SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Questions to get us started:

1. What do you think the plague in this book represented?
2. What did you think of the group that Candace falls in with?
3. What did you think of the writing?
4. What worked or didn't for you?
5. Overall thoughts?

Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions

Come and chat openly about our SF book of the month!

Oh my, those questions are too in depth for my level of memory of this book. I read it over a year ago, I think. Maybe more. Might have to borrow it again and skim to refresh.

1. What do you think the plague in this book represented?

Clearly a comment on daily city life today, and especially about how most people are drones treading the same paths of their existence without much thought. We have become ant farm, implies the author.

2. What did you think of the group that Candace falls in with?

Fun to read about, but no, just no. Another ant farm.

3. What did you think of the writing?

Almost too deadpan, but the plague symptoms definitely let the satirical cat out of the bag!

4. What worked or didn't for you?

It all was funny for me!

5. Overall thoughts?

Very funny satire.

SFFBC wrote: "Questions to get us started:

1. What do you think the plague in this book represented?

It's a very prescient book—the plague represented a plague, in the way that covid is covid, but also it represented late-stage capitalism in the way that covid also represents late-stage capitalism. Globalization, class, race, environmental destruction, even religious elements of colonialism turn an outbreak into a plague on a literal level but also a metaphorical one. In particular, the way that the plague makes people continue on their daily work routines even though the meaning has been robbed from them and the world has ended echoes the way we were so quick to "return to normal" even though people are still dying from covid and the world is on fire.

2. What did you think of the group that Candace falls in with?

I like that they were a little bit more complex than your average group of survivors in an apocalyptic story. None of them really stick with me the way she or the girls from graphic design did.

3. What did you think of the writing?

Quite beautiful. Wry without the sense that the characters existed purely as satire.

4. What worked or didn't for you?

Honestly, it all worked. I read it during lockdown and it hit me right in the feels.

5. Overall thoughts?

I actually didn't watch the show of the same title, which everyone says is excellent, because I found out it wasn't an adaptation of this and I was disappointed. Hah. That's a terrible reason to not watch something.

But honestly, it was my book of the year in 2020 and I try to force everyone to read it. Even the title evokes layers of meaning.

Not quite done, but want to record my two concerns.

Why does almost every post-apoc. story I read feature a man using Christianity as an excuse to be a tyrant? How's about a charismatic atheist, or follower of Islam, even? Maybe we can have a Christian woman luring people away from the leader with evil gossip or something... something different.

And why, in the mall, does he waste Candace's labor and give her all that time to nurse her grudge, and give the others a chance to feel concern for their futures, as they see what is being done to her? She could be part of a team that makes the mall more habitable, no? They are such a small group; it seems that they need everyone... especially since we know he's willing to assassinate people.

Ok done.

Sorry I read it more pragmatically, less symbolically. I mean, I get the multiple meanings of the title. And the beautiful writing.

But when the characters are stereotypes, rather than icons representing the universalities, much less individuals,* I'm disappointed. I don't know anyone well enough to have any idea what could possibly happen next. And I can't just drop it cold, either.

*Well, except Candace's mother. She's an individual, complex & real.

Cheryl wrote: "Not quite done, but want to record my two concerns.

Why does almost every post-apoc. story I read feature a man using Christianity as an excuse to be a tyrant? How's about a charismatic atheist, o..."

A few guesses? Christians are taught in some denominations that they must proselytize and promulgate Christianity and these folks often harass people over and over. Spreading Christianity was an excuse, too, for colonizing activities in past centuries by Christian Europeans.

I am sent a handwritten letter every month by a Johovah's Witness who tells me of being saved before the Apocalypse although I have no idea how or why I am on such a list. Also sometimes two men in white shirts knock on doors in my senior park to tell us we must be saved before Jesus comes to kill everyone on earth, you know, the actual apocalypse.

At school in the 1960's, kids who were evangelical formed a group and they were very certain they needed to get the rest of us to accept Jesus before the Apocalypse. And on downtown shopping trips, my friends and I in the 1970's tried to avoid the Scientologists, the Krishnas in orange robes and the crazy evangelicals especially yelling at you at street corners and forcing printouts in your hand about the coming Apocalypse.

This proselytizing occurred to me in an American city but I've heard fervent American Christians still will travel to Africa, even to North Korea, and to Israel to convert Jews today, some Christians are affected by a mental disorder called Jerusalem Syndrome in Israel, and to Muslim countries even in the past, to talk about accepting Jesus before the Apocalypse comes.

The action of the book happens in America, which is primarily full of Christians, so it isn't farfetched a Christian male, which until recently was the usual gender in charge of his flock, uses Christianity to keep people under his thumb. The novel is a satire set in America, so I think it makes sense. Other Apocalypse Syfy stories I've read are written by authors who have been made aware in some kind of way of Christianity and it's Apocalypse teachings.

This is still very very common all over America. We have Christian cults still everywhere, with a man in charge, often with a flock of women with weird long-hair hairstyles and long dresses, such as in Utah, trying to stay hidden for instance. Jehovah's Witnesses and evangelicals haunt many neighborhoods in my city, forcing themselves on you to talk Apocalypse.

Oh I know it happens irl. I just don't need it in every fiction. It's too easy.

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "Christians are taught in some denominations that they must proselytize and promulgate Christianity and these folks often harass people over and over. Spreading Christianity was an excuse, too, for colonizing activities in past centuries by Christian Europeans. "

at one time it was Islam doing converting people method with a huge Empire

finished the book. It was OK, but if there are sequels, I'm not interested. And it felt disjointed - I know this is in part because of the backwards and forwards in time scenes, but I felt like things were being left out especially in the current timeline.

