Recursion
Author:
Genres: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genres: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Hardcover
This is 2/3 of an excellent, 5-star book.
I'm splitting the difference at 4-stars, because its admirable qualities are so very admirable. I like novels with Big Ideas, but in the hands of an immature author, everything -- character, style, emotional intelligence -- is thrown under the bus of the Big idea. In "Recursion," however, I could feel two things from the very opening pages: Blake Crouch is a guy who understands the metaphorical power of his Big Idea. And in order to work with that metaphor, he is willing to work (for the most part ...) on the quiet, personal, mundane level of the narrative. I loved that.
All the more reason, therefore, that I felt shock and disappointment when it seems like the pages of a completely different novel had infiltrated "Recursion," at about page 200. Characters we love (or love to hate) suddenly become ciphers. Style collapses into staccato sentence fragments, and single line paragraphs. Lots of explosions. The best thing I can say about it is that the pages between 200 and 300 read very fast.
And perhaps I should give Mr. Crouch credit for knowing his craft, and admit that those cuckoo pages needed to be there, in exactly that jarring form, because when it recovers (and it does ...), it makes the return to the form of the first 2/3, and closure for the ideas that Crouch has been playing with, even more satisfying.
I'm splitting the difference at 4-stars, because its admirable qualities are so very admirable. I like novels with Big Ideas, but in the hands of an immature author, everything -- character, style, emotional intelligence -- is thrown under the bus of the Big idea. In "Recursion," however, I could feel two things from the very opening pages: Blake Crouch is a guy who understands the metaphorical power of his Big Idea. And in order to work with that metaphor, he is willing to work (for the most part ...) on the quiet, personal, mundane level of the narrative. I loved that.
All the more reason, therefore, that I felt shock and disappointment when it seems like the pages of a completely different novel had infiltrated "Recursion," at about page 200. Characters we love (or love to hate) suddenly become ciphers. Style collapses into staccato sentence fragments, and single line paragraphs. Lots of explosions. The best thing I can say about it is that the pages between 200 and 300 read very fast.
And perhaps I should give Mr. Crouch credit for knowing his craft, and admit that those cuckoo pages needed to be there, in exactly that jarring form, because when it recovers (and it does ...), it makes the return to the form of the first 2/3, and closure for the ideas that Crouch has been playing with, even more satisfying.
