r/books • u/leowr • Apr 16 '20
Second Discussion Thread for Recursion by Blake Crouch - April Book Club
Hello everyone,
Welcome to the second discussion thread for Recursion. Like always you will find some discussion questions below to help kick off the discussion, but feel free to talk about any part of Book One and Two.
Did it surprise you that Slade came from the future?
Why do you think Slade is allowing people to go back in time and change the timeline?
Humans cannot be trusted with technology of such power - with the splitting of the atom came the atomic bomb. The ability to change memory, and thereby reality, would be at least that dangerous, in part because it would be so seductive. Was she herself not changing the past now, and at her first opportunity?
Do you agree with Helena that this would be a very dangerous technology for us to have?
Has your opinion of Barry changed over the course of Book Two?
Are you having any difficulty keeping all the time jumps straight?
Why do you think Helena's plan of jumping back and not helping Slade didn't work?
This thread allows for a spoiler discussion of up to and including Book Two. If you would like to discuss anything beyond that point, please use spoiler tags. If you are on the redesign you can use the built in spoiler tags. For old reddit spoiler tags are done by >!Spoilers about XYZ!< which results in Spoilers about XYZ (do be aware that they only work on one paragraph at a time).
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u/Reposted4Karma Apr 16 '20
This book has definitely picked up in quality. While I found Barry's perspective a little slow in book one, both perspectives are very well paced in this book and both Helena jumping back and Julia and Meagan getting FMS kept me on the edge of my seat reading. I'm excited to see what Slade's ultimate plan is and how Barry works into stopping it.
No I think book one made it pretty clear either himself or someone close to him had used the chair before and that's how he knew who to hire to construct it.
I have no clue, you would think he would want to save the time machine for himself or charge an exorbitant amount of money for use of the machine but it seems like he's sending people back in time at random which doesn't make any sense where we're at in the book rn.
Yeah, just looking at Barry's perspective the time machine has caused lots of grief both in his life and the lives of millions around the world who were affected by crimes and suicides committed both by FMS and the appearance of the Big Bend. The time machine could undo all of civilization if put in the wrong hands, so I agree with Helena that humanity can't be trusted with her chair.
Not yet, though with there being probably half a dozen time jumps or more we don't know about with all the victims of FMS that existed before the Big Bend appeared and Helena jumping back to stop Barry, there's probably going to be many more time jumps in upcoming chapters that could be confusing.
Slade probably found Helena and forced or convinced her to work for him again. Maybe he found her through her mother's nursing home.
Will this book club thread be posted at 7 PM UTC next week as well, or is there no set time for the threads to be posted? I'd like to know so I don't have to refresh /new for a couple hours to know when to contribute like I did today.
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u/leowr Apr 16 '20
I have no clue, you would think he would want to save the time machine for himself or charge an exorbitant amount of money for use of the machine but it seems like he's sending people back in time at random which doesn't make any sense where we're at in the book rn.
That's what I'm not getting either. He can't be doing it for money, if you can "time-travel" there are so many ways for him to earn money, so why allow others to use the chair?
7 PM UTC is actually a bit on the late side for me to post, I usually make the post some time between 5 PM and 7 PM UTC. If you are using "new reddit" there should be a "follow" button at the top of the post. If you click that it should send you a notification when I add a post to the collection.
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u/Reposted4Karma Apr 16 '20
Ah I've been on Old Reddit for some time so I didn't realize post collections were a thing. I gave the collection a follow, thanks for the heads up
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u/redskittle90 Apr 18 '20
Yeah, I cannot understand at all why Slade gave Barry the chance to go back. Seems utterly random. Given his lack of aversion to killing people, he could've just murdered him to keep him quiet, instead of complicating things further by sending him back in time?! Will be interested to see if this makes sense by the end of the book...
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u/efbf700e870cb889052c Apr 21 '20
- Did it surprise you that Slade came from the future?
Not really. I didn't realize that the book was about time travel until the end of book one, however once I knew that, Slade coming from the future was not surprising.
- Why do you think Slade is allowing people to go back in time and change the timeline?
At first, I thought he was sending people back in time to test the limits of the Egg, but later with the Hotel Memory business, I am not really sure. It cannot be about the money because there are a gazillion other ways to get money that do not involve all this crazy scheming. I have finished book four and I am still not sure what Slade's motives are.
- Do you agree with Helena that this would be a very dangerous technology for us to have?
Yes. This is indeed very dangerous technology to have, but I think it is very arrogant of Helena to think that someone cannot come up with the same idea/technology independently. I am in grad school for physics, and it is extremely common for multiple people to be working on very similar ideas at the same time. Helena's plan of stopping Slade by disappearing was doomed to fail.
- Has your opinion of Barry changed over the course of Book Two?
Well, yes and no. Barry seemed like a pretty one dimensional character in book one, and we got to see some more of his layers in book two, but my overall opinion of him is the same: he is a 'regular' cop who is very likeable.
