I have to tell you right now that I am very excited to talk about this book. So be prepared for the amount of spoilers underway. I highly recommend reading Recursion first before reading this post as this will be a full length discussion of the novel.
What if time travel existed and that the key to it this whole time was through your memories? Now, imagine being able to go back to a specific memory in your life where you could have done something differently and then actually did it. Therefore, you end up changing not only your life, but the lives of others around you and the present as you knew it to be. Sounds heavy, right? This is what Blake Crouch, novelist and screenwriter of Dark Matter, Wayward Pines, and Good Behavior, explores in his latest novel Recursion, which is soon to be adapted by Netflix into a movie and a series.
On November 2nd 2018, Barry Sutton, an NYPD detective, is sent to prevent a woman named Ann Voss Peters from jumping off a building. When he arrives at the scene, she tells him that she has False Memory Syndrome, a mysterious and almost viral disease that causes people to remember vivid memories of a life they never had. She remembers being married with a son, so much so that she knows her husband's name is Joe Behrman and the details of their life together in Vermont. Although in her reality, she is single and alone and the man that she claims is her husband is actually married to another woman named Franny, who apparently in her false memories was his first wife that committed suicide from jumping off the same building. What could be concluded as an episode of delusion turns into something far greater than Barry can fathom as he continues to investigate Ann Voss Peter's story and the condition of False Memory Syndrome.
Meanwhile, in October 7th 2007, Helena Smith, a dedicated scientist, has been trying to study and perfect her creation of a chair that could help cure Alzheimer's disease, a condition that her ailing mother has been suffering from. Her hope is that it will help people recall and practically relive and experience their memories again. After being approached by a young billionaire, Marcus Slade, who offers to help fund and continue her research, Helena is immediately whisked away to board a secluded oil rig in the middle of the ocean staffed by a limited team to complete her invention. As the days and years pass, Helena soon realizes the unforeseen power of her creation and the dangers it can cause, especially under a man like Slade.
As the reality of the present and past begins to shift and bend, Barry and Helena have to work together in order to stop it and take down their formidable foe, even if it means altering time, memory, and everything they know.
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Throughout reading Recursion, I felt like Doc Brown from Back to the Future as I highlighted lines and tabbed pages frantically trying to absorb all the information flooding my way in such thrilling storytelling. It's funny actually, because when I first started reading this book I was not that into it. I practically gave up on it very early on because I was not invested in the idea of what False Memory Syndrome was or the science behind it and initially thought that the story would go in a direction that I wouldn't understand let alone be interested in. How very wrong I was. The story immediately shifted into this fantastic time traveling sci-fi in the realms of Edge of Tomorrow or Minority Report, that I stayed up all night until 5 AM upon picking it up again just to find out what happens until the very end. What is hilarious and purely coincidental is that during the time when I initially gave up on it and tried to get myself to go back and read it, I ended up watching Back to the Future and Avengers: Endgame multiple times as well as Looper and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, all of which have similar themes and ideas related to Recursion.
Barry and Helena are such amazing and compelling characters that you cannot help but root for them to succeed, especially towards the end (seriously Book Five of the novel gave me such anxieties). Even before they work together you get an understanding of who they are individually that you cannot help but empathize with them and their own personal struggles that they have to risk in order to save the world.
Barry is a grieving father who lost his daughter, Meghan, in a hit-and-run several years before the events of the story begins. He relies on his job in the NYPD to cope while still maintaining a cordial if not distant relationship with his ex-wife, Julia. When he is given the chance to go back to the memory of his daughter's death in 2007 and prevent it from happening, you feel just as astonished and hopeful as he is now that he gets to live this entirely different life in this new timeline with his daughter alive and well. This all drastically changes however the moment False Memory Syndrome comes into play.
When you leave your present to alter the past, it's like two timelines are now suddenly racing towards each other colliding on the day you left, which becomes a kind of timeline anniversary. So when Barry was forced back into his past memory in 2007 on November 6th 2018 and created a new timeline with Meghan alive, then on November 6th 2018 of his new timeline everyone he has been in contact with in both his new and old timelines now suddenly remembers Barry's old timeline where Meghan was gone as well as the different lives and relationships they had with other people. This is False Memory Syndrome and what Ann Voss Peters in the beginning of the novel was afflicted with (her husband went back in time and saved his first wife Franny from committing suicide, hence in his new timeline he and Ann were never married). Though as Helena explains it's not exactly false memories, it more like dead memories where those memories from an old timeline are gone because they now no longer exist once you changed your past. Still with me?
