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Danville ophthalmologist T.D. Severin drew on his decades of experience in the medical industry, his love of writing and his passion for music to create his first novel – a thriller that finally debuted some 31 years after the first draft flowed from his finger tips.
Set in the Bay Area, including many key moments in and around the author’s hometown, “Deadly Vision” follows rising fictional physician Dr. Taylor Abrahms at San Francisco University Medical Center as he navigates professional innovation, personal ambition and the politics of health care while pursuing a revolutionary virtual reality surgery system.
“In the end, it’s a story that asks unsettling questions about innovation, accountability and the price of progress,” Severin told the Pleasanton Weekly.
“What happens when the tools designed to save us become instruments of manipulation and control, the political machinations that play behind the scenes of every medical breakthrough, and just how far one person will go to find redemption,” he added.
A Monte Vista High School alumnus whose practice is on the San Ramon Regional Medical Center campus, Severin said the concept for his debut novel started coming into view in 1994 while completing his post-doctorate fellowship in glaucoma surgery.
Inspired by the infancy of virtual reality for surgical simulation, the aspiring eye doctor completed his “first final draft” of the book in about six months and shopped it around to publishers with a literary agent.
“Their feedback was that they didn’t know what to do with the book, as it was part medical thriller, part cyber-thriller and part science fiction. I was determined for the novel to be seen as a true medical thriller,” he said, recalling rounds of revisions after-hours early in his career.
“The novel then sat on my computer untouched for 15 years while real life and business consumed my time,” Severin said. “But in 2023, as virtual reality and AI started to become commonly accepted terms, I pulled it back out, finished my revisions, got an agent and then a publisher in Penmore Press.”
Released in March 2025, “Deadly Vision” has caught the eye of many in literary circles – including earning the Literary Titan Gold Award in the fall after winning an American Fiction Award 2025 and being named a finalist for a 2025 BestThrillers Award.
The scope of Dr. Abrahms’ adventure seems to stand out.
“His innovation has the potential to transform medicine, but in an era of escalating health care costs and political turmoil, not everyone wants it to succeed,” Severin said. “As the project draws attention from media, politicians and powerful institutional rivals, Taylor finds himself navigating a minefield of ambition and distrust.”
“Inside the hospital, peers and administrators challenge his every step,” the author added, alluding to one of the key themes underlying his medical-techno thriller.
“Core to the story are the toxic politics inside an academic medical center, of which I think most people are unaware,” Severin said. “Inside the walls of the most prestigious institutions, department chairs run their departments with all the subtlety of feudal overlords, battling over space allocations, resident time, grant funding. Medical egos run wild.”
“Deadly Vision” also offers insights and references for San Ramon Valley locals.
“Our protagonist grew up on a walnut orchard way out on Tassajara Road and that setting is crucial to the story,” Severin teased. “Other locations that are key are the San Damiano Retreat, and above it on the top of Las Trampas Range is the lone oak we used to call ‘Bear Tree’. Prospect Avenue, the Danville Museum, the Danville Library, and a rundown abandoned barn off Norris Canyon Road also all make an appearance.”
A unique aspect of Severin’s novel is the chance for audiences to experience a reading soundtrack.
Music has been a major part of Severin’s life outside of his doctor’s office; he co-founded the independent record label Ripple Music in 2010, focusing on the rock subgenre heavy psych – “retro-’70s styled rock music,” as he described.
It became only natural for the “Ripple Effect” to influence the novel. Ripple’s graphic artist, Mark Aceves, designed the book’s cover, and Severin produced an accompanying soundtrack for readers who are so inclined.
“So, from start to finish, from the opening ‘heartbeat’ of the ‘Theme from Deadly Vision’ to the final climatic redemptive moment of ‘Sweet Relief’, the soundtrack expands upon the themes of the book, filling it out with another layer of sensory involvement,” Severin explained.
“It’s not necessary to listen to … it’s more a supplement, a musical journey that, from start to finish, tells the story of the novel in sound,” he added.
