Imagine you can travel back in time by accessing your past memories? That’s the premise of the new novel from one of the most fun and inventive sci-fi writer around. Recursion is an inception-like tale of a scientist that discovers this technology, and a detective working to help her stop it from falling into the wrong hands, because traveling into memories creates new time lines for all those who have come into contact with their past selves. This book is fast-paced, thrilling, fun and a mind-warp!
Barrie’s life is seemingly normal: a dog, a farm, supportive nearby family. But she has a secret. A decade’s old, magical secret seems to be well in control until a baby washes up on the nearby shore, government men show up looking for anything out of the ordinary, and her estranged husband returns as if no time has passed at all. The aftermath of the Second World War has everyone on edge but the series of stranger and stranger events threaten to derail the life that Barrie has created for herself in what was once a sleepy town.
Light is a novel about three individuals slowly calcifying into crushing, existential pain and meaninglessness. Their only hope is an unknown force that lurks in the wild of the Kefahuchi Tract, a reality-defying and endlessly pillaged reliquary in space home to the detritus of a trillion exhausted civilizations. A change that obliterates: but also one that saves? Light is SF as existentialism, and while sometimes indulgent, I'd count it among one of my favorite books.
