This theme is characterized in Candace, our flighty but practical and stubborn main character, whose life is essentially saved from the apocalypse by the dreary routine that also forced her to push her dreams and ambitions aside in exchange for safety and comfort. That what we let into our lives, the habits and routines we choose for ourselves, can often spell out our damnation just as well as they do our salvation (or vice versa). With Severance, Ling Ma has written a scathing satire about modern life, office/hustle culture, and gross, unchecked capitalism, all without succumbing to the tired sort of lectures favored by all Boomers, e.g., “technology is bad fire is scary Thomas Edison was a witch.” Instead, Ma opts for the more realistic and nuanced approach of letting us know that, actually, we make our own apocalypses. Stuck on a loop, until their bodies give out.⠀ The fevered drive and go to work and then they go home. No, the fevered here are simply humans, cursed to the routine of their previous lives. Ling Ma’s zombies - called fevered here - are not brainless monsters, looking to devour flesh. Severance follows Candace Chen as she tries to live in a world that has fallen after a slow plague renders those infected into, essentially, the walking dead.⠀
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