A first look at Digital Asylum by David Galle, coming November 11, 2026.
It’s the year 2078. A man sits on his couch in a messy living room, trying to meditate. A calm voice in his speakers tells him to focus on his breath. He tries. Then the thoughts come anyway: the dishes, the laundry, the smell, how long it’s been since he showered. He opens his eyes and gives up.
Nothing explodes. Nobody gets chased. It’s a small scene, and it wrecked me.
That scene comes from Digital Asylum by David Galle, a speculative fiction novel out November 11. I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
Full disclosure, before we go any further: David is my partner. So yes, I’m biased. I’m also someone who read 50 speculative fiction books this past year, and I wouldn’t put my name on a recommendation I didn’t mean. You can decide if I’ve earned your trust.
My year in speculative fiction
A few books that stayed with me this year:
- The Silo series by Hugh Howey: a whole world buried in the ground, and I couldn’t stop digging.
- Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman: the funniest, most unhinged series I read all year, with way more heart than it has any right to.
- Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel: quiet, strange, and beautiful. I’m still turning it over.
Digital Asylum holds its own in that company. In fact, it’s my pick for the best speculative fiction book of 2026. Here’s why.
What it’s about (no spoilers, I promise)
Marlow is thirty-two, sarcastic, and grieving. His wife, Lodi, is gone, and he’s falling apart in ways he can’t see. His way forward is Synthetic Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a brand-new treatment from Flow.
Flow is the company that runs almost everything in America: phones, hospitals, social media, even the driverless car that takes Marlow home and then rates him three stars for yelling. Flow isn’t evil. It’s just very, very good at business, which is somehow scarier.
The therapy takes Marlow to a mountaintop glen where gold glints in the streams and a calm guide named Lucie seems to know what he’s thinking before he says it. Flow promises a one hundred percent success rate.
That’s all I’ll say about the plot.
If you liked…
- Recursion by Blake Crouch: memory, grief, and a tech giant behind the curtain.
- The Circle by Dave Eggers: one company quietly running your whole life.
- Black Mirror: that sick, smart feeling of a future that’s a little too close.
Digital Asylum has all three, but it slows down and lives inside one man’s head.
Why I can’t shake it
- The grief feels real. Not movie grief. Dishes-in-the-sink, can’t-open-the-bedroom-door grief.
- The future is believable. Every piece of tech feels like something we’ll have in ten years.
- Marlow is funny, and you won’t always like him. That’s the point.
One line from the first chapter, so you can hear the voice:
“Marlow looked at her the way a cat looks at a bathtub.”
What’s next
Every week until launch, I’ll share a little more. Next Sunday: the world of Flow, and why one app running everything sounds convenient until it doesn’t.
See you next Sunday.
Quick answers
- What is Digital Asylum about? A grieving man in 2078 tries an experimental therapy from Flow, the company that controls most of daily life.
- Who wrote it? David Galle.
- When does it come out? November 11, 2026, as a Kindle ebook and paperback on Amazon.
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