Recursion

What a story. I absolutely loved it.

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Book description

What if someone could rewrite your entire life?

‘My son has been erased.’

Those are the last words the woman tells Barry Sutton before she leaps from the Manhattan rooftop.

Deeply unnerved, Barry begins to investigate her death only to learn that this wasn’t an isolated case. All across the country, people are waking up to lives different from the ones they fell asleep to. Are they suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a mysterious, new disease that afflicts people with vivid memories of a life they never lived? Or is something far more sinister behind the fracturing of reality all around him?

Miles away, neuroscientist Helena Smith is developing a technology that allows us to preserve our most intense memories and relive them. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss or the birth of a child.

Barry’s search for the truth leads him on an impossible, astonishing journey as he discovers that Helena’s work has yielded a terrifying gift . . .

My review -

I adored Dark Matter and wasn’t convinced that the author could meet, let alone better it. Recursion looks at the mysteries of memory and reality. We end up in a kind of manic Groundhog Day of relived past experiences. Danger drives the story as we see an apocalyptic ending in sight each time. This becomes frustrating to the characters and, in its own way, to the reader as I couldn’t envisage any way in which the cycle of effort and failure could be solved. It happened and it was a most mind-stretching and satisfying experience. Another five stars from me.

About the author

Blake Crouch is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. His novels include the New York Times bestseller Dark Matter, and the internationally bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, which was adapted into a television series for FOX. Crouch also created the TNT show Good Behavior, based on his Letty Dobesh novellas. His latest book is Recursion, a sci-fi thriller about memory, and was June 2019. He lives in Colorado.

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Just a thought

Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life’. 
― Helen Exley