Recursion: A Novel

Odds are, you’ve seen that picture of an iceberg online a thousand times — the one that shows 10% of the ice breaking above the water, while that enormous remaining 90% lies hidden beneath arctic waters (just google “iceberg meme” if you’re unfamiliar). That’s what reading Blake Crouch reminds me of. There’s that small surface idea you can latch onto, but the intelligence, concepts, and flat-out craziness of its execution have so much depth lurking beneath the initial premise. You never quite know what you’re getting into regardless of how simplistic the 10% pitch sounds, beyond knowing full well that things are going to get slippery in short order, because Crouch is going to take you into an incredibly deep dive through the other 90% and show you just how complex and rocky the rest of that iceberg really is.If you read Crouch’s previous outing, Dark Matter, then you have a fair idea of what to expect with Recursion. While the former dealt with alternate realities, the latter tackles the issue of False Memory Syndrome…or at least that’s where things begin. As Crouch plumbs the fallibility and flexibility of memories and a startlingly bright premise of how and where such false memories could originate from, this sucker takes on more wrinkles than Einstein’s brain.The bulk of Recursion is told through the perspective of two central characters, Detective Barry Sutton and Dr. Helena Smith. Smith is a neuroscientist seeking a cure for Alzheimer’s in the hope of curing her’s mother terminal descent into dementia. Her plan is construct a machine that can record a person’s most valued memories for posterity. Sutton, meanwhile, is investigating the devastating rise of False Memory reports following his failure to prevent a woman’s suicide. The woman, Ann Voss Peters, couldn’t handle the mental rewiring of her memories as she was forced to reconcile the life she thought she knew with the radically different life she suddenly remembers. The deeper Sutton’s investigation goes, the more he learns…and the more questions he uncovers. It potent, heady stuff, and then Crouch, as he’s wont to do, turns it all sideways, upside down, and shakes the ever-loving hell out of it.Now, I have to tell you, flat-out, that discussing anything more about Recursion would have me wading up to my neck in spoiler territory so I’m going to avoid discussing any of the plot’s specifics. I will say, though, that what Sutton and Smith get up to and the forces they confront are every bit as twisty and turny as the cover image’s infinite loop and the maze etched inside that figure-eight.Crouch is a master at delivering a bonkers, high-concept story that’s easily accessible, but which also mocks the entire idea of being simple. Tackling a subject like False Memory Syndrome is a storytelling mine filled with diamond-encrusted potential, but Crouch takes it into next-gen territory, leveling up his premise with each successive chapter. There’s a heavy load of physics at play here, and the author utilizes Newton’s third law regarding action/reaction magnificently. Consequences build and build and build before erupting with glorious devastation in a climax that cranks things up to eleven. And then twelve. And then thirteen. And then, amidst so much rich, chewy brain-candy, he delivers a tear-jerker denouement that goes straight for the heart.Recursion is high on action and moves along with the speed of a bullet train, but all its most potent brawn comes straight from the brain. I don’t know what Crouch’s background is, but having read several of his prior novels I’m now pretty damn well convinced the dude is a diabolical genius. Crouch is smart, damn smart, and he knows how to leverage all those hugely cerebral ideas into rapid-fire page-turners of science fiction gold. His are the types of books I don’t just read, but devour and am immediately left hungry for more. Whatever he’s cooking up next, I am more than ready for it.[Note: I received an ARC of this from the publisher via NetGalley. I immediately ordered the hardcover from Amazon.]

