Seth's Thoughts:
Lately, I've been reading whatever books my wife plops in my lap. Recursion is no exception to that. I asked what it was about, and she said science stuff. So, I picked it up and gave it a read through. It kept my interest most of the way through. The twist at the end is foreshadowed pretty heavily throughout the book, but it wasn't enjoyably executed. The thing is, I read a lot of sci-fi, and it wasn't something that hasn't been explored better by better writers in the past. Not to say the author didn't write a good story, but I literally have sci-fi anthology books that stack up as tall as me. I guess I'm just a jaded sci-fi reader.

Seth gives Recursion: 2.5/5.

The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar. It was tense.

That’s an editor’s joke and it always cracks me up; I love how clever it is. Well, with this book, the past, present, and future walked into my head, and it was tense, all right, but not a good tense. It was tense because I was friggin’ confused. And nothing about it cracked me up or made me think it was clever.

Well, I lie. At the beginning I was all gung-ho. The opening scene is a killer—a likeable cop, Barry, is trying to talk a woman off a ledge. He’s a good cop with a painful past. And the other main character is also likeable: a scientist, Helena, who created a chair so that people who sat in it could restore their memories—she hoped to help her mom, who had Alzheimer’s. There also is an evil guy who has very bad chair plans. The chair is a big, big deal.

At the beginning, there are just two timelines: a present, action-filled timeline, and a tantalizing one created by some cool thing called false memory syndrome, which possibly is contagious. Juicy, right? And at first, oh how I loved that chair! It was spiffy, inventive, magical, smart.

I was patting myself on the back because I was reading sci-fi, damn it, and I was loving it. This Crouch guy can write. Interesting characters, fast-moving plot. I’m so in.

Before I say anything else, I have to explain how I came about reading sci-fi—I who love literary and contemporary fiction. It’s simple: I was stupid—stupid not to have read the blurb. I pride myself in going into a book blind. No spoilers for me, no sirree. I want to be totally surprised. This time, though, I should have broken my rule and saved myself the pain of reading this book. Bad idea to go into it blind, bad idea.

So why did I choose this book in the first place? I blame it on the damn TV. I watched a smart series called Good Behavior, a show about a sexy hit man and his sexy con-woman girlfriend (Michelle Dockery from the TV series Downton Abbey). Every time the credits rolled at the end of an episode, I saw that the writer was Blake Crouch. Blake Crouch, Blake Crouch, Blake Crouch. Zap! Hit me with that cool name enough times, and it’s planted in my memory forever. So when I saw that he had just published Recursion, I thought, hey, why not read it? I loved his TV series. All jazzed, I figured I was settling into a clever crime drama. Wrong! Imagine my surprise when I realized immediately that it was sci-fi. How did I know the writer can do different genres? I’m innocent here.

This book went from a 5 to a 4 to a 3 to a 2, and so did the beloved chair. What a plunge! Wish it had been an exciting countdown instead of a case of falling stars. It was a slow decline at first, but by the last third of the book, I was a maniac. I wanted to be a bossy bitch and tell Barry and Helena to stand up and move, not sit still in that horrid chair. “No no no no no. Do not, I repeat, do not, sit in that chair one more time!!! Step away from the vehicle! You’ve been here and there and then back again just too many times! I’m sick of this! You’re driving me nuts!”

This chair that I once loved? Now I hated it with all my might. Every time they sat, they went to another timeline and the story got completely confusing. Memories were all over the place. We’re not just talking your garden-variety memories—there are false memories and dead memories, too. How was I expected to tell them apart? And to make matters worse, we were told to question reality: I couldn’t tell if the characters were in reality of any sort (and they couldn’t either). Did the past really happen the way they’re saying it did? Or were they in a fake past reality?

You’re supposed to be sad when a main character dies, it’s supposed to be a big deal. But in this book, who cares? You’ll probably see them alive in the next chapter! The characters die and get alive again so many times, it’s ridiculous. It was like they cried wolf too many times: “I died. Feel sorry for me. Just kidding, here I am again. Okay, this time I really did die. Ha! Fooled you again!” Now how can you care about the characters with this going on?!

Oh, and another peeve. Usually, when the characters went back to the past, they remembered the future, which you might expect, right? But sometimes they got all scared and acted like they were clueless about what would happen next. Huh? Why were they scared when they knew the outcome? This just seemed like bad writing, and it bugged me to death.

