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Recursion
Group Reads Discussions 2020
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"Recursion" Discuss Everything - *Spoilers*
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I loved it! It was clearly advertised as a page-turner and popcorn thriller, and it totally delivered while also actually touching on some deeper subjects such as accepting impermanence, loss, and pain as a necessity for being fully alive, and how difficult that can be. The science stuff and some plot/character aspects felt glossed over or sketched in order to keep up the high tempo and keeping the reader engaged non-stop, which I accepted as a natural drawback when writing/reading a page-turner: obviously you can't laboriously explain everything and have to leave some things more sketched than elaborated out. For me, that was fine: I kept being very emotionally engaged and listened to it with bated breath very quickly. Yes, I could nitpick lots of things (e.g. the suddenly appearing office building makes no sense: it should have felt natural and as if it had always been there to everyone in that timeline) but I still really enjoyed it.
Much like what Eva has said below, i really enjoyed it for what it was, popcorn page turner.I actually liked the different take on time travel. I liked the explanation and idea of accessing concurrent timelines through memory (however scientifically fantastical it was). I thought it was part of very important motif in the book, how our memories and events in our past shape us, i.e the difference in Barry in the different permutations of his life we seen.
Character wise i thought the three main characters did feel a bit flimsy to me. I liked Slades back story and really enjoyed the section on oil rig where we spent quite a lot of time, but it i thought the plot was pretty far from character driven. Didn't Think there was really any character arcs.
I thought the action sequences were excellent. I really enjoyed the section with the time terrorism. Although maybe got lost a bit in what was actually going on? Wasn't too sure why the timeline kept shifting in the section. I also am not too sure why terrorists who wanted to reap that kind of destruction needed the chair in the first place, but enjoyed the sequence all the same. Also after some thought I think the sequence fell into the inconsistency trap which the bend did. I enjoyed the sequence none the less.
What didn't work for me? I found the inconsistencies in the way characters experienced the merges really annoying. Thought the bend just appearing was plain lazy writing if i am honest. I thought the story was riddled with that sort of inconsistency, which really did bug me. I reckon that the bend actually was a good opportunity in the narrative to explain to the readers how the timelines were actually working, in my mind it is either they remember it always being there, or Meghan should have had absolutely no memory of it after the merge, as she would have been dead on the timeline it was being built.
Also would have liked a bit more conversation on FMS, i didn't like at the end it was just written off as, we can't understand it! As above with the bend, i thought there were inconsistencies through out as to how the FMS actually affected people.
I also thought the ending was a bit hollywood, happily ever after. I thought Slade meeting his demise (i assume) was a little harsh. I didn't see the character as a bad guy if i am honest. I think the murder of Helena and attempted of Barry was because of the fact he knew that he was skipping time lines anyway. He never came across to me as a real villain.
I think it was okay-ish. The end was rather lame imho.But I must admit that as I tried to write some more about my impression, I realised that I've already forgotten the details (^^') I have to wait a bit and read other folks' comments here to spark mine again.
I read this one last year so I've forgotten most of it, but I do recall it doing my head in something fierce lol.It definitely felt more thriller than sci-fi to me, and I feel like if people have the energy for it, they'll be able to find quite a few plot holes. I just feel like there wasn't enough substance to the science to explain everything thoroughly, but I was in it for the thriller aspect anyway so it didn't bother me too much.
I gave it 4 stars back when I read it, but I'm tempted to drop it down to 3 considering how little a lasting effect it's had. But it was a fast, enjoyable read at the time!
I liked it. I listed to the audiobook and I listened to the last 4 hours straight. Not an award winner to be sure, but I needed a departure from reality. Something that kept my attention. This was great for that. The plot and the science... I can't even. I thought the characters were well done. I think Crouch can write women characters which is always a plus for male authors who so frequently get it wrong. Are they great characters? No. But they are pretty well written in my view if not a little heavy handed on the morality side. I almost drowned in the sea of good intentions. I own the book and I kind of wish I didn't because I probably won't read it again. But on the whole, I liked it. It entertained me and that was what I needed in the moment.
I would’ve rated the first half 3.5 stars, and second half 2 stars if I could. I enjoyed the first half, but the iterations later on were too repetitive and not brining new information/change to the narrative in my opinion. So maybe the 2nd half could have been compressed a bit — i feel like we spent too much time reading out what could have been implied. So final thoughts - good if this was maybe your first read of this type of fiction. And it is not bad at all. The prose is catchy, fast paced. I can imagine it could do well as an expanded Tv series for example. (Umbrella Academy, anyone? Netflix’ Dark?)
