Books like “Severance”

What to read after “Severance” by Ling Ma: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel · 2014
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
After a flu wipes out most of humanity, a travelling theatre troupe moves between the small settlements that remain, performing Shakespeare. The story follows survivors across decades and asks what of civilization is worth carrying forward.
2
The Road
Cormac McCarthy · 2006
Same genre: “Post-apocalyptic fiction” and “Literary fiction”
A father and his young son walk through a burned America, pushing a cart of scavenged supplies and hiding from bands of survivors who hunt people for food. Their only aim is to keep moving south and stay alive while holding on to decency.
3
Earth Abides
George R. Stewart · 1949
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
A plague kills nearly everyone on Earth. An ecologist emerges from the mountains to find empty cities and a few survivors, and spends the rest of his life watching a new, smaller society take shape without the old world's machinery.
4
Dungeon Crawler Carl
Matt Dinniman · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
When an alien corporation turns Earth into a lethal dungeon for an intergalactic reality show, Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, enter the levels. Carl's only plan is to survive the cameras, the monsters and the audience.
5
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller Jr. · 1959
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
After a nuclear war, monks in a desert abbey preserve the few books that survive, including a blueprint signed by a martyred engineer. Across centuries they copy, guard and argue over the relics while civilisation slowly rebuilds and then repeats its old mistakes.
6
The 5th Wave
Rick Yancey · 2013
Same genre: “Post-apocalyptic fiction”
After a series of waves wipes out most of humanity, sixteen-year-old Cassie is alone and running from an enemy that could look like anyone. To find her little brother she will have to trust a stranger, even as she learns how the invasion really works.
7
The Year of the Flood
Margaret Atwood · 2009
Same genre: “Post-apocalyptic fiction”
A religious sect called God's Gardeners expects a coming catastrophe and tries to live apart from the corrupt world around it. Two women, Toby and Ren, tell how they reached the group and what happened to them after the disaster they predicted.
8
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson · 1992
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
In a future Los Angeles split between franchised city-states, a hacker and a teenage skateboard courier chase a drug that works on both computers and human minds. The trail runs from the neon Metaverse to ancient languages and a plan to reshape civilisation.
9
Wool
Hugh Howey · 2011
Same genre: “Post-apocalyptic fiction”
- Post-Apocalyptic World
- Survival
In a future where the air outside is deadly, people live in a buried silo and are told that anyone who asks to go outside will be sent there to die. When a sheriff starts asking questions about the world beyond the walls, the silo's careful order begins to crack.
10
The Postman
David Brin · 1985
Same genre: “Post-apocalyptic fiction”
- Post-Apocalyptic World
- Survival
A wanderer in a ruined America puts on a dead postman's uniform and invents a story about a restored postal service. The lie gives scattered survivors hope, then grows into something he must defend.
11
Convenience Store Woman
Sayaka Murata · 2016
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
Keiko has worked at the same Tokyo convenience store for eighteen years and is content there, until the people around her begin pressuring her to want a normal life. Deadpan and sharp, the novel follows her attempt to perform the life others expect, by staging a relationship she does not want.
12
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut · 1969
Similar atmosphere: “Satire”
- Satire
Billy Pilgrim, a chaplain's assistant and prisoner of war in Dresden, becomes unstuck in time, living his life out of order among moments in the war and on another planet. His flat, looping account turns a firebombing and a life's small cruelties into a dark joke about fate.