I know there are people who bounced back and forth through memories and timelines and had a hell of a good time reading this book. I just wasn’t one of them. I wish I could just sit here in my regular (but nonetheless spiffy) chair and erase the memory of reading this book!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

Really enjoyed the new one from Blake Crouch. Liked Dark Matter more. This is fun, fast-paced suspense that pulls the reader in quickly.

I don’t remember how I stumbled upon Crouch’s Dark Matter, but that book sealed the deal for me as a sci-fi fan. It blew my mind in his brilliant way of mixing science and philosophy to make me want to examine my own life. Recursion was his long-awaited work that I expected to shake my world as much as his earlier book. It did not quite affect me like Dark Matter did, but it was also an excellent mixture of the philosophical and scientific that compelled me to introspection. I think that’s what make a book good.

The main characters, Barry and Helen, are quite relatable. Barry is a detective whose suicide case sucked him into a mysterious mental disorder. Helen is a neuroscientist trying to design a special chair that would help her sick mother retain her quickly losing memories. The storyline starts from two different times and perspectives of Barry and Helen. Somewhere in the middle, their stories converge and that’s when it gets really interesting. The storyline is not straightforward and left me guessing half the time. About halfway through, it seemed there was a resolution, but then it just kept going with more interest-grabbing twists and turns.

I usually dislike any form of a time travel plot, but Crouch made it so it didn’t leave me with lots of questions and plot holes. His repetitive explanation of the science behind the plot was really helpful to keep me engaged. Just like Dark Matter, this is not straight sci-fi, but has elements of suspense and even romance. I did guess the resolution about 2/3 of the way, but didn’t know how it was going to play out. It was a satisfying conclusion that left me imagining my own future for the fearless Barry and Helen.

I finished this book several days ago and had to think about my review. Then I came here and read others' reviews. Mine isn't nearly as erudite or eloquent. But I have to add my voice here to honor this masterpiece.

First off, the concept of our memories: how they make us who we are, every experience close up and personal, to all the happenings in the world around us... This book blows my mind in the way the author handled this subject. It's not an easy read. Fortunately, my Aspie mind was able to grasp the scientific parts to make some kind of sense so I didn't get too muddled.

But it's the underlying humanity of it all--what it means when something messes with our memories, the heart of who we are and why, our relationships, utter joy, unbearable pain, and all the emotions in between--that grabbed me throughout the story and pulled me into its spell. It's a story full of heart, heartbreak, and hope. A story of tenacity and sacrifice. Frailty. Strength.

By the time I read The End, I was, quite simply, knackered. It's been too long since a book made me think and feel and reflect this deeply. I hope I don't have to wait as long for the next.

My humble gratitude to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

From Merriam-Webster, “borrowed from Late Latin recursiōn-, recursiō "return," from Latin recurrere "to run back, return" + -tiōn-, -tiō, suffix of verbal action.”

“Recursion” by Blake Crouch does not waste any time drawing in the reader! It opens with a woman, Ann, on a ledge high above a New York City Street. Barry, the police office dispatched to rescue her, quickly learns that Ann has False Memory Syndrome (FMS)-a condition that produces memories of a life that never actually existed. Ann had previously made contact with her husband from these false memories, but he did not seem to remember her at all. She jumps to her death. Intrigued by Ann’s story, Barry decides to do a little investigating. He ends up stumbling into something he never imagined to be possible.

Intertwined with Barry’s story is the story of Helena, a neuroscientist studying memory, and dedicated to developing a method to allow Alzheimer’s patients to recover their lost memories. A billionaire who purports to want to make her dream a reality recruits her and offers to completely fund her research.
Eventually, the two story lines merge in a most expected way.

“Recursion” is an entertaining, quick read. I could not read it fast enough-I devoured every word. The plot is exciting and original. Even though Science Fiction is not typically my preferred genre, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and now look forward to reading Mr. Crouch’s other works. This book well deserves all of the hype surrounding it-I give it five solid stars.

This book blew my mind! At first I thought it was a bit hard to follow but then everything clicked and I really enjoyed reading the different time lines. Another great book!

LOVED this book! Wow. Crouch is a wonderful author! I am going to be recommending this book for months. It was so good!

3.5 stars

Helena Smith is a brilliant neuroscientist who can't bear to watch her mother slowly lose her mind to Alzheimer's Disease. Like other dementia patients, Helena's mom is losing her memories, and will eventually recall nothing of her life or family.

In an effort to help her mother and other people suffering from Alzheimer's, Helena is trying to develop a technology that will capture a person's memories, so they can be retrieved at a later time.