Tedious if you’ve read books like this before. Or have Tv series fatigue of the same themes.
Maybe if I read it first before Dark Matter I would’ve liked it better? Or maybe I can only tolerate 1 book of this type unless you’re bringing something new to the table. Oh no maybe I need a break from the parallel reality/time travel stories.
I read this earlier this year and just re-read my review which was sorta harsh (3-3.5 stars). But I think it’s true. The plot literally makes no sense. But it’s also true that it doesn’t really affect one’s enjoyment of the book! That’s quite a lucrative and rare talent Mr. Crouch has.
I agree with the sentiments that it would have been fitting for a tv series. Probably that's the reason why I couldn't get much out of it. I've been watching less and less over the last decade or so - and when, only if the characters can really convince me. I found the character (writing) here more on the generic side. I don't recall anything from the female character and from the male the one thing that stayed with me was that he was introduced as yet another one of those detectives with failed marriage cause of private drama in their past. In the ongoing of the book this contributed to the plot, but it started with a negative impression for me, which was hard to shake off.
(and the audiobook narrator(s) didn't help. The narrator of the male mc had this crime-noir-lonely-hero timbre that instantly drives me up a wall ^^')
ETA: To say something positive (sorry, I'm usually not that negative - or stay out of discussions if I am): I liked the idea of the FMS and the weird way of time travelling/changing futures.
There does seem to be a consensus of opinion here, which I agree with, about this book. I had a bit of a muddled relationship with it. I liked the pace and intrigue, never knowing exactly what was going to happen next or where it was all leading to, but conversely just couldn’t get onboard with the supposed science behind it all.
The ideas and consequences were huge and grand but the actual story felt quite small which didn’t help with my suspension of disbelief.
Overall I found it worked well as a thriller/drama but didn’t work for me as a piece of exciting SF.
I also could see it as a TV limited series. Would have some stiff competition from “Dark”.
That's a perfect description, Richard: "overall I found it worked well as a thriller/drama but didn't work for me as a piece of exciting SF."I'll sign that!
I agree with Grace's opening paragraph (message 8) I enjoyed the first half much more than the second for the same reasons although I would have been more generous with my allocation of stars, 4 & 3.5. The reason being the fast and easy pace of the story which kept me enthusiastically reading even through the second half.I also agree with Gabi (messages 5 & 10) about the detective with a broken marriage being an over worked character, especially once he seems to wonder off and do his own thing regardless of the day job. Plus I found the end was a bit lame,
I also felt that it would lend itself to a T.V. series, maybe because I enjoyed Wayward Pines and was disappointed when it was discontinued.
Michael Crichton's Timeline came to mind while I was reading, not so much because of the time travel link but more in the light style of the story, easy flowing without worrying too much about the feasibility or otherwise of the science. A position I have no problem with as long as the story makes no pretensions to the contrary (it is fiction after all not a physics lesson).
Overall a book which I found entertaining without having to work too hard. As I stated in a previous post I was intending to read Dark Matter before noticing this group read and having read Recursion has not altered that intention, although I am in no hurry.
Other books that came to mind after reading this were The Lathe of Heaven and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Afraid I thought both were better done than this. Though Ursula K. Le Guin is always going to be hard to beat.
Grace wrote: "Tedious if you’ve read books like this before. Or have Tv series fatigue of the same themes."Exactly! So many TV shows, movies, and books came to mind; Crouch even name-checked a couple like "The Minority Report." It's OK not to be original, but then the execution had better be above average. Sadly, it wasn't. The canned dialogue and cartoonish villains were especially irksome.
That said, it was competent, if uninspired.
Think it's funny that several people have commented that have already forgotten details of the book, haha. Like several people above have said, I also felt while reading it that it would translate well to TV/film.Fully agree with what Grace said above- the latter half was far too repetitive, I found myself losing interest then.
I did think the opening chapter was great; it pulled me in right away. The ending, however, was definitely a disappointment as far as I am concerned. Overall, it was fine, but I won't be in a rush to read more by the author.
Most of my GR friends gave it a 4 star, light but entertaining type of read and I think we all see that but those of us who gave it 3 or less were possibly hoping for more.One part I was hoping to discuss is...
