“Recursion”

“Recursion”

Written by Blake Crouch

Reviewed by Diana Iozzia

“Recursion” is the science fiction thriller that I needed to read at the exact moment that I chose to read it. And boy, did it take me a while to be ready to read it. I had started reading this in June, but I found myself far interested in other books. However, I had heard such fantastic things about it and really sat down to pick it up again.

In this story, we are introduced to Helena, a brilliant scientist. After a diagnosis of dementia for her mother, she is compelled to create a memory chair, that brings your most important ‘flashbulb’ memories and lets you relive them. In a parallel timeline, we meet fragile Barry, who works as a police detective. He’s a rough and sad man, whose daughter had been killed a few years prior. His marriage failed afterwards. Barry is investigating False Memory Syndrome. People are beginning to remember things that have happened to them in fake lives, unsure of why they are imaging these things. As a result of False Memory Syndrome, many people in America have chosen to commit suicide or harm others.

We continue through the story, as we watch Helena create her machine, agreeing to team up with villain Marcus Slade. Now, how can we tell he’s a villain from the first time we meet him? Any white, middle-aged, handsome man with dark glasses in a nice suit on a recommissioned oil rig who says “Do you want to change the world with me?” is most likely going to be the core villain. Marcus Slade is an incredible antagonist and ‘mad scientist’ character. He is cunning and very manipulative, but he also has some brilliant ideas. Watching him devolve into a villain is a fantastic process.

Due to the memory chair being manipulated and changed by Slade and the government, memories are rewritten, knocking out any of the previous lives but keeping them as false memories, instead of creating paradoxes. The science fiction element here allows us to suspend a little disbelief, but the concept is certainly fascinating. These events resulting from the ‘dead memories’, the ones that exist but aren’t real, propel Helena and Barry into an end-of-the-world adventure, leaping through various different timelines, sometimes remembering each other and dying in many different ways. In the end, we have a relatively satisfying final timeline, however, I would have done it a bit differently.

This book was a wild ride, and I highly recommend it. With fast paced action and dialogue, you feel like you’re thrown along with the rest of the characters. I’d love to see this made into a mini-series. I’ve enjoyed other adaptations of Blake Crouch’s work. I’d happily consider reading more by him in the future.

I received an advance reader’s copy of this book from the publisher in exchange that I would read and review the book.