Book Review: Extremity by Nicholas Binge

 

Extremity by Nicholas Binge

176 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication: September 16, 2025 by Tordotcom

 

I should state right off the bat that I root for every book I open to read. Binge had a huge hit on his hands with Ascension. He got a blurb from Stephen King, and he is translated into nine languages. Frankly, he has more success than me, so keep that in mind. He has incredible ideas, and I understand the appeal.  The thing is that I was challenged by Ascension. I loved the concept, but didn’t jive with the execution. The narrative was set up to be epistolary, a narrative limitation that Binge didn’t follow and apparently no editor along the way told him he was only writing like it was a letter to start chapters.   

Extremity is a book that I think has a fantastic set-up, but much like the first Binge I read, I could not jive with the writing style. 

Reviews tend to be extremely personal, as a reader, we all have things that will instantly turn us off to a reading experience, and for me, it can often be first-person narratives. Not always, there are plenty of first-person narratives I do enjoy. Often, those books cause me to forget about how the story is told. It might be a writer’s disease that most readers will not look deeply into. 

First Person is like found footage movies to me. Found footage movies often “break the rules” of the story by doing things like having a running camera set down in a room while people have a private conversation. If you are doing a first-person book, then you have to in my opinion follow the rules and not cheat. Delores Claiborne by King and Malerman’s Incidents Around the House are examples of first-person done perfectly without cheating. 

Nicholas Binge seems intent on using first person but unwilling to accept the limitations of the form.  I can’t suspend disbelief when the POV shifts between first-person narrators, because I start wondering why this person is telling the story now. It shines a spotlight on the wizard behind the curtain constantly, and I am seeing Binge’s motivations, not the characters.  

For him to switch narrators, he had to use the device of starting each point of view shift in a character's name in bold, because a reader wouldn’t know which I was telling the story. If you want a three POV story, in my opinion, it is a bad idea to do it this way. 

Now If that doesn’t bother you, and you think I am being a harsh asshole, let me tell you that Extremity is a high-concept time travel novel combined with police procedural and a bit of cosmic horror. The concept at the core is cool. The execution did not work for me.    

As an example, I will point to page 36-37

“Mark!” Julia shouts, sprinting at full tilt from the other side of the room. The girl darts away, escaping back off into the house with the rifle.

Julia grabs my gun and follows.

I try to get up, but my brain’s in shock all I can think about is the muzzle of that rifle directly in front of my eyes.”

OK, a few things...this passage ends Mark’s POV, and we switch to Julia. In a third-person narrative, I accept the author’s choice of transition. But when it is First person, I am thinking why did Mark stop telling the story with a gun in his face?

Julia Torrimsen: I knew Paul's house like the back of my hand, and by the way the shooter was moving through it, she did too. This is how Julia’s POV starts…

“I followed her left out of the back living room and into the library.”

I see why Binge is withholding POV, and giving us information. Mark was knocked out and John was going to think Julia did it. So then, before the chapter ended, he had to switch POVS again.  This is one example, but the short novel is littered with moments. Are they writing this story? Co-authors? Are they giving testimony? Why these three voices?

Sometimes they are talking to the reader, and other times not. So lets talk about when the characters talk directly to the reader. Sometimes they stay in character but often they tell the story like a novelist, which took me out of Ascension, and it took me out of the story here too.

A shame because there are interesting ideas at work. I like the idea that a time machine becomes one of the worst possible inventions.

“The great machine of our doom. The greatest invention of our time period, the last thing humanity will ever create.”

The stakes of the story are powerful, and I was interested in where it was going, so I finished it despite all my problems with it. Maybe the first-person thing doesn’t bother you, and there is a chance that this time-travel cosmic horror police procedural will work for you. It has much going for it. I wish I could say I loved it, but I gotta be honest. Binge and I have different storytelling approaches but I am sure it will work better for many of you. I don’t personally think he is being served well by editors