Is anything really only able to be invented by one person?
The premise of fixing the problem all came down to getting to Helen before she invents the chair. Is she really the only one throughout history that has the ability to invent the chair?
I have always been of the opinion in our real world that the genius inventors get to the world changing inventions sooner than we otherwise might have but it all gets invented eventually.
A better ending, in my I-will-never-be-a-writer opinion, was for this to be a prelude to Time Cop
Hank wrote: "Is she really the only one throughout history that has the ability to invent the chair?"Totally agree.
At the end of the book i had the same feeling, that all they have done is delay the production of the chair, and that same scenario is bound to happen again.
Everyone is talking about this a a time travel novel. Honestly for me this was more reminiscent of Total Recall when you couldn't figure out if it was all happening in someone's mind. I just find the mind tricks far more palatable to the idea that one persons memories can be the key to time travel for all. I also laughed at time travel tourism. Lots of people changing reality just because. Brings new meaning to "gilded" cage.
And apparently time travel is limited to the lifetime of the person and they can only travel backwards. The concept of the chair was just not convincing.
E.D. wrote: "I agree with Grace's opening paragraph (message 8) I enjoyed the first half much more than the second for the same reasons although I would have been more generous with my allocation of stars, 4 & ..."I've been reflecting on whether I only liked Dark Matter because it was my first Blake Crouch but as more time goes by I am convinced Dark Matter was structured and flowed better than Recursion. Good to still have in the TBR list for sure.
Hank wrote: "Is anything really only able to be invented by one person?The premise of fixing the problem all came down to getting to Helen before she invents the chair. Is she really the only one throughout history that has the ability to invent the chair?"
Great point! Imagine driving the narrative around multiple milestones of inventors. That would be something and probably unsolvable for both author and reader lol! How many people have had something to do with inventing the computer for example. We'd be time traveling to 1800's Ada Lovelace lol
Oh, I like that concept! That would have been a funner book (See my writing skills, I am totally staring a new career....tomorrow). Every chapter from Barry's point of view and Helena's point of view is similar but slightly different because we are in a different headspace and we aren't quite sure which one is reality if either of them are.
Hank wrote: "Oh, I like that concept! That would have been a funner book (See my writing skills, I am totally staring a new career....tomorrow). Every chapter from Barry's point of view and Helena's point of vi..."Absolutely no sci-fi involved, but this made me think of the TV show "The Affair"- the first season (or maybe two?) the episodes would be split between two different character perspectives, but often have some of the same events, remembered differently. Small things like a character was excited that day while the other one remembered them being stressed. Father saves daughter from choking VS waitress saves his daughter from choking, etc.
Very cool concept and really well-executed.
Hank wrote: "Is anything really only able to be invented by one person? . . . Is she really the only one throughout history that has the ability to invent the chair?"I think this is a really good point; even in the book I would agree that she by no means invented it by herself, she does not exist in a vacuum; she had Slade financially supporting it and a team that helped and other technologies that made it possible. And that is why the second part of the book just didn't work for me - I mean governments and corporations trying to steal or dominate the technology was totally believable but I agree it wasn't believable that another team wouldn't come up with the technology sooner or later if it was possible to do in the first place. Also because it placed the technology solely on her shoulders in the second half of the book; she bore the burden of "righting" it and literally was tortured to live that life over and over again, to die over and over again - and I am not sure how feel about that -
I did like the idea of time traveling through a memory and it was definitely a page turner, however it felt like the FMS idea was not explored enough - especially surrounding the characters that committed suicide - was it the multiple memory timelines that crowded their head or was it an unlivable pain to not live the original timeline?
I saw a review on GRs by a fav author of mine (Shaun Hutchinson) that summed it better than me: " Entertaining. But I also felt like it took the easiest path instead of really delving into the idea."
I enjoyed it for what it was and appreciated that it was engaging enough to distract me. It's the turbulent flight test. If I can pay attention enough to keep reading a book during a very turbulent flight then I have to give it some kudos.
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I didn't start to enjoy the story until the world was ending. Slade made for a pitifully poor villain, or what was presented as a villain, so moving away from that helped.
I'm slightly annoyed that the brilliant woman needed a puppy dog of a man to save her (and the world) at the end. Did Barry have anything going for him besides loyalty?
Questioning the value of memory and what it means to doubt the validity of the history you know is an interesting topic but the fast paced nature of this story didn't suit such ruminating. Not whilst reading it anyway.
