Recursion

 

Recursion by Blake Crouch

Science Fiction

2019 Crown

Finished on April 18, 2023

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Publisher's Blurb:

Memory makes reality.

That's what NYC cop Barry Sutton is learning, as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.

That's what neuroscientist Helena Smith believes. It's why she's dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious memories. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.

As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face to face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds, but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.

But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?

At once a relentless page-turner and an intricate science-fiction puzzle box about time, identity, and memory, Recursion is a thriller as only Blake Crouch could imagine it—and his most ambitious, mind-boggling, irresistible work to date.

Holy smokes! No sophomore slump for Blake Crouch. This is one terrific thriller! I read his previous novel, Dark Matter, in 2016 and thought it was very good, but Recursion is even better. This page-turner checks all the boxes: 

• I didn't want it to end.
• I couldn't put it down. 
• It invaded my dreams. 
• I wish I was still a bookseller, so I could handsell it to everyone who walks in the store. 
• I want someone to write the screenplay.* 
• I want to read it again. 

Recursion is the perfect mash-up of all the movies and shows that I love: The Matrix, Minority Report, Fringe, and Back to the Future. It's one of the most mind-bending time travel stories I've read, and like Dark Matter, I didn't even try to understand the quantum physics, or try to keep track of Barry and Helena's timelines. I just went along for the ride, and what an entertaining ride it was!

A few favorite passages:

He has wondered lately if that’s all living really is—one long goodbye to those we love.

and

There are so few things in our existence we can count on to give us the sense of permanence, of the ground beneath our feet. People fail us. Our bodies fail us. We fail ourselves. He's experienced all of that. But what do you cling to, moment to moment, if memories can simply change. What, then, is real? And if the answer is nothing, where does that leave us? 

Kudos, Blake Crouch. You hit this one out of the park.

Is it too soon to dive into Upgrade, Crouch's most recent release?

*Yay! From Crouch's website:

His novel, Recursion, is currently being developed as a Netflix series by Shonda Rhimes and Matt Reeves.

In other news (also from Crouch's website):

Apple TV+ announced it has landed “Dark Matter,” a new nine-episode series based on the blockbuster book by Blake Crouch. Starring Joel Edgerton (“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Boy Erased,” “Loving”), who also serves as executive producer, the series will be written and showrun by Crouch, and will be produced for Apple TV+ by Sony Pictures Television.

Hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels of the decade, “Dark Matter” is a story about the road not taken. The series will follow Jason Dessen (played by Edgerton), a physicist, professor, and family man who — one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago — is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Wonder quickly turns to nightmare when he tries to return to his reality amid the multiverse of lives he could have lived. In this labyrinth of mind-bending realities, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family and save them from the most terrifying, unbeatable foe imaginable: himself.

“Dark Matter” will be executive produced by Matt Tolmach (“Jumanji” franchise, “Venom,” “Future Man”) and David Manpearl for Matt Tolmach Productions. Crouch will write the pilot script and serve as showrunner and executive producer on the series, and Louis Leterrier (“Now You See Me,” “Lupin,” “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance”) is set to direct the first four episodes.

“Dark Matter” will premiere alongside an expanding slate of acclaimed and sweeping sci-fi series, including the third season of the Emmy Award-winning “For All Mankind,” also produced by Sony Pictures Television and created by Ronald D. Moore and Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominees Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert; and the highly anticipated second season of “Foundation,” the epic saga from storyteller David S. Goyer, based on the award-winning novels by Isaac Asimov.