Recursion by Blake Crouch

From the publisher: Memory makes reality. That’s what NYC cop Barry Sutton is learning, as he investigates a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. That’s what neuroscientist Helena Smith believes. It’s why she’s dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious memories. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent. As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face to face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds, but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it. An intricate science-fiction puzzlebox about time, identity, and memory.

Blake Crouch’s Recursion is not a perfect book but it is a highly enjoyable one. It’s a classic time travel story with a twist – if someone goes back in time and changes the timeline, everyone affected by the change remembers their old timeline as well as their new timeline. This causes confusion, paranoia, and an increased suicide rate. The inventor of the technology that allows this to happen is trying to erase it from time, while others want to use it for good to change the past … but unexpected consequences are not predictable.

Recursion has a compelling narrative, and I found it hard to put down. I couldn’t quite follow all the timey-wimey stuff and have no idea whether the science is somewhat real or utterly ridiculous, but the characters are sympathetic enough that I did not worry too much about the timelines. I found the overall resolution predictable but not the steps the author took to get there. (I am confused by the very end – someone read it and tell me what it means!)

Recommended for readers who enjoy contemporary thrillers with a futuristic touch.

Recursion comes out on June 11 and has already been purchased by Netflix for a TV series. It will be available in print and as an ebook at the Galesburg Public Library.

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

 I give All Our Wrong Todays 4.5 stars. I deducted half a star only because the ending wasn’t perfect (although I don’t have a suggestion for a better ending). Otherwise it is mostly 5 stars  because I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.

The narrator, Tom Barren, is straight with us right from the first chapter. He lives in our world in 2016. But it’s not supposed to be like this. An unlimited energy source invented in 1965 is supposed to have changed everything, leading to peaceful lives, plenty of food and health care for everyone, transport for all, and plenty of other cool things. But it’s not like that in our current timeline – and Tom himself is to blame. A stupid mistake while stupidly time travelling has changed everything.

Not everything is worse though. Our world is as messed up as we know it to be. But Tom’s personal situation is much, much better. This causes him some highly believable angst, since he knows he need to restore the timeline if possible, no matter what it costs him personally.

Everything in this book seems so plausible, and the time travel science seemed real (whether it is or not) and not too confusing for a nonscientist. I felt I got to know Tom well, given his complicated personal circumstances (I don’t want to spoil anything by saying more), and every now and then Tom hit me with something that I found insightful.

After finding a damaged pocket watch in his original timeline world:

 In the early twentieth century, railroad accidents were commonplace because trains running on the same tracks weren’t accurately synchronized. Keeping time was actually a matter of life or death. A watch like this was made to protect people. Every piece of technology in my world shared a global chronometer, coordinated to the microsecond, a planet of people all living in unison. But this pocket watch was from an era of temporal isolation, a planet of people each inside their own definite of time. (pp. 67-68 of the advance reader copy)

Wow, temporal isolation. What a great concept.

About the new timeline world (our world):

Part of the problem is this world is basically a cesspool of misogyny, male entitlement, and deeply demented gender constructs accepted as casual fact by outrageously large swaths of the human population. Where I come from, gender equality is a given. I’m not talking about absurdly fundamental things like pay equality. I mean that there is no essential difference in the way men and women are perceived in terms of politics or economics or culture. (pp. 159-160)

Maybe the author put this in as a ploy to appeal to his female readers, maybe it’s sincere, but I loved it either way.

At one point he describes his mom as “rereading The Time Machine with what I guess you would call passive-aggressive literary exasperation.” (p. 215) Ha, what a great turn of phrase!

I found this book cleverly constructed and very very entertaining. The author kept me guessing with the plot and threw in twists I didn’t see coming. This would be a perfect book for a long plane ride. Also, it is separated into nice short chapters if you read in short bursts, always a plus for easily finding a place to stop reading.

I read an advance reader copy of All Our Wrong Todays. It will be available for checkout at the Galesburg Public Library in February 2017.