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You can't accidentally put in so much effort to be lazy, can you? How can one be so intelligently stupid?
It was their attempt to end the cycle: they were trying to hit the spot where the chair was that kept restarting time. They thought if they could hit that and prevent them from going back again, everyone who survives would at least be freed from the time loop (although living in a nuclear wasteland afterwards).
I was very intrigued by the story and this made me read the book to the end, but at the same time I didn't like the way it was 'told', with all that slow-paced play by play and not enough suspense. I liked the other book by Blake Crouch, Dark Matter narrative style better.
Ryan wrote: "How does someone, anyone, everyone, gain the memory of launching nuclear weapons, dying in a nuclear attack, and the revelation that launching those very same attacks changes nothing only to decide..."This is my main issue/problem with Crouch after reading a massive total of 2 books. His ideas driving the book are really good but he leaves so many of those unbelievables around that it isn't very coherent at the end.
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Yes. He needs new friends/beta readers.
Eva wrote: "It was their attempt to end the cycle: they were trying to hit the spot where the chair was that kept restarting time. They thought if they could hit that and prevent them from going back again, ev..."
It wasn't made clear that they were attacking different cities to justify repeated attempts at using nuclear weapons, which is just one of the ways that their response was ridiculous.
Ryan wrote: "Hank wrote: "Ryan wrote: "How does someone, anyone, everyone, gain the memory of launching nuclear weapons, dying in a nuclear attack, and the revelation that launching those very same attacks chan..."It was mentioned that they were trying to take out the chair and to cover as much ground as possible - it wouldn't have made any sense to keep changing targets considering that the other side kept turning back time and possibly moving the chair somewhere else - maybe exactly where they bombed last time, thinking that they wouldn't attack the same place twice. It's why they had to eventually move it somewhere to a bunker in Iceland.
Grace wrote: "I've been reflecting on whether I only liked Dark Matter because it was my first Blake Crouch but as more time goes by I am convinced Dark Matter was structured and flowed better than Recursion. Good to still have in the TBR list for sure..."I share Grace's opinion. I still have only isolated flashes of parts of this book (ie they were on a roof and they fell), and no real grasp of the storyline, but I've decided that it's not my fault. I did ponder the idea that we exist as we are because of our memories... it's an interesting concept. But other than that, it all felt a little chaotic and like nothing ever developed like it should or could have. I finished it in a hurry because I was bored and impatient, and like I said before, I promptly forgot what it was about. Very disappointing, because I had just recently read Dark Matter, and loved it. It had all the elements this story lacked.
It was a good popcornpage turner and I enjoyed it for the most part but I felt it was being held back for some reason.The FMS storyline at the beginning of the book was rushed through. The concept of FMS is great and the idea of contacting this affliction is horrifying. This is where the book had the makings of a science fiction book but instead it was rushed over and answers given away too quickly. I would have forgiven it for this if the book did'nt go onto have a feeling of Groundhog day throught the second half substitute mystery and suspense for Hollywood action.
This is my first book for this club and I did enjoy it. I spent the last 50 pages waiting for Barry to go into the chair, knowing he would be the answer just not knowing how. I agree with others that this book has gaps and opportunities but that the pacing was neccessary to keep it entertaining. I'm no author but I think if he would have gone more into the FMS than the story would have taken a different path and, in my mind would have shifted the focus heavily to Barry and made Helena a supporting character. It might have made for a better story or not. I enjoyed it and I will be reading Dark Matter soon.
1. Did the overlapping stories work for you?Mostly. I liked the over-all concept, and I enjoyed keeping track of and/or piecing together the chain of events, but it occasionally got really close to crossing the “tedious” line with that repetition combined with some of the predictability of the plot.
2. Did you find the writing compelling?
Yes. I think this is a light, easy read where you can put as much thought into it as you want – you can either try to follow the chain of events or just sit back and enjoy the ride without giving it too much thought and still understand the story well enough to enjoy it. I found it a little predictable, but enjoyed reading along to see if I was right. Things didn’t always happen when/how I predicted they would, so there were still surprises.
3. What did you think of the ending?
I don’t usually like ambiguous endings, but I thought the groundwork had been laid well enough that we knew what would happen next. We had, more or less, evidence that Slade’s solution had worked in the past so I felt pretty confident it would work this time and the world’s memories of the chair would be lost. The main suspense had been whether Barry would survive trying to go back into a dead memory, and we saw that he did. Regarding Helena and Barry, we saw many times that they had a permanent insta-love-soulmates-forever connection no matter how they meet, so there also wasn’t any doubt in my mind that whatever pickup line Barry was about to utter at the end would be successful.
