This Quiet Sci-Fi Novel Asks the Same Questions as Severance

Severance has prompted plenty of recommendations, but one of its closest thematic cousins isn’t another TV series at all. It’s Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel, a deceptively quiet work of science fiction that asks many of the same unsettling questions about identity, personhood, and what remains of us when our lives are reduced to a single purpose.

Both works explore divided identities from different angles. Dan Erickson’s series asks what happens when a single person is split into two selves, turning memory into the foundation of identity as Lumon’s employees become “innies” and “outies.” Ishiguro poses a parallel question through Klara, an artificial companion designed to observe and imitate people so closely that she’s even considered a possible continuation of Josie, prompting the novel to ask whether perfect imitation is the same as becoming someone.

Their most unsettling connection is utility.

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