Put very simply, the proposed device is a chair with a helmet that maps the hundreds of millions of neurons that fire during a memory, like when you remember going to Baskin Robbins. Later on, stimulation of those exact neurons will vividly reactivate the memory of going to the ice cream shop.

By 2007 Helena's research money is running out and multi-billionaire Marcus Slade makes an offer she can't refuse. So Helena is soon living and working on a re-purposed oil rig in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of miles from shore. There Helena is supervising teams of scientists and computer engineers.....all of whom are working to perfect the chair.

Slade has a huge secret, however - an ulterior motive for funding Helena's research. He wants to couple the chair with a sensory deprivation tank which - through the magic of (made up) science - will physically send a subject back to the time of the memory.

So, if a subject's recollection is sitting on a lounge chair ten years ago, watching a baseball game - and they use the chair and deprivation tank - they WILL BE ten years younger, sitting on a lounge chair watching a baseball game. The subject can then re-live their life from that point on.

This allows the subject to go to a different college; marry a more compatible spouse (or stay single); choose an alternate career; live in another state; and so on. The original timeline becomes 'dead' and doesn't continue. The thing is, everyone in the subject's orbit (spouse, friends, children, colleagues, teachers, etc.) is set back ten years. Get it?

The fly in the ointment is this: When the subject ages ten years and reaches the moment they went back in time, all the dead memories come flooding back (for everyone). This leads to a phenomenon called 'False Memory Syndrome' (FMS), where people recall having two very different lives, both of which seem completely real. This occurrence is extremely upsetting. It leads to disorientation, psychosis, suicide, and so on.


*****

Jump ahead to 2018 and NYPD Detective Barry Sutton is called to the top of the Poe Building in Manhattan, where a woman named Ann Voss Peters is threatening to commit suicide. Ann tells Barry that she's suffering from FMS. She goes on to say she's single and living in New York, but she has vivid memories of being married, having a son, and residing in Vermont. The dissonance is too much, and Ann ends her life.

Barry is upset by the incident and decides to look into Ann's story about a 'phantom husband and child.' This brings Barry to the attention of people who lure him to 'Hotel Memory', a nondescript building in Manhattan with a high-security entrance. There Barry gets the opportunity to go back 11 years and undo the hit-and- run death of his teenage daughter while she was walking to Dairy Queen.


*****

The book alternates back and forth between the 2007 time period and the 2018 time period. Barry and Helena eventually meet, and their combined tale drives a good bit of the story.

True to the law of unintended consequences, rearranging history tends to have dire results. Even with the best of intentions, humans mess things up....and not everyone has good intentions.

I like the imaginative premise of the book, and the explanations of the 'science', which is interesting. However, the last third of the story is overly repetitive and has too much treacly romance for my taste.

Overall this is good speculative science fiction, recommended to fans of the genre.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Blake Crouch), and the publisher (Crown) for a copy of the book.

Y’all when I tell you “Recursion” by Blake Crouch is crazy, it is fully COO COO! What is the book about you ask? I guess it’s about memory and time travel and saving humanity as we know it! LOL I mean, I could go into more detail of the truly bizarre plot but the fun of the book is just jumping in and enjoying the ride.

“Recursion” is the perfect summer read: it is full of fast paced adventure and constant twists and turns. It will mess with your mind AND your heart. Like Crouch’s previous book “Dark Matter” it disguises itself as hardcore science with just the right amount of complex technical jargon but it’s really just pop-sci-fi. If you’re a neuroscientist this book is probably your nightmare (the equivalent of The Da Vinci code for art historians - Mary Magdalene is NOT IN THE LAST SUPPER!!) There is no need to dig deep with this book, just read it for FUN!

If you are looking for an entertaining and innovative summer read, you found it with “Recursion”!

This book will stick with you. I was so excited for this, it was one of my most anticipated releases, and it did not let me down. I appreciated the science and concept of memory with its own unique twist, and how the characters were developed to balance these higher level concepts. I really liked how invested I became in the characters, Helena and Barry, and how the plot increased in complexity in all the right ways.

This book doesn’t spoon-feed the details, and instead lets the reader feel like one of the characters, slowly understanding while watching the higher level character work things out.

I really appreciated the dual perspective in this story, with Helena operating as the lead scientist and brains behind the whole concept, and Barry, a police officer who gets wrapped up in the details and agrees to continue along for the ride. Barry does well to support the reader’s view, having no solid understanding of the concepts of memory within the brain and I really liked seeing his perspective on how things were changing, what he understood, and where he felt lost.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed any of Crouch’s previous works. After finishing this one I definitely want to read more of his backlist. I think anyone who is a fan of modern science-fiction, where science impacts character, would enjoy this because there’s a great balance of character development along with explaining the science.