4. What worked or didn't for you?
I liked that it was internally consistent, but sometimes I thought the building blocks for what would happen next were left sitting out a little too obviously. I never thought the story was as twisty as I felt like the author wanted it to be. It was a fun story and it held my interest, but I just wanted to be surprised a little more than I was.
I liked the twist on sort-of-time-travel where going back and changing history still has consequences because eventually everybody will remember what the previous timeline(s) had been like. I have mixed feelings about time travel stories, because the concept is fun but they tend to be riddled with plot holes, paradoxes, and other frustrating plot elements. This one worked really well for me because it was internally consistent throughout and it had a different approach to the theme than I've seen before.
I loved the Berenstain Bears reference. What made that fun for me was that I could have sworn it was spelled Berenstein. When the book tells us that the people who remembered Berenstein were the ones who had false memories, I looked it up to see what it really was and was like “ooh, I have FMS!” ;) Of course, now that we understand the false memories were from previous timelines and may have actually been the real memories, I think this proves that it’s really supposed to be spelled Berenstein no matter what anybody else says, so there!
Regarding the sudden appearance of the building mentioned by Eva (post 3) and stefano (post 4), that was jarring to me too when it first happened, but in retrospect I decided it was consistent with the mechanics and with other portrayals.It was definitely consistent with what came later, at least. When Helena kept going back to her teenage years and Barry would get his memories back when they got back to that future date, he remembered the previous timelines first, and then the current timeline. The one point where I remember that being inconsistent was in that last timeline when he conveniently didn't remember his conversation with Slade about how to prevent the memories from coming back until the last possible minute. I thought that was a bit of a cop out on the author's part to create suspense, but I think we were supposed to buy into the idea that they had so many past timelines in their heads now that the memories were now coming back slowly and incompletely.
I think the idea was that the memories came back in the order they had happened. The previous timelines happened first, and the current timeline was chronologically the last thing to happen. There’s a delay where things have changed in the physical world around them, but everybody’s memories are still catching up. So the people who saw the building were remembering the previous timeline where the building didn’t exist, yet it was already there because the timeline had just been changed and so that made it seem to them like it had come out of nowhere. It was only afterward that their memories caught up to the current timeline in which the building had been created.
I think the author tried to be more ambiguous about it in the earlier FMS sequences, maybe trying not to give the game away too soon even though it seemed fairly obvious anyway. In that early sequence where Barry has his first FMS experience, the books says, ”Considered from a certain perspective, he was just sitting in his recliner in his one-bedroom apartment in Washington Heights, watching a Knicks game, and now he’s suddenly in a Montauk diner with a bloody nose.” So I think even in the beginning the author was trying to allude to the fact that people are suddenly plopped into the new timeline and remember the original timeline first, but he wasn’t as explicit about it and it was easy to read the other way around. The building's appearance was when I started paying more attention to the way the memories returned and realized I'd been thinking of it backwards.
Hank wrote: "Is anything really only able to be invented by one person?The premise of fixing the problem all came down to getting to Helen before she invents the chair. Is she really the only one throughout history that has the ability to invent the chair?"
I definitely agree with that, but I also didn’t really see their solution as something we were expected to believe was a permanent solution. It just solved the problem at hand, until it happens again.
If it were possible to build such a device, I think it would be very unlikely to happen at our current level of technology. I saw Helena’s creation as being a fluke. It was a combination of her creating something very advanced for her time by accident, plus the accident of somebody dying while using the device, plus somebody not only being observant enough to recognize what had happened but also believing strongly enough that it was possible so that he was willing to risk his life to try it.
If people had remembered the existence of the chair, some people would have stopped at nothing to recreate it and some of those people surely would have succeeded. Without remembering the existence, hardly anybody would believe such a thing were possible and so wouldn’t waste their time trying to create it. I would think in a few more decades, when knowledge and technology related to memories had been advanced further, it’s likely somebody else would create something similar and then the problem would start all over again. And it would be harder to contain because by then, even if they managed to erase memories of the second occurrence, the likelihood of it happening again soon would be higher.
