Book Review: Dissolution by Nicholas Binge
A mind-bending science-fiction thriller with a pensioner-aged protagonist
Harper Voyager, 2025
“Not many white folk come looking for the before-past,” Simon said as they trod across the crusty ground. “Not many whitefellas interested in the deep time.”
“The before-past? The deep time?”
“Whitefellas like you use the word dreamtime — but it’s a reductive term. Covers everything from the Altjira of the Arrende people to the Jukurrpa of the Warlpiri, as if they’re all the same thing. For me, I’m talking about the time before time. And the time after time. Thinking on a deep scale.”
Stanley frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Deep time is the time that is far longer than any single human life, far longer than any single human civilization,” Simon replied. He didn’t stop or turn. He spoke the words ahead of him, out to the horizon. “It’s impossible for you to understand. Your culture is based around shallow time. You see? Everything you do, everything you set out to achieve, it’s based around a single lifetime. A few years. Even those who plan for future generations only think about fifty, maybe a hundred, years into the future. That’s shallow time. Deep time humbles the human moment. What do the tens of thousands of years care for your plans?”
Dissolution marks Nicholas Binge’s second outing with Harper Voyager, after 2023’s Ascension was published to commercial acclaim (and a shout out from Stephen King). Shifting gears from the peaks of a mountain to the malleable depths of the mind, Binge has hit upon a winning formula combining unlikely protagonists with thought-bending concepts to create the sort of cerebral thrillers which effortlessly lend themselves to future screen adaptions.
Case in point, Dissolution’s hero is Maggie Webb, a pensioner with mobility issues tasked with... delving into her insensible husband’s memories.
What follows is a generational saga flitting between the 1950s and the present: from the draughty halls of an English boarding school to the scorching deserts of the Australian Outback; where mind, science and time converge towards a cosmic horror which would make HP Lovecraft proud.
Inevitable comparisons to Nolan, Blake Crouch or Michael Crichton will no doubt surface in time, but I’d place Dissolution up there with the works of Japanese horror maestro Koji Suzuki, who wrote Ring (yes, that Ring which spawned the mega horror franchise). In particular, Suzuki’s latest English translation, Edge, would make a great pairing if disconcerting, unstoppable dread is your thing.
Wonderful stuff.
This review originally appeared in Dispatch Edition #4.
The Dispatch is a monthly roundup by British speculative fiction writer, Jordan Acosta. News, short reviews and more, published every first Thursday. You can subscribe at jordanacosta.co, and read previous editions, here.
