This had me hooked from the start. A little different from the prior books I read by him but still worthy of a read. The middle to the ending I read in one stretch because I could just not stop. A definitely very interesting concept and drew similarities to the things I loved about Dark Matter. However, this still had a way about it that made this another great read.

This was a fun, fast read with a very ambitious premise. It reminded me a bit of the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remember it for You Wholesale," which of course became the movie Total Recall. The writing is extremely tight and cinematic - not surprising since Crouch is also a screenwriter - and I can easily see this novel being adapted for the big or small screen. Helena Smith-the-brilliant-scientist and Barry Sutton-the-hungover-detective might feel like stock characters in less skilled hands, but Crouch does a wonderful job of making their interior life seem vivid and whole. I was very impressed with the pacing of the plot, which gradually accelerated throughout the book's five sections until I found myself up way past my bedtime, committed to finding out how it all ends. Some familiar speculative fiction tropes resolve into a satisfying ending worth the ride. I'll be putting it on our Staff Picks display ASAP.

Helena makes the book she is wonderful and witty and the very best part. Her intelligence and drive serves the book very well. 5/5

This book was interesting. I read it immediately reading Dark Matter, and what I have learned from reading both of them is do not read Blake Crouch unless you want to experience a sever existential crisis. This was a fun ride but I did get lost in a few places. Because of the subject matter I found the timeline can get a bit confusing. It's absolutely worth the read, especially if your into physics/earth based sci-fi.

If tour-de-force were ever used to accurately describe a book then Blake Crouch's Recursion is it! I have read all of his books, and each one gets better, This one did not disappoint. Blake takes technology and science and twists them into a fast-paced fury of a read! Love it.

Crazy emotionally charged thriller. Docked it a star because it took me a long time to get into it but once I got through the beginning background stuff I was hooked. I'll definitely be recommending this to my friends

Oh, readers…I don’t know what to say. Did you read Dark Matter? If you did, of course you’ll have to read Crouch’s latest; I can promise you that this one does not disappoint. Do any of you remember the 2002 film Minority Report with Tom Cruise? The story has a little bit of that vibe, but so much better. If you like to dabble in accessible sci-fi or speculative fiction, this is the book for you. Please make sure to pick this up when you have some dedicated reading time ahead of you because you won’t be able to put it down!

What if you could go back and change the past? Would you risk changing the outcome of those around you just for your own benefit? This book is an adventure from start to finish. If you liked The show Fringe - this book is right up your alley. Apparently there will be a Netflix adaptation and I’m on my toes in anticipation!! !

Similar to others

After about 50 years of reading SF, all of these memory enhanced / destroyed stories start to sound alike. Mr. Crouch's book is doing well and I am glad for him. For me, he seemed to be covering no new ground.

"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past".
- George Orwell, 1984

Mindboggling, thought-provoking, innovative, convoluted.

This is one of those books where I had to sit back and mull on what I just read. Every time I think Blake Crouch has achieved his magnum opus (Dark Matter) he raises the bar another level. Imagine if you will if you could have a "do-over" of your life. The majority of people would jump at the chance but not so fast! It seems like an easy question with a simple answer but it is more complex with a multitude of possible implications that we cannot even comprehend.
What would happen if your memories could be replaced by new ones and you could live your life over and over again? Where do the original memories go? How would it affect the people around you and possibly the world at large? Blake Crouch tackles this conundrum beautifully in this masterpiece.
Helena Smith is a brilliant neuroscientist who is trying to preserve memories to help people like her mother whose memories have been taken away by Alzheimers. Barry Sutton is a New York City policeman who is dealing with his own regrets of the past and the choices he made. Sutton is called in to try to talk down a woman who is suffering from "False Memory Syndrome" and is threatening suicide. Next to nothing is known about FMS and whether it is contagious or where it came from. What follows is an incredible combination of a time travel/alternate dimension/groundhog day type of story.
I found myself pulled in from the beginning and was unable to put the book down. I had to go back and reread certain pages because the people, places, and things literally changed so rapidly. It was an intriguing and not to mention mentally exhausting read but oh so worth it.
In short, I loved "Dark Matter" but I love Recursion even more. Definitely, a must-read for SciFi fans who love speculative fiction and others who enjoy reading books that make you think outside the box.

Science fiction is definitely not the genre that I tend to gravitate toward.  After reading and LOVING Dark Matter, I was super excited to see Recursion in the Netgalley gallery of books for review.  When I got the ebook, I couldn't wait to dive in.  

Recursion reminds a bit of Total Recall. Helena Smith is dedicated to her research into preserving the memories of Alzheimer's patients.  When she is offered every researchers dream, she jumps at the opportunity.  Barry Smith is a cop investigating a new phenomenon called False Memory syndrome.  Helena and Barry's worlds collide and they must work together to stop reality from crumbling around them

Crouch has done it again with Recursion - a fantastically well-written story.