It's also an intriguing thought that perhaps, lots of people have already invented the chair many times, but always had to realize their mistake and successfully undid their invention, just like Helena. Nobody would ever know. Whenever it's invented, people need to scramble until they figure out how to undo the invention, and nobody ever finds out that there have already been others.
YouKneeK wrote: "Regarding the sudden appearance of the building mentioned by Eva (post 3) and stefano (post 4), that was jarring to me too when it first happened, but in retrospect I decided it was consistent with..."Yes - thanks for setting it out clearly like that. I knew it worked, but I couldn't express how. The way things work most of the time in the story is actually more nuanced, I think, than people are giving it credit for. Mostly it does tend to be consistent.
Other things: it was, as others said, more of a thriller than anything. Since thrillers aren't my stock in trade, that made it less enjoyable for me. The science fiction aspects were a bit fascinating - making your brain twist, with lots of 'aha!' moments.
I liked that Barry is the one, in the end, who saves the day. He's been this less-remarkable character, the ordinary guy (who becomes pretty amazingly smart from all his lifetimes, though, trying to figure it out with Helen), and then it's actually up to him, in the last instance. I like that they were a team, that they needed each other and each had their strengths to lend. That it's not just about smarts or scientific prowess, but about courage, or faith in someone, or a different outlook, etc. Isn't that what it's like really? No one is good on their own, solely. We work off each other, even unknowingly, and relationships are vital, even if those others lend a different kind of service to the endeavour. I'm sure an author would say that themselves - and they usually do, in their acknowledgements.
Slade was a convincing villain, to me. What Helen sees and says about him is what I thought. The questions about how to use the chair, weird invention that it is, are believeable moral dilemmas which reflect some realities.
The memory-time-travel I found interesting, although weird. I think it was explored well.
Given all those things, although I was somewhat captivated by the book (enough to stay up late finishing it after 2 days), I didn't like it a lot - just a medium amount. Like I said, I don't really like thrillers, there were things that bothered me, and I never really got into the story - I felt like an observer throughout. That's a very different feeling than being absorbed into a story so that you experience the events and character developments empathetically. Perhaps that's the nature of a thriller - it's more about the action, uncertainty, and ever-crazier circumstances. It did have heart, but I think overall was just not the kind of book I'm really into - which I knew before reading. Interesting to explore it with others, though.
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I do agree with you that he seemed to be consistent in the rules he imposed, and it definitely is a thriller--he's got the mechanic for pacing down.
Thinking back on the building issue, i don't think it's the way the memories came back that i found inconsistent, it was the fact that Meghan had memories of it at all. I think that if the author had spent a bit more time with the FMS it may have become clearer in my head but as things are the way i see it is that the building and Meghan exist in two separate timelines. As in, in the time line the bend was built Meghan is surely dead and in the timeline Meghan is alive the building is never built. I can't get that mechanism straight in my head since at the merge of the memories there is no timeline where Meghan has been up that building.I think as well that there are two FMS scenarios in the book, a first and second half divide. So thinking of the initial experiments with the chair felt like a different experience than that in second half. But as YouKneeK says i think in second half of book it is fairly consistent.
It's funny for me to see how many people here forgot a lot of the book after finishing it, especially if some time had passed. I read Recursion sometime at the end of December and by now I only remember bare bones. Reading this thread has somewhat jogged my memory, but still, not a good sign.I found this to be an exciting, fast-paced page turner, but I'm also re-thinking my rating now.
BTW, has anyone more familiar with Crouch's other works noticed how similar his characters are, especially the male protagonists? Besides Recursion, I read Dark Matter and Pines trilogy, and I found all those guys to be made from the same clay.
I didn't read this with the group (I tried and DNF'd it halfway through last year), but one thing I'm interested in discussing but didn't see anyone mention here was the concept of the chair for its intended use. The chair was originally invented as a way to revisit & keep memories of those who are suffering Alzheimer's & dementia... but it seems that if the goal was to allow the person to retain themselves for longer, that chair is woefully inadequate, considering all of the OTHER cognitive, behavioral, mental, and even physiological functions that are affected by the disease beside memory. What use is memory if you don't understand what's happening in it because you are still disoriented, unable to speak or understand language, confused, lost, etc?
And as the main inventor character was supposedly doing this in order to save her own parent's mind, it bothers me... A LOT. Especially on top of the fact that she essentially wastes the time she actually has with her mother trying to invent a thing that would recover only a tiny fragment of what she's lost.