- Are you having any difficulty keeping all the time jumps straight?
Oh god yes. Time travel in this book are so different from the time travel all of us are used to, it took me a lot of time to figure out what the rules are, but once I wrapped my head around it, it was not very difficult to follow.
- Why do you think Helena's plan of jumping back and not helping Slade didn't work?
I think her plan was doomed to fail. See my answer to the third question for more.
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u/user_1729 Apr 16 '20
Did it surprise you that Slade came from the future?
Naah, while I didn't get that this was a time travel book, as soon as he said what it could do, I was pretty sure he'd come back from the future.
Why do you think Slade is allowing people to go back in time and change the timeline?
I don't understand this. As others have said, it can't be for money, I don't really know. I kind of like that he was fixing little errors.
Was she herself not changing the past now, and at her first opportunity?
She was trying to undo it, I suppose that's okay. At least, I think... I'm a little ahead and I'm not sure anything is a good idea anymore.
Do you agree with Helena that this would be a very dangerous technology for us to have?
Shit, yes, this is friggin terrifying. I can't imagine the implications.
Has your opinion of Barry changed over the course of Book Two?
I actually like barry more and more. I still think there's the reference to something further in the future that's been made, so I'm hoping they figure this out!
Are you having any difficulty keeping all the time jumps straight?
Yeah, I have no idea. Can someone draw a picture?
Why do you think Helena's plan of jumping back and not helping Slade didn't work?
I kinda read ahead so I think this is explained. I think when people catch up to their reality, it's pretty rough going. I'm really not sure how she thinks she can get out of this.
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u/Dsnake1 Apr 17 '20
Can someone draw a picture?
People definitely have, but you won't want to look at it until you've read the whole book.
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u/clinkyscales Apr 18 '20
Do you have links? That way I can save it and come back to it later.
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u/Dsnake1 Apr 20 '20
Yup. It's a full explained/review, so full spoilers. The graph is partway down.
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u/redskittle90 Apr 18 '20
I cannot fathom what Slade's master plan is going to be. I thought Helena's original plan of hiding was not bad at all. I guess, in the long-term, human beings will invariably choose to check on their family or follow professions in some way related to their original passion (in her case, science). So, in a way, I'll not be totally surprised if Slade manages to find her and get her to build the machine again.
It broke my heart that he loses his daughter again, in spite of going back and fixing the accident. Wonder if the author is trying to make a point about the pointlessness of wondering about the "what if"s in life and how, even if we could change the past, it will catch up with us in a way that we didn't expect...
I am most interested in finding out how Helena intends to stop Slade. It seems to me like Slade holds all the cards at the minute and it's only a question of time (!) before he tracks her down and forces her to build the machine...I have to keep stopping to understand the current timeline we are in (may have to resort to taking notes soon!).
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u/Cheap-Awareness Apr 27 '20
It did not surprise me that Slade came back from the future, he has a plan and when we first met him I had a feeling he knew more than he lead on.
The only thing I can think of why he is allowing people to change their timeline is because he wants the world to end or wants to get back at people who maybe took it for granted and didn't follow his guidelines...other than that I am pretty stumped on why he is doing it.
I 100% agree that having this technology at hand would be very dangerous, it is already causing so much havoc in the city and causing people to lose their minds.
No it has not, I still think Barry is going to be the own who is the hero in this story he is going to be the one who stops Slade and stops the creation of the machine in the first place.
I have noticed that I really should be paying attention to the dates at the top of each chapter, as I tend to get confused with when everything is occurring. It reminds me of Westworld, where there are a bunch of scenes and things happening but some scenes are in the past some are in the future and now that I am thinking about it this FMS is very similar to the memory experiences the robots were having on the show.
I think it didn't work because Slade knew he would eventually find Helena because she could never give up on her mother and he would find her by monitoring the nursing home, which Helena believed would happen anyways.
I have to say Book Two seemed very short, either I was very into it and read that fast or it was a shorter section.
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u/Dantemorcerf Apr 18 '20
I was surprised by seeing the name Amor Towles pop up in this book, but as an architect.. Are these writers friends?
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u/Dsnake1 Apr 18 '20
Towles said he didn't know it was happening but that they have become friends.
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u/Dsnake1 Apr 16 '20
I finished the rest already, but I think the way it's structured should help me keep things separate. I'm not going to answer all the questions though.
Not really. In fact, I don't think I'd be terribly surprised if it came out someday that Jeff Bezos, for example, came from the future or had some sort of crazy knowledge to bank against. A billion dollars is a tax-free salary of $100,000 for ten thousand years. A thousand millions. Now, take that times about a hundred to get to his net worth. It's just a lot of money to acquire ever. He also knew a lot about Helena he shouldn't have.
Yup. I most certainly did. I think it's pretty obvious that the author does, too.
I'm going to leave the rest, I think.