RECURSION is an outstanding hard sci-fi novel from Blake Crouch. I decided to re-read Crouch's penultimate novel, DARK MATTER (2016), before RECURSION because I had a hunch that there might be some relation between the two. I’m glad I did. I raised my rating from 4 to 5 stars upon the re-read and realized that Crouch is right up there with the very best of the current generation of hard sci-fi authors.I’ve been reading Crouch for a long while. His earlier works were masterpieces of horror, often with no little or supernatural aspects (try ABANDON, for example). RECURSION is solid sci-fi dealing with such heady topics (heh heh) as the nature of memory, neuroscience, time, physics, philosophy and more. It starts with a plague of FMS, “False Memory Syndrome”, as one of the main protagonists, NYPD cop Barry Sutton is called to the scene of an impending suicide who suddenly remembers a totally different life than the one she is living. This FMS seems to be becoming something of a plague, and the number of suicides is rapidly rising. The novel explodes forwards from there. The other principal, Helena Smith, is a neuroscientist working on the neurophysiology of memory, in large part to try and build a device that could record her mid-stage Alzheimer's Disease mother's memories before they disappear forever. The sequela of her invention has implications that question our concepts of time, reality, the multiverse and more. I could not put the novel down, and read the whole thing in about 24 hours with 8 or so hours of sleep intercalated.Most Highly Recommended.JMps. In response to a really mean-spirited one star review that destroyed that science in the novel, I’d like to admit that I am a Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience at Rutgers and I thought ALL of the science and philosophy was spot on and very timely.

I realize sci-fi is speculative fiction, but this story borders on the ridiculous. The entire premise of the book is so far from scientifically sound as to be preposterous. The characters are more simulacra of real human beings. The action is boring. The romance contrived. The only thing this book has that is moderately redeeming is that, of this technology ever did exist, it would be grossly misused and abused by those in power. This, however, is an old hack (Stephenson did the same thing in D.O.D.O last year). In short, there is nothing new, interesting, or even thought-provoking here. Move on to something more worthy of your time.

This book. This wonderful book. This wonderful, mesmerizing, highly entertaining book. I’ve been existing in a daze since I finished “Recursion” yesterday. Read it in one long reading marathon. If you remember how you felt after seeing “The Matrix”, when suddenly everything strange in the world made sense, you’re going to love the insight you’ll receive from this story. I don’t know if Blake is only impossibly gifted, or if he knows something the rest of us don’t (I’m suspecting both are true), but this guy writes with conviction. His skill at writing is exceptional, but it’s the characters that come to life under his pen that you’ll remember. Flawed, haunted, grieving both personally and for the world, the two main characters are folks you’d like to know, people you would hang with. People who step up to the plate and never tire of trying to knock it out of the park. The supporting cast is just as memorable and important to the tale, and come alive within the pages. You absolutely cannot go wrong buying this book. You will be highly entertained, but more importantly the concept will make you think, and maybe even open up some new neural pathways in that brain of yours. Go for it. You absolutely will not be sorry.

With the release of his phenomenal hard sci-fi novel, Dark Matter, Blake Crouch engraved himself in the minds of many readers as a master of psychological suspense. Now, three years later, it seems Crouch has found a niche and is, to the delight of his ensnared fans, mining it. Recursion is every bit as phenomenal as DM and is sure to satisfy anyone who loved that book.The novel opens with Barry Sutton, an NYPD officer, trying to coax a distraught woman away from the edge of a Manhattan rooftop as she tells him of her pain at remembering a life she never lived. "My son has been erased," are the final words she says to Barry before throwing herself off the building. This event is the catalyst that leads Barry to further investigation into a bizarre, unexplained condition called False Memory Syndrome (FMS) which causes people to develop memories of things that never actually happened.His investigation takes him down a path of shocking discovery with implications that could change the world forever.Sound vague? Well, this is a story you'll want to dive into without knowing a lot. It makes the many revelations and twists better - the same with DM.With a narrative built around questions of memory and consciousness, I found the descriptions of the characters' memories particularly vivid and convincingly tangible. I also liked that the story was told completely in the present tense as it made the scenes feel as though they were happening in the present moment and helped bring them to life.Recursion is perhaps more relevant to today than DM was, as there are references to things like the Mandela Effect, deja vu, and a recent real-life experiment where scientists successfully manipulated the memories of mice. Because these are things that have recently circulated pop culture, things people are familiar with, these references add a layer of realism to the story.The stakes are colossal, the characters are the perfect propelling forces of the story, and the big reveals are placed at exactly the right moments. Crouch is talented at putting super complicated ideas - involving things like quantum particle physics - into words in such a way that they are digestible to readers who aren't scientifically inclined. Recursion does get a tad convoluted and confusing towards the middle of the book, but this is probably inevitable with the scale and complexity of the ideas within it.I hope Crouch continues to write more books in this goldmine-of-a-niche he seems to have struck. They are gripping and unlike any other books I have read.