Helena is probably my favorite character, though she and Barry are a duo. She is smart and just as sympathetic of a character as we readers are towards Barry, and yet she has to risk her entire life, her own memories, in order to correct the disaster that unfolds. She never meant for her chair to create such chaos and destruction of time and memory. Her whole intention from the very beginning was to help people and cure Alzheimer's. She was manipulated by Marcus Slade, whose enigmatic character takes advantage of her knowledge and creation twisting into what it became "for the sake of science" and to expand and change reality. He kind of reminded me of Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina with a small touch of Biff Tannen especially at the end (he even has a sports almanac too!). The lengths Helena has to go through from surviving Slade's encompassing power to later being under the control of an underground research team, The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and then fighting to save the world, both alone and with Barry, practically puts her in the leagues with strong female characters such as Amy Adams' Dr. Louise Banks in Arrival and The Terminator franchise's Sarah Connor. She is highly intelligent, resilient, and determined - the best kind of female heroine we need more of especially in sci-fi novels.
Barry and Helena working together and going through multiple timelines was probably the best action pack scenes of the book. Their individual stories meeting suddenly propelled the story forward setting up the race against time. Their initial run to take down Slade was like the climax of a sci-fi thriller even though it was only midway through the book and nowhere near the end. It also reminded me of Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow having to relive events again in order to get it right. Then later in Book Five with the doomsday clock fast approaching in every new timeline they create and having to relive thirty-three years of their lives together over and over again repeatedly multiple times in order to find a solution was both insane, poignant, and frustrating all at once. It made the risks and dangers ahead all the more dire as well as the development of both characters and the importance of their relationship.
The ending was spectacular! Seriously, at the home stretch it felt like getting off a roller coaster and still being on a high. Even the moments leading up to it exuded a feeling of excitement and anticipation. It's that same feeling like at the end of Back to the Future Part II when Marty tells the Western Union courier that "there's only one man who can help me" and then cuts to the scene from the first movie when Doc sends Marty back to the future. The very last scene of the book was perfect and meaningful after reading Barry and Helena together throughout all these different timelines and what they had been through.
Recursion honestly surprised me considering how I almost gave up on it because of my initial and foolish dismissal. The story itself blew me away and the well-developed characters were an added bonus. It was incredibly well written that I don't know how Blake Crouch did it. It's one thing to conceive an idea and a story like this, but then to actually flesh it out into an entire novel is astounding. This may just be the best book I have ever read this year. I cannot wait to see what Netflix does in adapting it. If it is as any good as the book, then it will surely be memorable.
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List of Movies to Watch After Reading Recursion
Time travel and the idea of memory are brought to the screen in a variation of ideas and exposition, but not all are derived from or presented in one singular form.
Below is a list of movies with similar evocative tones as Recursion that you can watch right after finishing the book.
Back to the Future
You can probably tell after reading this post how much I love this trilogy from Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, and Steven Spielberg. It is also heralded as one of the best movies about time travel ever made. If you are somehow unfamiliar with Back to the Future then get ready because where we're going we don't need roads.
Marty McFly is a typical seventeen-year-old teenager living in the year 1985. When his friend and eccentric scientist, Dr. Emmett Brown, creates a time machine using a DeLorean, Marty is suddenly sent to the year 1955 where he accidentally runs into his parents's younger selves and affects their union that could alter his very existence. With the help of Doc Brown from 1955, he has to get back to his own present time while trying to get his parents back together and restore history.
The first movie is great as its own original standalone film, but the sequels that follow complete the fun-filled adventure Marty and Doc embark on from 1955, 2015 to 1885.
Edge of Tomorrow
When this film first came out it was not as big of a hit as Warner Bros. had hoped for, especially for a movie starring Tom Cruise, that even the title was changed on the marketing and DVD release to Live Die Repeat. However with time, there has been a growing appreciation for this sci-fi action film, which also stars Emily Blunt.
In the future, Earth is at war against an alien invasion known as Mimics. After a failed attack where William Cage, a demoted soldier, was infected with a Mimic's blood before dying, he suddenly wakes up to find himself reliving the same day again. As he is forced to relive the day over and over again as he continues to die on the battlefield, he gradually gets better in combat surviving his imminent death and soon meets another soldier, Sgt. Rita Vrataski, who once had the same ability he has right now. Together they use his ability to gain knowledge and intel to help win the war and save humanity.