To me, the entire concept falls apart right there, because there's no way that this chair would have made it out of someone's garage and into any type of human trials... at least for its intended purpose.
One of Crouch's "habits" (in my opinion) is lazy, unethical "science" for the convenience of his plots. It wouldn't be hard to get it right, but he WOULD lose some of the urgent page-turner aspect that he's hoping will cover a lot of 'sins'.
And if that fails, send in the Megalomaniac Billionaire! (I've only read this and Pines, and there were Megalomaniacal Billionaires in both to ensure that the necessary bad science happens so the book can.)
Anyway, as I said, I didn't finish this, so I don't know if any of that is addressed in the 2nd half, but I would be pretty surprised if it was.
Monica wrote: "Not an award winner to be sure, but I needed a departure from reality. ."Actually, it won Best SF 2019 here on Goodreads, but, yes, wasn't nominated for Nebula or Hugo (even not in top-16), which shows just how different tastes are in different award nominations
Oleksandr wrote: "Actually, it won Best SF 2019 here on Goodreads, but, yes, wasn't nominated for Nebula or Hugo(even not in top-16), which shows just how different tastes are in different award nominations"In 2020 the Hugo Awards were decided by 2,221 ballots; A Memory Called Empire won Best Novel with 880 votes. I haven't seen a figure for the Nebula Awards, but I expect the numbers would be smaller.
The Goodreads Choice Awards were decided by 4,659,701 votes - though the (unknown to me) number of unique voters is surely much smaller. I believe that vote totals were cumulative across multiple stages and that any voter could vote for the same book at every stage. Recursion won the SF category with 41,261 votes. So even with all the caveats, we're looking at some orders of magnitude higher than Hugo and Nebula.
Whether more participation produces better results is an open question.
Becky wrote: "I didn't read this with the group (I tried and DNF'd it halfway through last year), but one thing I'm interested in discussing but didn't see anyone mention here was the concept of the chair for it..."Most people like a Megalomaniac Billionaire as a plot device :-) In any case it looks more easy to believe than a megalomaniac guy with no money to make his world domination plans come true.
In fact what I didn't like about the Megalomaniac Billionaire plot device was that it was revealed too early that he wasn't a good guy. I would have liked if his intentions had been hidden for longer, if he had really appeared as an altruistic benefactor at the start and middle of the story and his bad intentions had been a surprising twist a while later in the book.
Leticia wrote: "Most people like a Megalomaniac Billionaire as a plot device :-) In any case it looks more easy to believe than a megalomaniac guy with no money to make his world domination plans come true."*blink* I live in the US. I beg to differ. That's all I'm gonna say on that though. O_o lol
Anywho, I think it's super lazy as a plot device and I wasn't a fan. Plus, he's already used that one, and I didn't like it the first time I read it, either. We get it, selfishness and greed and money and evil and whatnot. But it's boring and has been done a million times before.
It would have been FAR more interesting to me as a story if the timeline aspect was simply a side effect of the machine, or the scientist decided to try to exploit it or something. Or it created new timelines every time it was used, and not just when there was a death, and nobody realized it until things got really crazy. Or just... something, anything else but a super rich evil guy. Again.
The villain was as a simple scientific assistant, not a billionaire. He only became billionaire through killing Helena, using the chair to go back in time after having learned sports betting tables and stocks to buy etc., which then allowed him to get rich and famous enough to buy the whole chair research project and gain control of it. I think you're forgetting that the book starts in a timeline that has already been altered a few times, not the original timeline. So he starts out poor/regular and pretty evil, and then becomes rich and actually quite nice (if misguided), considering that he only allows desperate people in need who want to save someone in the past etc. to use it for free (only "worthy causes"). It's not really his fault that our heroes' break-in to his lab attracts the attention of the government, which then leads to the whole huge atomic chaos situation.
Hmm... Yes I must have either forgotten or not made it to that point. It changes things a bit, but it still ends up being one guy who thinks that he should have and control the type of power that nobody should have, and apparently is willing to kill for it.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (other topics)Altered States (other topics)
The Minority Report (other topics)
Time and Again (other topics)
Dragonquest (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Gene Wolfe (other topics)Ursula K. Le Guin (other topics)
What did you think?
Some questions to get us started:
1. Did the overlapping stories work for you?
2. Did you find the writing compelling?
3. What did you think of the ending?
4. What worked or didn't for you?