And why, when the infrastructure is collapsing, would people go towards a cold climate rather than a place with a warmer climate. This made no sense to me so that did not work for me.

Rachel wrote:

"It's a very prescient book—"

I agree with your comments Rachel. I loved this book. The writing is great. The satire of city life spot on. But I feel there is a subtle suggestion that routine can bring meaning to our lives. Or maybe I'm just being over-optimistic?

My review of Severance is here.

Well, CBRetriever, how much sense did anything that tyrant lead them to do make sense? Chicago was his goal, so there the sheep went.

Why were they sheep? Didn't they have enough clues about his megalomania early enough? Or, is it realistic; are most of us easily herded, given a false sense of security?

Cheryl wrote: "Well, CBRetriever, how much sense did anything that tyrant lead them to do make sense? Chicago was his goal, so there the sheep went.

Why were they sheep? Didn't they have enough clues about his ..."

not sure that the main character did as she joined later after the group was already formed.

Well, I as a reader saw plenty of clues as they traveled. The choice of destination, the excuse given for that choice, were red flags early on. But I don't think I'd have been brave enough to mutiny, either, even when I was younger.

I'd like to know what other readers think, too. :)

A lot of the scenes in the book reflected how people preferred being sheep in many ways! Cultural fads, stuff bought because everyone was buying it to be cool, Instagram glamour shots and food photos - city consumer lifestyles, right?

When I was young, I was a follower of older or more confident-seeming people who claimed to have more superior talents or knowledge than I had. They were often right in their judgement or course of action, of course, but over time, I realized living in their vision of how things should go or be was often a poor fit for me.

I often ended up being a scorekeeper in the different modules of sports in gym class in high school that we were supposed to participate in, or getting a ‘she tried’ C out of gym class. I discovered I could jog but not run during the track module. So, if the teacher said we need to run, I’d run - only to learn quickly if I ran I fell over my feet. After I knocked the breath out of myself for the umpteenth time, teacher figured it out, too, that I could not run well. I had very loose joints. I was NEVER going to be good at any sport. The other kids could gain strength and skill over time. I was an oddball, a wierdo, and I didn’t like being thought an oddball or a weirdo!

The other thing which made ME a sheep were the fears I had of making errors of judgement or mistakes. My fear of making a mistake prevented me from judging for myself what to do that would be best, maybe only for me. Self-direction might cost me a friend, a job, or an opportunity, or make a wreck of my life! So, paralyzed by fear, I’d be baa-ing and doing whatever someone who seemed smarter or had more authority than me said. But this behavior was mine because of fear of being wrong.

Some of my friends who were also sheep did so out of habit or custom. They didn’t want to go against the flow. They didn’t want to be seen as being an oddball or different, or have the responsibility.

Only after seeing in many cases, and the passing of years and gaining experience, how more knowledgeable and talented leaders I believed in screwed up, too, I realized that what I had been thinking would have worked better. But until following the leader resulted in Big Losses for me several times, did I finally realize I was done being an unthinking sheep. I made the hard (for me) decision to no longer be a sheep all of the time. Now, I do a thinking/analyzing sheep-mode of socially fitting in unless I can see I need to do it different secretly or publically breaking away from the group, whatever the cost. And it DOES have costs to break away from the flock!

Ooh... lots to think about.... One of the takeaways I see are that if the characters were older or more experienced, they might have been sharper to see, and resist, the tyrannies. Irl, that translates to the young nations of Africa that have more young people than elders, and how they're subject to despots.

Also you are saying that sometimes it's ok to be a follower, just so long as it's a conscious choice. That's a nuance we don't hear very often irl!

This book reminded me a lot of Station Eleven in that both had a before and after the apocalypse structure. I thought that Station Eleven's before parts were mostly boring, but the after parts made up for them. Severance was much more focused on boring before parts, and with only a couple of exceptions, the after parts were also boring.

The plot is weak. Things happen, but the protagonist doesn't rise to meet a crisis. There is no series of increasingly challenging conflicts. The characters are not particularly memorable. The main character is both bored--by capitalism, yes, I know--and boring. I suppose it's possible to make a bored main character who is interesting, but I doubt it happens often.

This book is a perfect example of the kind of literary fiction I try to avoid. I know that not all literary fiction does away with conflict and tension, but it's not uncommon. I suspect that some critics believe that a serious literary work today shouldn't be exciting.

See, that's one of things I liked about it. It's accessible, not *L*iterary, but still doesn't rely on adventure, page-turning. And, um, as a woman, I thought the conflict, to preserve the pregnancy, was more than sufficient drama, actually.

Ok, so, yes, I don't value plot like you do. But hey, esp. in SF. I read SF for the Sense of Wonder, the What If, and the If This Goes On. If I did want an action-driven plot, I'd read a best-selling mystery thriller or adventure.

When I talk about conflict and tension, I don't necessarily mean violence. An argument or a tough decision can be conflict that creates tension. The pregnancy could have led to ambivalent thoughts about having an abortion. That was a potential conflict that was never realized.

I want to read about interesting people (characters) doing interesting things (plot). Authors often skip over boring parts by summarizing if necessary and then going on to the scene that moves things forward. The problem, in my experience of the book, was that the parts that were boring to me were making the point that the author wanted to make. I think that she could have critiqued capitalism with a story about a character who was making tough decisions, not just going with the flow.

Hm. You're not wrong.