A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain

The premise of this novel is preposterous, but if you can get past the implausibility, as I did, you might enjoy it.

Kendra Donovan is a present day, tough FBI agent. After a mission goes horribly bad, she goes rogue and takes off for England to exact revenge on one of the men to blame. While taking part in a reenactment dressed as a 19th century maid, she escapes into a secret passageway in an old English manor. Something happens, and she emerges in the same manor in the 19th century.

She plays the part of a Lady's maid at a manor house party while trying to figure out what has happened to her. She is absolutely hopeless, of course, and very American to boot. (That is used as an excuse for almost everything she does wrong.) Then a woman is found murdered, and her FBI training kicks in.

As I said at the beginning, it's preposterous to think that upper class English men of the 19th century would allow a woman, a servant no less, to investigate a murder, interview her betters, and watch post mortem exams. But the writer did a good enough job convincing me to play along that I quite enjoyed it.

There were some plot twists I did not see coming, and the interactions between the modern day American woman and the 19th century English men were a hoot. Kendra is a strong female lead who foolishly allows herself to get trapped in  a dangerous situation but gets out of it without any help from a man.

If you like mysteries, Regency romance, historical fiction, time travel, strong female leads, or some combination, you might want to read A Murder in Time.

A Murder in Time is the current Big Library Read through the Alliance Digital Media Library, the Galesburg Public Library's download service from Overdrive. Borrow and download the book now through July 7 with your Galesburg Public Library card here:
http://alliance.lib.overdrive.com/

The Book That Proves that Time Travel Happens by Henry Clark

Genres: Time Travel, Historical, Middle Grade

Release Date: April 14th, 2015
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Source: ARC from Publisher

Add on Goodreads

The first novel that explores--with dazzling wit and high adventure--the previously undiscovered, astonishing-yet-true connections between Morse Code and ancient Chinese I-Ching hexagrams!

This never-before-seen twist on time travel adventure explores the theme of accepting those who are different--and having the courage to join them. The moment Ambrose Brody steps into a fortune-teller's tent, he is whisked into a quest that spans millennia with his best friend, an enigmatic carnival girl, and an unusual family heirloom that drops them into the middle of the nineteenth century!

The year 1852 is a dangerous time for three non-white children, and they must work together to dodge slave-catchers and save ancestors from certain death--all while figuring out how to get back to the future. Fortunately, they have a guide in the helpful hints embedded in an ancient Chinese text called the I-Ching, which they interpret using Morse Code. But how can a three-thousand-year-old book be sending messages into the future through a code developed in the 1830s? Find out in this mind-bending, time-bending adventure!

I feel so cheated by this book. The title suggested something really fun and quirky and perhaps something that was in the vein of Pseudonymous Bosch (whose books are hilarious and you should totally check them out.) This book wasn't really any of those things though. Some readers will find it hilarious, and there were moments when I laughed but this book just didn’t work for me the way I wanted it to.

The time travel aspects were not believable and given that this book is set in a world resembling ours, I was surprised at how easily the characters believed things without even questioning them. They find a connection between two codes and they are so quick to believe it isn’t a coincidence. I mean one of these codes was SWEET, sweet wasn’t a term used in the specific context they were using it when the code was invented.

I hate conveniences like that and I don’t think a book should be excused for relying on them to explain important parts of the world building just because it is intended for a younger audience. That seems like cheating to me.

I also didn’t really like the characters. Tom was smart but there were times when he would want to do things that put everyone’s life at risk, including his own, because he felt like it. Ambrose was kind of a jerk when the novel started and even though he became better by the end of the novel, his improvement came too late for me. I also didn’t give a flying fart about Frankie.

This all left me with a book I felt very mediocre about. It’s not a bad book; it’s just not the book for me because almost none of the aspects of the book really made me get excited. It’s especially a pity since I think MGs about time travel can be so much fun.

This book is not one I’d personally recommend but don’t be put off if you’re interested! It might work out for you.