Looper
This film is another underrated gem, written and directed by Rian Johnson. Here, telekinesis and time travel exists so casually in a distant future but with critical consequences.
Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Joe, a member of a criminal organization who is tasked with killing anyone the mob sends from the future. Along with the person sent whom he immediately kills, he is rewarded with a pack of silver bars as currency. If he or anyone tasked with the same job ever open the bag and find gold bars instead, it means that they had just killed their future self and that they "closed their loop," with the gold bars representing compensation for retirement. Meanwhile, in Joe's present time, word is spreading about a new criminal head in the future with powerful telekinetic abilities known as the Rainmaker who is rapidly closing all loops.
When Joe's future self, played by Bruce Willis, is the one sent, Joe fails to kill him and Old Joe manages to escapes and tries to hunt down the Rainmaker. At first what begins as a means to finish a job, Joe soon realizes the magnitude of Old Joe's objective in tracking down the Rainmaker and comes across a mother and son who may be tied to the outcome of all their futures.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
This is actually my cousin's favorite movie and one I didn't watch until recently. Although it is not exactly a movie about time travel such as the ones I mentioned above, it does relate to Recursion's idea of memory and its connection to time.
Joel Barish is a shy introvert who meets blue-haired extrovert, Clementine Kruczynski, on a train from Montauk. They instantly hit it off and look forward to the beginning of their newfound relationship, unbeknownst to themselves however that they had already dated before.
Prior to their most recent meeting, they had actually met at a mutual friend's party in Montauk and started dating for two years before they ended it. Clementine then went through a procedure to have all her memories of Joel and their relationship erased. After discovering this, Joel decides to go through the same procedure. As his memories of Clementine begin to disappear, beginning with difficult memories he had at the end of their relationship to later its earlier happier days, he suddenly finds himself regretting his decision and tries to retain his memories of her as the procedure commences.
The way how memory plays such an important role in how we remember a person and the life we had with them is depicted in such a nuanced way through the film's cinematography and visual effects and Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet's performances.
Minority Report
To be honest, I have yet to fully watch this Steven Spielberg film starring Tom Cruise. I have seen the beginning of the movie a few times and know the plot, but never got the chance to finish it. Maybe I will now. Not only is this movie mentioned in Recursion, but Book Four of the book is practically a nod to this sci-fi thriller.
In the year 2054, the percentage of murders in Washington, D.C. has been reduced to zero percent with the creation of the PreCrime unit tasked with stopping murders before they happen using humans known as "PreCogs" who have the ability to see the future. Tom Cruise leads the PreCrime team as John Anderton. As the film progresses, he is later a man on the run when the PreCogs determine that he will perform an act of murder in the future.
Like in Recursion, the affects of traveling in time to prevent a crime from happening can have and even create serious consequences than what was meant to be well intentioned.
The Butterfly Effect
This was a movie that was often talked about when it first came out as it had such a dark tone on the idea of time travel using the deepest recesses of your mind. This film is probably the closest to the idea Recursion explores, but told through a man and his group of friends haunted by their dysfunctional childhood.
Growing up, Evan Treborn experienced multiple blackouts unable to remember certain events that affected the upbringing of him and friends. As years pass and one of his friends whom he loved dies, Evan discovers that he is able to revisit the past through his blackouts by reading his old journal entries. By revisiting his memories he is able to alter the past and ultimately change the outcome of his life and his friends'. However, each time he tries to change one event it ends up affecting another but for the worse. Despite each outcome he faces, he refuses to let it deter him into changing all of their futures for the better.
Timeless
Ending this list on a lighter note is actually not a movie but a TV series that was on NBC. Timeless was created by Eric Kripke and Shawn Ryan and follows a team that includes historian, Lucy Preston, U.S. Delta Army Force, Wyatt Logan, and programmer and time machine pilot, Rufus Carlin as they travel through time to stop a terrorist organization called Rittenhouse from changing history as they know it.
It originally ran for one season before it was cancelled. After fan uproar over the cancellation, the series was renewed for a second season followed by a one-hour finale episode to wrap up the series. While the show plays with the notion of time travel in a fun way, it also highlights the importance of history and the events that helped shape the present.
Bonus Movie: Avengers: Endgame
I couldn't resist :) This one is just for fun and for your own enjoyment - 'nuff said.
I couldn't resist :) This one is just for fun and for your own enjoyment - 'nuff said.
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