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The May 2024 read is Recursion by Blake Crouch.

Seems this group has historically amounted to just posting ... hey, this book Title by Author is pretty good ... and that's it. I'd like try to provoke a little discussion of the book(s) were currently reading. If you jump in ... and please do ... then please mark up your comments with spoiler tags as appropriate, like this:

Spoiler (Chapter 14) (view spoiler)[In the end, it was Colonel Mustard, in the library, with a candlestick. He's the murderer. (hide spoiler)]
Spoiler (Page 254) (view spoiler)[If you never played the board game Clue then ... you didn't really miss much, except the reference in that last spoiler.
(hide spoiler)]

Those aren't really spoilers. Just a test. Go ahead and click if you haven't seen spoiler tags before. I expect the most interesting discussion will all be spoiler material, but if you mark it as such ... it won't problem. Indicate the chapter or page your up to ... or the range your about to spoil, so if others are past that point, they'll know they can click and see/read that material. That facilitates more real-time commentary.

Moderator Summary
The story of Recursion revolves around the invention of a chair or sensory deprivation pod where a person sits down to tune out their current physical awareness and dons a headset/harness--the real invention--tied into a computer to record/map their neural activity while channeling memories. It can also be used to amplify/reinforce/replay these memories, exciting the same constellation of neurons directly, playing back the recorded pattern. The main character is the inventor, motivated to find a way to prevent the loss of memories in her mother who is starting to show signs of dementia. The chair proves to have potential beyond all expectation.

Marketing Summary
Reality is broken.

At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery—and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself.

In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth—and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery . . . and the tools for fighting back.

Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy—before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.

The book was indeed good. Starts slow and has a steady crescendo in intensity. I liked this quote:

An action-packed, brilliantly unique ride that had me up late and shirking responsibilities until I had devoured the last page . . . a fantastic read.
�Andy Weir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Martian

I wasn't the only reviewer to comment on ... something noticeable in this book. Try not to get too hung up on the ... credibility/how. There was a moment where I just laughed listening to the audiobook, rewound a minute and listened again, and then laughed again while nodding. Yep, ... there was a particular paragraph ... and I think a particular sentence that has some serious buzzword mumbo-jumbo that didn't really make any sense. Just ... wallpaper over that and keep trucking. Well, ... actually ... stop and re-read that if you notice it, so you can savor the blah-blah-blah and voila! writing style that puts the whole premise in place. It's sort of an unintentional comedic moment. You can cringe and roll your eyes thinking ... ahhh ... this book's another dud ... or just laugh and savor it. I'll probably add it to my quotes because it was such a condensed nugget of nonsense. Then, keep trucking. Regardless of credibility, ... accepting the premise, ... the ramifications are interesting. That's where the pace and interest begin to pick up, and ... it really was a good book overall.

Movie/TV Tie-in?
Evidently I can't link to anything here, but Netflix has allegedly optioned the film rights for this story. There is talk of a movie and a spin-off series. I'm thinking ... not both, ... just do it as a series, if anything, ... but we'll see. The writer/producer they picked ... from Grey's Anatomy ... is that series still going? How many seasons now? I suppose if she's involved, ... a multi-season series is a possibility. We'll see.

Sorry for the dissertation. Just wanted to kick off some discussion.

If you reading it, at any point you want to share or comment, then while the thought is fresh, please do � with spoiler tags as necessary. The crux of the premise would have been the point where I wanted to sound off, share a quote, and get somebody else’s take, but I read this book a couple months ago.

I see 13 of us have already read it since it was published in 2019, and at least 1 of us is actually reading it so far this month. Feel free to comment. It’s what the group is for.

I read Recursion a few years ago, and it's my favorite of the four or five books of his that I've read. Possibly/partly because I have a thing for time-travel type books. And nostalgia/golden memories.

