Severance meets The Matrix meets Get Out in this unsettling Lovecraftian novella with many a searing point to make on late-stage capitalism

Nicholas Binge has quickly become my go-to fix for when I need some Michael Crichton in my life. Between Ascension and Extremity (one of my books of 2025), Binge’s books have become must-reads and I am thankful to Tor for my advance review copy of Abyss, a novella that is eerily unsettling while touching down on some of the anxious themes of our times and taking down on some of the productivity maxims of capitalism.

“If he keeps his earphones in, they tend to keep conversations to themselves, which is a nice universal signal. He’s thankful that the world has adapted to provide this kind of convenience. It’s easier. It’s more productive, to be honest, because people can just get on”

Abyss finds Joseph Rice, a nervous, anxious doomscroller, on the eve of joining Ponos as an administrative assistant. Joe represents the current anxieties in a nutshell – eschewing any real form of interaction for a life surrounded by digital media while tumbling down rabbit holes to avoid doing anything real, tasks, or relationships. The opportunity at Ponos seems tailor-made for him, a job that doesn’t necessarily require him to interact with anyone else. However, there are disturbing things at play at Ponos, not least a Wellness bot installed on his terminal and, without permission, on his phone that keeps track of everything that Joe does. The creepiness only further escalates, and Joe finds himself getting increasingly lost to the outside world, just immersed in the demands of the work while becoming aware of the several irregularities occurring around him in the office. The resultant story dives down some crazy rabbit holes, even as century-long hidden conspiracies start to come to life around Joe.

“Labor productivity and living standards have never been a one-to-one correlation”

The tone of the book is what gets to you immediately as you start. Joe’s anxiety and nervousness are a direct result of the writing, and you almost immediately get that neurotic feel of the book. The unsettling vibes of the book get rather deep once Joe steps into the largely empty office, and, paradoxically, they get worse when he encounters the few people at work. The presence of the bot that attaches itself to his workstation and phone amps up the paranoia, making every action feel deliberately disorienting in many ways. This makes it a truly claustrophobic read, and as a reader, you feel the heart-pounding tenseness that Joe undergoes with him in a truly immersive manner.

“That’s the promise of the beast. The promise of the modern age. Life can be more efficient and convenient for you, if you want. All you have to do is sacrifice everything”

Keeping aside the horror elements, Abyss deals with potential, purpose, and productivity in many ways through the actions, observations, and interactions of Joe. The broader point that the author tries to embed within the story is about how much we as humans loathe inconvenience and friction, the lengths we go to avoid it, and the costs we incur due to such avoidance – the digital life that we lead, eschewing human interaction, blinds us to consequences that keep adding up. AI is just going to build upon these, and the author builds up this narrative, couching it in horror elements, to illuminate this particular theme. It is also a not-so-thinly veiled critique of capitalism on how humans feel the need to be productive at all times for their sense of self-worth and broader society acceptance.

“You’re a collapsed collection of potential, coexisting in a single body”

As a result of the disorientations and the simmering claustrophobia, the book moves along fairly quickly, which is a bit of a disadvantage given that this is a novella. Abyss is a book that definitely needs 30-40 more pages for events to sink in and for Joe to breathe and live in the madness – instead, we get to see actions and events happen so quickly that there isn’t much time for us to react and experience the shock and reaction that Joe goes through. I rarely say that a book needs more pages, but this fits into that criterion.

“Maybe progress isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”

Abyss continues Binge’s stellar run and is a worthy follow-up to Extremity as it takes its shots at society and capitalism. The unsettling and disorienting nature of Abyss doesn’t lend itself to the tenseness and thrill of Extremity. Abyss, however, does a fantastic job of staying uniformly creepy and claustrophobic, drawing its inspiration from a wide variety of sources while remaining trippy as heck

Abyss is due for release on 14th May from Tor – you can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org