Others: Overwhelmingly positive Memory makes reality. That’s what New York City cop Barry Sutton is learning as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—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. But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?
Genres: science fiction, thriller
Lists: …
Blake Crouch
2016 · 383 pages · 24 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveOne night after an evening out, Jason Dessen, forty-year-old physics professor living with his wife and son in Chicago, is kidnapped at gunpoint by a masked man, driven to an abandoned industrial site and injected with a powerful drug. As he wakes, a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend." But this life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife; his son was never born; and he's not an ordinary college professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something impossible. Is it this world or the other that's the dream? How can he possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could have imagined--one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. --
What made the match, strongest first
Sylvain Neuvel
2016 · 336 pages · 8 reviews
Others: Mostly positive"17 years ago: A girl in South Dakota falls through the earth, then wakes up dozens of feet below ground on the palm of what seems to be a giant metal hand. Today: She is a top-level physicist leading a team of people to understand exactly what that hand is, where it came from, and what it portends for humanity. A swift and spellbinding tale told almost exclusively through transcriptions of interviews conducted by a mysterious and unnamed character, this is a unique debut that describes a hunt for truth, power, and giant body parts"--
What made the match, strongest first
Andy Weir
2021 · 496 pages · 47 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveRyland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance. Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian–while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.
What made the match, strongest first
Micaiah Johnson
2020 · 256 pages · 8 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveAn outsider who can travel between worlds discovers a secret that threatens her new home and her fragile place in it, in a stunning sci-fi debut that’s both a cross-dimensional adventure and a powerful examination of identity, privilege, and belonging. Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total. On this Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now she has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security. But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgängers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse.
What made the match, strongest first
Andy Weir
2017 · 320 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Leaning negativeJASMINE BASHARA never signed up to be a hero. She just wanted to get rich. Not crazy, eccentric-billionaire rich, like many of the visitors to her hometown of Artemis, humanity's first and only lunar colony. Just rich enough to move out of her coffin-sized apartment and eat something better than flavored algae. Rich enough to pay off a debt she's owed for a long time. So when a chance at a huge score finally comes her way, Jazz can't say no. Sure, it requires her to graduate from small-time smuggler to full-on criminal mastermind. And it calls for a particular combination of cunning, technical skills, and large explosions--not to mention sheer brazen swagger. But Jazz has never run into a challenge her intellect can't handle, and she figures she's got the "swagger" part down. The trouble is, engineering the perfect crime is just the start of Jazz's problems. Because her little heist is about to land her in the middle of a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself. Trapped between competing forces, pursued by a killer and the law alike, even Jazz has to admit she's in way over her head. She'll have to hatch a truly spectacular scheme to have a chance at staying alive and saving her city. Jazz is no hero, but she is a very good criminal. That'll have to do. Propelled by its heroine's wisecracking voice, set in a city that's at once stunningly imagined and intimately familiar, and brimming over with clever problem solving and heisty fun, Artemis is another irresistible brew of science, suspense, and humor from #1 bestselling author Andy Weir. This description comes from the publisher.
What made the match, strongest first
Adrian Tchaikovsky
2015 · 624 pages · 17 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveThe last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home. Following their ancestor's star maps, they discovered the greatest treasure of a past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New monsters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilisations are on a collision course and must fight to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
What made the match, strongest first
MixedI found this to be a rather disjointed reading experience. It's very easy to read, and for most of the book, big lumps of it, I enjoyed the in the moment action, the thriller, the stuff. But this is now the second Blake Crouch book which begins to evaporate as soon as I finish reading.
Loved ithis books like black dark matter and recursion are some of my favorite books of like the last five years
Loved itthe pacing is phenomenal the mystery is intriguing the sci-fi concepts are thought-provoking and mind-bending
Loved itthis book evoked a lot of emotions in me i also like to tell people it's not science fiction it's actually a romance the thing that i like about blake crouch with his science fiction he makes it understandable
Loved itrecursion by Blake Crouch it's great it's solidly great, it was a page-turner for sure
Loved itrecursion has been such a bloody journey and it came into my life at the moment that I really needed it I was really struggling with books I was really struggling with reading because it would take me so long to get through anything
Loved itI read recursion by Blake Crouch loved it finally got around to reading another one of his books after dark matter
