Book Review: Recursion by Blake Crouch

Brilliant neuroscientist Helena Smith set out to map human memory in an effort to save her mother from Alzheimer’s.  She instead creates the means to command time itself through memory, and of course big money wants a slice of the tech.  Helena fights big corporations, time, and memory itself resulting in a page-turning thriller that can only be described as the love child of The Terminator and Quantum Leap. 

While Helena fights big corporations,memory, and time, innocent Detective Barry Sutton gets swept along the maelstrom.  He fights his own personal demons and past memories as he struggles to help Helena in her ultimate mission and their connection ignites a love story that nothing can seem to kill. 

Recursion is one of those novels that you know is going to be big before it was even published.  It’s the kind of book that you hope someone will turn into a movie - an albeit really expensive movie - but a future blockbuster nonetheless.  Blake Crouch’s latest triumph has romance, a strong female protagonist, murder, action, and enough hard science fiction to rival Andy Weir’s The Martian.

Despite Recursion’s foundation in the hard sciences, degrees in neither physics nor biology are required to truly love this book.  It isn’t about the science but rather how the science affects the people we loved, love now, and will love in the future.  Release date: June 11, 2019.

Book Review: The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull

The Ynaa, an alien species, arrive on The Virgin Islands to teach its inhabitants “a lesson.”  They shower their new neighbors with advanced technology but their generosity is tempered by a violence we humans fail to understand, or forgive. 

It is also thirst-quenching to hear from people of color about people of color, especially in the speculative fiction community.  Through The Lesson we hear the cadence and spirit of the VI natives while the story touches on issues of racism, classism, and gender roles. 

The Lesson combines the ambiance of Rosewater by Tade Thompson with the eerie dread of The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey while tensions mount between the humans and the Ynaa.  This book is refreshingly difficult to classify with elements of historical fiction, science fiction, romance, and political thrillers. 

Looking at humanity through the eyes of these aliens brings forth our strengths and weaknesses in stark relief, making us ask ourselves, did we learn The Lesson or will there be a sequel to tell us what happens next?  This is a piece you can add to your book discussion lists as the content is ripe for debate.  Suitable for grades 8+.