Of course, like all Crouch books I've read, Recursion is dark! There's so much pain in this story, ranging from relatively small stuff (view spoiler)[(e.g., twisting Helena's wonderful memory of her first solo drive at 16-years-old into something ugly) (hide spoiler)] to gigantic stuff (view spoiler)[(e.g., nuclear war on repeat). (hide spoiler)]

To be honest, Crouch is borderline too dark for me. As I've gotten older, I'm less into dystopias, brutality and ugliness in general in my entertainment. Not sure why. Maybe because I now see how much pain and ugliness there is in the real world, unlike the blithe days of my youth?

That said, I'll probably read Crouch's next one, lol! He's great with the thriller, creating characters to care about, and fascinating near-future sci-fi settings.

I wondering if maybe (view spoiler)[saying "time-travel" is a spoiler, and worth putting the spoiler tags on (hide spoiler)].

Perhaps, my tolerance for pain is a little higher. I didn't really think of it as overly dark, until you specifically mentioned the gigantic pain (view spoiler)[stuck in timelines that always end with one of them trying to evade a nuclear bomb. Particularly the part where he's basically burned and dying of radiation exposure, waiting for her to fork them over to a new timeline (hide spoiler)]. It indeed devolved to a (dark) Sisyphean rut for a bit there. I actually kind of liked that notion (view spoiler)[before it got too repetitive, though it honestly seemed necessary. They had become too comfortable and the recurring nukes changed the calculus, forcing them to lay it on the line (hide spoiler)].

I haven't read any other Blake Crouch books, and am interested in more, such as Dark Matter. Wait ... walked right into that, didn't I? I suppose that title isn't on the borderline, but undeniably ... Dark. I'm not quite sitting here twiddling my thumbs, but I already read Recursion in March. The other books I'm reading haven't kept me entirely engaged. Usually, I have a rotation of 5 or 6 books, one for each of several moods, and always keep a thriller in the rotation for when my attention span is a little short.

You've inspired me here. I sort of hit the same dilemma last month now that I think of it. I said Recursion is the April book, and then thought ... I can't select that mid-month, with only 2 weeks to go. So, I put in a novella ... All Systems Red for the 2-week span, and pushed Recursion to May where people would have a full month for a full novel.

Now I'm thinking ... a full novel and a short novella each month. And, ... a why not a Blake Crouch novella. Your in the same fix as me, having already read Recursion. Let's see if you read the next Crouch or not? I'll put another on the shelf for May.

I have now completed part 1 of the book. I was fine with it up until the time travel aspect. Yes, the science was a little hokey, going out into hurricane force 80 MPH winds on the platform seemed insane just to sit off the edge. I still have no reason to understand why, Blake. Why the Sensory Deprivation Chamber? Wouldn't it have made more sense if you wanted to capture memories to flash pictures on a wall to stimulate recall? Data mapping today still has a ways to go before we can map the human brain. Given that this was published in 2019, before the advances in artificial intelligence, made it an interesting read, I am eager to dive into part 2 tonight. I was thinking more of body swapping than time travel.

Kurtis Mcdowell wrote: "I have now completed part 1 of the book. I was fine with it up until the time travel aspect. Yes, the science was a little hokey, going out into hurricane force 80 MPH winds on the platform seemed ..."

Kurtis, hang in there. It get's better from there. Having read a few of Crouch's books this last month, it seems his style is to just blow past the technology premise with minimal explanation and just get on with the story. I nearly stopped where you are, but was on a plane with nothing else to do. Accepting that this technology could exist, ... what would people do? That part ... the rest of the book ... was still interesting.

Please edit your post to use spoiler tags for significant plot elements not mentioned in the publisher's book summary. You can just click on the book to read what they did or did not mention.

Example:
ÌýÌý<spoiler>stuff that might ruin it for other people</spoiler>
Displays like this:
ÌýÌý(view spoiler)[ time travel (hide spoiler)]

People who've already read it can click on it and see what you were talking about.
People who haven't ... don't click ... and don't spoil their read.

If you liked Recursion, please vote on it on this technothriller list.
/list/show/2...

It wasn’t even on the list � not in the top 200. I added it. I saw a lot of 4 and 5 star reviews from our group, so look at the list and if you can’t think of 200 better technothrillers, give it a vote.