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Recursion by Blake Crouch

Quite a good novel. Diverting and a fast read with a creative central theme dealing with the nature of memory, and what actually happens in our brains when an experience is "experienced."

The book also gets you thinking about how you might live your life if you had a chance to re-live it: what things you would do--or not do? And what would be the nature of your experience during that second go-around? Will you be grateful to live it again? Would it teach you that you aren't grateful enough right now, in this go-around of your life?

Speaking of gratitude: I'm grateful this writer doesn't have the flouncing, gamma "I've deliberately inserted something witty here my dear reader, can't you see how funny I am?" tone seen in certain modern sci-fi writers like John Scalzi or Andy Weir.

Finally, critics speak pejoratively about the Macguffin, an item or device used to move a story along--usually when it lacks momentum or direction of its own. The time travel used throughout Recursion is in some ways the mother of all Macguffins: just think what an author can do if he has time travel at his disposal: he can do anything he wants with the story, including giving the characters repeated do-overs! You can turn what's thought of as a literary crutch into your primary tool, if you're writer enough to get away with it. 


(speaking of recursion...)

PS: if you're looking for some new fiction sources, read the acknowledgments: you can mine it for quite a few potentially good writers. See for example Helen Smith, Amor Towles (author of A Gentleman in Moscow), F. Paul Wilson, Joe Hart and John Shaw.

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