I requested this book from NetGalley on a whim. The blurb was interesting and I had enjoyed the first book in the Wayward Pines trilogy, but I didn't have many expectations. It could have gone either way for me. Boy, am I glad that I got to read this!

It's hard to review this book without giving away too much of the plot, so I will avoid talking about the story itself. Let's just say that Blake Crouch raises interesting questions about how humans perceive time and space and that our memories define who we are. He also suggests that if our memories of past events become unreliable, humans will most likely unravel.

If you have memories of two distinctly different lives suddenly pushed into your head, what do you do? Both feel real. You can remember seeing your daughter die in a hit and run when she was 16, but you ALSO remember going to her college graduation. In fact, she is sitting next to you right now. Worse still, SHE remembers dying as well... but she is still alive. What is real? What isn't? What if you suddenly have 4 or 5 different lives in you head? All yours. All real. No wonder there are mass suicides all over the globe.

This story is told through the eyes of two protagonists: Helena, a neuro-scientist obsessed with creating a memory reactivation device that would save her mother from the slow deterioration of Alzheimer's disease, and Barry, a NY detective who witnesses a woman jump off a high rise after she claims she a case of FMS or false memory syndrome. At first, it seems that those stories aren't connected, but they meet and interweave together nicely.

I loved both protagonists. Barry is believable as a man who has nothing left to live for, so he clings to the mystery of the jumper with FMS and continues investigating it even when everyone rules it out as simple suicide. Then, when he gets a chance to rewrite his past, but has to face the consequences of that act, I fully understood why he wanted to destroy the people who put him through that heartache again.

Helena is even more tragic. All she wanted to do was help her mother keep at least some of the memories that were being eaten away by the horrible disease. Instead, she precipitated the destruction of human civilization. And she has to live with it... over and over again.

I also liked the way Blake Crouch portrayed the time paradox and the effect altering timelines would have on people. I don't think I have seen this particular take on time travel before. It was original and it made sense, in a horrible kind of way.

So why did I give this book 4 stars instead of 5 if I liked it so much? It mostly has to do with the ending. More precisely, the theory that changing one event would undo the whole string of time paradoxes. I won't go into any details on that, because this book shouldn't be spoiled, but I will just say that that sounded like an easy way out to me.

In any case, I highly recommend this book for fans of time-travel, sci-fi and "what if" stories. It's fast paced and smartly written, and it's thoroughly enjoyable.

PS. I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a crazy good, wild ride. This is the kind of stuff I like to think about, so I love seeing how authors like Blake Couch weave a story based on the subject. I'm not sure if it's a spoiler to say exactly, so I'll keep it as that. What is a really interesting aspect is the False Memory Syndrome, which I can't decide if it would be terrifying or cool af. Probably both. Seriously, this book is a gripping, complex and entertaining. I can't wait to see what Couch writes next.

Recursion- definition - the act or process of returning or running back....
What if you could reset the clock, undo a tragedy, actually get a second chance, a third, a fourth? What if all of your unlimited re-do's all ended the same way?
This book tells an amazing tale of memories that LITERALLY take you back.
One brilliant scientist, one insanely ambitious lab assistant, and one lonely NYC cop will find the lives intertwining over and over again as they race to the past to fix the wrongs of the present.
The pace just keeps getting faster and faster with the stakes getting higher and higher until all hell breaks loose!
This book is SUCH a page-turner. It's one that will have you questioning what gives life meaning (the present or the past)? What would life be without our memories of the past? And what are those deja vu moments all about--random feelings -- or a glimpse of another you in another dimension or another timeline?
This was a 5 star read. Thanks to #netgalley and #penguinrandomhouse for making it available to me for review.

Trying to deal with memories that are not yours is at the crux of this well written book by Blake Crouch. FMS or False Memory Syndrome is attacking people, making their lives most difficult. Only NY cop Barry Sutton and Helena Smith, neuroscientist, may hold the key to save mankind from this insidious attack.

The best science fiction always starts with what if, and Recursion plays the what if scenario perfectly. America has fallen victim to False Memory Syndrome - a disease where victims are driven mad by memories of a life they never lived ... or have they? It's up to NYPD cop Barry Sutton and neuroscientist Helena Smith to figure out how to stop this epidemic, even as reality is shifting all around them. You'll have a hard time putting this one down. It takes about a third of the novel to figure out what is really going on, and then you buckle in for a wild ride as you deal with the shifting of reality. Probably my favorite contemporary sci fi I've read since The Martian. You'll certainly want to pick up a copy before the film adaptation hits Netflix.