(NetGalley ebook -  I received a complimentary advanced reader copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

Science Fiction | Adult
Holy hannah – hang on to your hat! It’s another another terrific, mind-blowing story from the author of Dark Matter. Where to begin? Or rather, when? NYC Detective Barry Sutton stumbles across an amazing device as he investigates False Memory Syndrome, a phenomenon in which people are suddenly remembering entire alternative lives that aren’t real. The device is a memory chair, the work of physicist Helena Smith. Having watched her mother deteriorate from early-onset Alzheimer’s Syndrome, Dr. Smith has has spent her life trying to find a way to capture our most precious memories so they aren’t lost when brain disease takes hold.
Thanks to a very generous benefactor, she and her team build a functioning memory chair that lets you relive your most vivid memories. But her backer sees so much more potential – the ability for your consciousness to go back into the memory and relive that time. But as False Memory Syndrome reveals, that means reality is nothing more than a memory. Helena quickly realizes the Pandora’s Box she’s opened. She and Barry team up to try and fix the past so the future is solid. The title helps explain – a recursion, as best I understand it, is a kind of computer code that refers to itself and causes a repetitive loop. I can’t say anything more than that, and once again, what a wild ride! As timelines kept shifting, I thought I should grow tired of it, but it was truly fascinating and riveting to the very last delightful page. Loved this one! It’s sweet, horrifying, engrossing, and mindblowing. My thanks to Crown Publishing for the advance reading copy provided digitally through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
More discussion and reviews of this novel: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42046112

This book exceeded expectations. Those that enjoyed Dark Matter will find Recursion just as wonderful, if not more. Blake Crouch does a wonderful job marrying complex physics to possible technology and the complexities of the human condition.

Recursion is an engaging sci-fi thriller filled with suspense that explores what could happen when humans, with all our fallibility attempt to control history. What if you could go back and undo the things that have filled you with regret, is that a good thing or would it only make things worse.

Wow- what a ride!

Recursion blew me away. It tackles big themes like the value of life and second chances, the role of humanity in society and does this with an in intricate plot and developed characters. This book made my mind hurt, but in a good way and had me paying close attention to details from page one.

This is a must read and i am saying this as someone who never reads science fiction.

Thank you to #netgalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Another winner from Blake Crouch after Dark Matter- this time thriller is every bit as complicated and gripping. I liked this better than Dark Matter as I did not like the ending of that book. I found this more compelling all the way through.

Barry and Helena are time travellers by situation as their separate alternating stories eventually meet up and zig zag. Helena is a scientist who has developed a chair that allows one to travel back in time; Barry is a NYC cop whose life has been devastated by his daughters death and ultimate marriage breakup. What if you could start over again - would you be happy? This theme is woven into a scientific / psychological :/ even political narrative that draws you in - in its plausibility.

You think - could this really happen. What deepened the book for me was all the talk and thoughts about time and memory - on the scientific level and personal level for each of the characters.

All of this is woven into a can’t put it down thriller - that grips and twists and turns.

A great summer read. I got an advance copy of this book from NetGalley. Read August 2019

Another thrilling science fiction novel, Recursion by Blake Crouch is an exciting standalone novel readers won’t want to miss. This latest novel by Blake Crouch touches on memory, alternate timelines, and how these effect people, much as he did in his previous novel, Dark Matter. Unlike Dark Matter, this novel takes a much wider scope and plays on some very different ideas. Instead of quantam mechanics we explore memories, the mapping of memories, and what would happen if people could suddenly remember what they’d gone through in other timelines that never happened.

The story is told from two different viewpoints. The first is Barry, a divorced NYC police officer whose daughter passed away as a teenager a decade earlier. The second is Helena, a neuroscientist working on mapping memories in hopes of providing some kind of cure for her mother suffering from Alzheimer’s.

The pacing begins very solidly, following Barry as he attempts to talk a woman remembering a different, better life that never existed, one where she was married to a wonderful man off the ledge of a NYC skyscraper. A mystery soon unfolds – thousands of people across New York are remembering events which never happened, times where their lives took vastly different terms which experts call False Memory Syndrome. No one knows why this is occurring or how to stop it. Meanwhile, Helena is working on a rig far out at sea on a new technology to map memories so they can be re-experienced later, even if the individual has forgotten them due to time or diseases. But the technology doesn’t work exactly the way she expects them to and, in the shadows, someone in manipulating events.

As the story continues the pacing picks up as the danger becomes more intense. Barry and Helena’s stories remain separate until they crash together, both trying to solve a problem neither are sure can ever be fixed. Slowly, the world begins to be unmade.

This is a fresh, exciting, frightening exploration on how far people are willing to go in order to fix their regrets, follow a different path, right past wrongs (real or perceived), and have a better life. Though the pacing and characterization starts off a bit slowly, readers are very soon sucked into a world where timelines are mutable and the past might not be real.

While multiple timeless and shifting memory are core components of the novel, they are never presented in a way which is confusing. Nothing is ‘timey-wimey.’ Everything is explained in a straightforward manner, can be easily followed by readers who don’t often read the subgenre, and, unlike some other attempts at similar concepts, doesn’t fall apart under scrutiny. Crouch is a master plotter, carefully mapping out the series of events and never lets the reader get lost.

Recursion by Blake Crouch is a fantastic addition to science fiction exploring multiple/alternate timelines. Readers will want to pick up this standalone novel before the Netflix adaptation premiers, which is already planned.

Blake Crouch does it again! This book was so amazing. I didn’t think anything would top Dark Matter, but Recursion was just as exceptional. Blake Crouch is an instant favorite author. Everything I’ve read by him so far has been brilliant. If you loved Dark Matter, you’ll love Recursion.

I read and liked the Dark Matter book and liked it very much. Recursion is not related to Dark Matter, even though it also has parallel universes in the center of the plot, but it is completely different.
It is well written and I just could not stop reading it. I liked the characters. I liked the action. I liked the science. Everything was good and reading was tons of fun.

I received a digital copy of the book from NetGalley

Crouch is great at mindbending sci-fi that really makes you think, and this is no exception. Like Dark Matter before it, this was suspenseful and fun. Recommended.

WOW 4.5 stars - I was completely blown away! Thriller plus Sci-Fi equals one crazy, mind-boggling, addictive and suspenseful ride!! Once I picked it up I couldn’t put it down. Recursion is a must read!
I’m equally excited to hear Netflix has bought the movie rights. I can’t wait to see it!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.