Blake Crouch: My Entry To Loving Science Fiction Novels!

Posted On February 21, 2022

Hi Readers! February has been a month of intense reading for me, but not really the month for book reviews. Whichever books I have read, I find myself unable to review them. I only reviewed 2 out of 8 books: Second Place & The Forty Rules of Love. And this post will include 2 more reviews & I might review The Tattooist of Auschwitz soon too! But, as for the 3 other books: Three Thousand Stitches by Sudha Murty, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, I don’t think I will write a review. Anyway, here is the review of Dark Matter & Recursion by Blake Crouch!

~~BLAKE CROUCH: MY GATEWAY TO LOVING SCI-FI NOVELS~~

I had never liked science fiction when it came to books. I preferred watching it in movies or TV series. This was maybe 10 years ago when I tried a few Stephen King books. Naturally, I never read another Stephen King book or science fiction book, until I came across Blake Crouch.

I had Dark Matter on my bookshelf for a long time. When I finally picked it up, I couldn’t stop reading it. I finished it in a couple of days. I immediately bought Recursion & read that in a few days too. Blake Crouch’s writing made me love science fiction. For a reader, it means the whole world when we are opened up to a new genre. It opens us to an ocean of new books in that genre. For this, I will always be thankful to Blake Crouch!

~~DARK MATTER~~

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch was published in 2016. If you read the back cover, it asks you, “Are you happy in your life?” From this question starts a fast-paced story following the life of Jason Dessen. It takes us to the metaverse leading us to the multiple parallel universes in which Jason has different lives. The question is will he understand what he has gotten himself into? How will he ever go back to his own life when there are multiple lives in front of him? Will he last long enough before his mind gives out? This book is the master of all the page-turners. There is always something intriguing happening & you cannot wait to figure out how the story ends. It left me on the edge of my seat throughout. It is a short book, so you are not as titillated as you would be in the next book. Because I read this genre after a long time, I ended up loving it. I rated Dark Matter by Blake Crouch at 5/5 stars!

~~RECURSION~~

Recursion by Blake Crouch was published in 2019. In this book, the back of the cover asks you, “What if someone could rewrite your entire life?” It was as thrilling a question as the earlier book, but even if it wasn’t, I knew I would read the book as soon as I got over Dark Matter. Since the last book, you can feel how much Blake Crouch’s writing has enhanced in this one. There is a lot more maturity to the writing; with more aspects, more content, more characters, more thought-provoking questions, more science & of course more thrill. Because of all these added elements, I liked it a whole lot more than Dark Matter.

Recursion follows the concept of preserving memories of Alzheimer’s patients & then reintroducing those memories when they start to lose them. What started as an ambitious project, soon turned out to be disastrous. Our protagonists in this book are NYC detective Barry Sutton & scientist Helena Smith. We follow them in 2007 till 2018 & then all over again many times over. Because, the chair designed by Helena not only captured a person’s memories, but actually sent that person’s consciousness back to that memory so that they can relive their life! Naturally, this leads to a lot of conflict which even reaches a world-ending event. I loved this book far more than Dark Matter because while it was a page-turner, it did not feel rushed. I could enjoy the breathing space between all the catastrophes. I was able to take short breaks while reading to ponder over what I had read. I had never seen such a stark difference in an author’s two consecutive books. Maybe it was intentional, maybe not. But, I enjoyed them both thoroughly. I can’t wait to read his latest book Upgrade which is releasing in July this year! I have rated Recursion by Blake Crouch at 5/5 stars!

Well, after these two roller-coaster novels, I will likely read something light. My bookshelf does not have a single light book, so I may turn to e-books. But, after reading Blake Crouch, I have immediately added Andy Weir’s The Martian & Project Hail Mary to by TBR. I will likely read them soon, before I move on from this high of science-fiction! Do you like this genre? Please recommend more books so that I can immerse myself into it & read more of it!

Until next time,