I actually started reading Recursion a month or so ago and forgot to add it to my currently-reading shelf. Upon initially beginning the title, Blake Crouch totally pulled me in and grabbed my attention similarly to Dark Matter, another of his science fiction thrillers.

Recursion begins with Barry Sutton, a New York City officer, is faced with the task of helping a woman who has "false memory syndrome". False Memory Syndrome has plagued the world and we readers are initially set to believe we've wandered in on some sort of dystopian world where no one can trust their memories, once so vivid, with the reality that's around them.

Enter neuroscientist Helena Smith who's life work has been devoted to mapping memory and how to capture those memories. This work is inspired by her mother who is suffering with Alzheimer's disease. On the brink of a break through, her work is halted by lack of funding until she is offered the opportunity to work with a limitless budget to complete her memory chair.

Recursion shifts between the Helena narrative and the Barry story in different times for most of the novel. What's so gripping about this novel is the neck-breaking speed at which things develop. There's the before the memory chair and after. This chair is so powerful that it shifts reality as we know it. I really don't want to give much away but it really is intriguing to read the story unfurl.

So why the 3-star rating?

The reason for the 3-star rating is because it got a little too cliche. What I mean by cliche is the time-machine vibe that creeps up in the end. Sure the story is still captivating but watching the characters try to get right what was done wrong over and over became exhausting. I am so sorry to those who think I was not vague enough but there really is more to Recursion to devour than what I've grazed upon.

Because I don't want to potentially ruin anymore of Recursion for those planning to read Blake Crouch's latest, I'll end my review here and advise that this read was a good read. Crouch is an awesome Sci-Fi writer that doesn't make novices in that genre feel like morons. The plot is fast moving and engrossing if my memory does serve me right...

Copy provided by Crown Publishing via Netgalley

Blake Crouch's Dark Matter was the first science fiction thriller I'd ever read, and it blew me away. Life-changing science is being researched all the time, but rarely do I consider how it could affect my life. But Crouch excels at pulling readers into a world where obscure scientific advancement becomes reality. His newest release, Recursion, is just as fun and lasting as Dark Matter.

Recursion's plot flips between the viewpoints of NYC police officer Barry Sutton and neuroscientist Helena Smith. While conducting research on the specific patterns of neurons firing in the brain while memories are experienced, Helena accidentally finds a way to transport the subconscious into that memory — and therefore into the past.

Barry and Helena's lives become inextricably entwined when he unwittingly uses her memory machine to save his daughter's life — and then must spend the rest of his life paying for the consequences of that choice.

As always, Crouch's style combines gripping action sequences and haunting ethical dilemmas in a plot whose possibilities kept me up at night: "What must it feel like to create a thing that could destroy the structure of memory and time?"

When I wasn't considering what I'd do in Helena's place, I was thinking about if/how I'd use her memory machine to change my own life.

While some of the logic around Crouch's "dead memories" and memory-changing sequences left me a bit perplexed, I really enjoyed this story overall. Highly recommend for readers who like a little action and suspense with their science fiction.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What is real and what is not? A phenomenon known as FMS (False Memory Syndrome) will keep you on your toes, following the lives of characters affected by this in its creation and its effect on their deeply personal lives. This thrilling "Inception"-like science fiction story is equally emotionally charged and thought-provoking as it is fascinating and just a step from our current reality.

I picked up this book based on my fondness for Blake Crouch’s writing. I’m a fan. He has an impressive catalog of novels, short stories, and screenplays so I was not surprised to find his latest novel, Recursion, a solid read. I give it five out of five stars because I was thinking about the ideas the book evoked when I wasn’t reading it. I had a hard time putting it down and couldn’t wait to pick it back up. Plus parts of the book I found very moving.
The narrative begins omnipresent and moves in on each protagonist to where it feels almost like reading first person. Crouch’s clean style allows his character narrative expositions to cut with a sometimes beautiful and sometimes brutal honesty. This made the science fiction elements very relatable for me.
This is one of the most interesting time travel books I have ever read. I enjoyed the scientific hypothesis at play. Current physics and the understanding of the human brain were mingled in without overwhelming the narrative in scientific jargon.
In my opinion, if you like science fiction time travel you’ll enjoy this. If you’re a fan of Crouch, read this already because it will not disappoint you.
I received a review copy of this book through Netgally in exchange for an honest review.