is another Severance out there, which also lampoons the inanities of corporate culture. Ling Ma’s novel is the story of Candace Chen, a first generation millennial working a boring office job for a publishing company called Spectra. The company is responsible for churning out design variations of the Bible, all while a Biblical plague is spreading beyond the office walls. Though society is collapsing all around her due to the Shen Fever pandemic, Chen continues plugging away for the company in order to keep up appearances. At its core, the novel is a satire about the lengths that companies will go to justify their own existence, buoyed by soul-sucked employees dedicated to maintaining the illusion of productivity.
Authority
The sequel to biological horror tour de force Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer’s Authority is a day in the life of Southern Reach – the facility built to monitor the encroaching environmental anomaly “Area X.” John “Control” Rodríguez is appointed to head the organization, which has failed to contain or even understand during its thirty years of existence. Despite Control’s best efforts, there’s little he can do to improve the circumstances. Area X’s corrupting influence seems to stretch beyond the boundaries of its shimmering border – and is unraveling the minds of those tasked with studying it. Like Area X itself, Southern Reach appears normal on the surface, but its employees become more and more warped as time goes on. While the Southern Reach attempts to maintain its hold on the situation, Control soon realizes that the only authority here is Area X itself.
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