Kudos to the creator of a beast with more lives than a cat sanctuary. Reading this felt like I’d fallen down a thousand rabbit holes, which I was compelled to leap into again, and again.How in hell such a colossal yet effortlessly evolving plot manifested from anyone’s brain I guess I’ll never know. But I am convinced their house is wallpapered in trillions of Post-It notes and they can’t have slept for at least five years.The timeline is never-ending loop that is over-written with almost every page turn. As a result it contains a bounty of memories forged by characters whose intentions form the tip of a ruddy great iceberg of unforeseeable consequences.Interfering with the natural order of events will certainly raise moral eyebrows everywhere, particularly as the ordinary folk featured in this tale are carried along by events but are unable to process the overlapping confusion that ensues.In short, this book is a crisscrossing, mind-melting imagining of mammoth proportions and I’m delighted to have stumbled across it by happy accident, as its concept commanded my full attention throughout. Would seek out this author again for sure.

Wowzer! What a story, Blake Crouch is a king of story writers, creating fine details that draw you in and snare you as if you're really there.Fantastic characters, thrilling, complex plot line and compelling story that leaves you racing to the end and then sorry that you did because then it's all over!Besides all that amazingness Mr Crouch explores fascinating science and physics and leaves you questioning and thoughtful about our place in the Universe, and about the passage of time itself, in fact does time even exist?Like many science fiction novels they pave the way for new and exciting steps forward in science development and Recusion is no different, already there are similar experiments on memory capture being made! Who knows what the future holds, but let's hope its not the downfall of mankind!Highly recommended read.

What if you could re-live your life to fix something that went wrong? What if that fix could only, inevitably, lead to only one horrifying conclusion that cannot be fixed? This is the nightmare of “Recursion”. I read this off the back of the reputation of Crouch’s “Dark Matter” (2016) which is the only example of his work that I am familiar with. “Dark Matter” was stunning and “Recursion” is very much in the same mould. Both share a mind-bending premise that deals with how our perception of reality makes our reality. This was a concept so beloved of Philip K Dick that it is of no surprise that the parallels have been drawn. Think "Minority Report" meets "Total Recall" with a whole bunch a brain-bending conundrums that PKD could never have dreamt of. Crouch’s stories have an impact at an emotional level. His characters are place into torturous personal situations where it looks like there is no hope of them ever being reunited with the people they love. When that moment of re-connection is delivered Crouch’s writing becomes dense and heart wrought. He delivers an intensity and agony revealing the inner landscape of the human experience in a fashion you seldom see in any kind of fiction today. This extends to something beyond mere sci fi. It is a sub-genre apart. A kind of emo-sci-fi. The two books have a scientific basis for the technology that are ingenious and original. Yet they are also so important to the resulting narrative. This is not the sort of fiction that throws in a time machine or inter-dimensional travel device as a gimmick then spins an all-too-familiar yarn. In Crouches books the device is central to the plot yet the technology only works inside a framework of the irrationality of the human mind. This is not a universe of simple cause and effect. The characters have not got a piece of cool tech where they punch in some code to do something predictable. The outcomes are as wildly unpredictable, difficult and complicated as tech’s operators are. It is our humanity – how we think - that is key to how the technology screws up the world. This goes beyond simple story telling about money, power, greed or jealousy. The story-magic revolves around characters suffering loss, over-reaching ambition or simply love. This book is tight, fast moving and gripping. You will not want to put it down. An utter adrenaline-rush-joy-ride.

What is the nature of reality? If you could change the past, would you? How would you react if you suddenly gained memories of a life you hadn't lived? This book poses these questions and more as the two main characters, NYPD police officer Barry Sutton and scientist, Helena Smith, battle against forces intent on manipulating the world with a new and dangerous technology.The time travel genre is one that has been overworked. This book takes a novel approach to the subject that will keep you turning the pages as the main characters attempt to solve a terrifying conundrum and rescue humanity's future.There are very few books that have affected my dreams, but this is one of them. Another reviewer called this novel "The best science fiction ever written". That may or may not be true, but it's certainly up there as one of the best I have read.