Blake Crouch’s new novel, Recursion, has left me stumped. In order to review a book, I need to be able, to some degree, to understand it and in this case I’m not sure I do. It’s about time travel and its impact. Sort of. Maybe. I think… It’s 2007 and Helena Smith is a neuroscientist whose mother has Alzheimer’s. She has spent years trying to devise a way to capture and map ... Read More...
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
It begins with the gathering up of the women. They are herded into what used to be a sports stadium and separated into groups. Based on what? Not race. Not age. No, profession. Doctors recognize fellow practitioners, teachers band together, lawyers huddle. They’re kept for days, even weeks. And then, the executions start. This is the chilling introduction to The Testaments, ... Read More...
The Age of Miracles
It isn’t noticed at first, but on October 6th in some unspecified year of the not-so-distant future the scientific community notifies the world that Earth’s rotation is slowing and that a day has grown to last almost 25 hours. Panic erupts around the globe as people absurdly believe they can run somewhere where it won’t matter, but for middle-schooler Julia it feels less ... Read More...
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
It’s 1986 and the first artificial intelligence humans are for sale in London. Only 25 have been made and Charlie Friend decides he has to have one. Why is not quite clear except that he wrote a book about AI and has always been fascinated by Alan Turing and his contributions to the field. It’s much like the rest of his life, flitting from one thing to the next without much ... Read More...
If, Then by Kate Hope Day
It feels a bit as if alternate realities are all the rage in fiction this year, which is not too surprising if you pay attention to what’s happening in the real world. First, there was The Dreamers, where people fell asleep and dreamed of different lives. Dreams so vivid that upon awaking they believed their dreams were real. Kate Hope Day takes things further in her debut ... Read More...
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
The Dreamers opens with one of the greatest sources of angst for college girls—dorm life. Mei’s roommate, Kara, is wildly popular after only a month at school, while Mei cannot find her way into any social group. She’s left on the sidelines until it is Kara who slips away, by falling asleep one night…and not waking up. It’s nothing so nefarious as death, it’s just sleep. Soon ... Read More...
