Book club book #8
I used to read books like this all the time. My Dad and I would pass volumes of Robin Cook, Nelson DeMille, and Michael Crichton back and forth. Then I stopped. I took a break to do some rereading and delve into the classics. I had kids and reading became harder to do. I missed the genre of world-ending thrillers, where real science goes a step too far and an emotionally scarred detective jumps into the fray. I'm glad to be back.
Recursion was a great re-entry.
Helena is the scientist. Her work in memory mapping to help alzheimer patients goes awry when it opens the door to time travel. Barry is the detective, mourning the loss of his teenage daughter and his marriage. False Memory Syndrome is the disease, appearing one day, randomly. People are somehow being given a second set of memories that never happened. It makes many crazy since they're living two lives, but only within their own mind. There's no known cause or cure, until Barry and Helena team up.
Barry starts poking around and Helena realizes what she's created. Then, it's a rush to save the world in a way that won't ripple out these false memories, connected to timelines that technically never happened. Timelines that lead to mass suicide and worldly destruction. Barry and Helena try over and over until the very attempt to solve the problem becomes more of a struggle than watching the world end over and over.
This is a smart and intense read that had me carrying my Kindle around the house to read every spare minute I had. The struggle feels real. The characters are complex, flawed, and people I wanted to know. It was a painfully realistic look at how humanity could conceivably destroy itself.
It was great to feel so vested in a story that was well-written and well-thought. It has been a while for me. I highly recommend this book for a cold night's read by the fire this holiday season. It will be well worth the time.
Rounding out this series of books, the fourth volume in Pratchett's set combines yet another humorous and crazy Discworld tale with real science and thought-provoking analyses of our world. This time there's even a trial, of sorts, as the ownership of Roundworld (aka our universe) comes under dispute.
More philosophical in nature than the other volumes, this is a book about thought and perception. It looks at a lot of science, but also delves into how the human ways of thinking have shaped our beliefs. From religion to how we interpret scientific facts, there's always the nagging feeling that certain questions simply don't have a "right" answer.
Conviction is closely explored as well as the book asks if things are a certain way because we've created specific rules to defend our point. Does G-d exist because we've got a book that says so or did we write the book to support a belief that something specific made our world? It's a valid question even as I have my own convictions. I realize that most people disagree about some topic or at some level, so how do you prove what you can only theorize about? You can't. Even with science, if it's just theoretical, you can craft any equation to support an opinion and label it as fact. That is, until someone else comes along with a different formula and completely changes the game.
It's a fascinating way to approach just about anything.
While all this heavy thinking is going on, we get a good dose of silly on Discworld. Pratchett takes these serious questions about proof and thought and belief and converts them into an argument about the ownership of Roundworld. Even though the professors of Unseen University know Roundworld is their creation, because they were there when the world began, a religious group is laying claim to the universe because it proves their belief that the world is round. Discworld is actually flat, and it's a known and verified fact, but that doesn't stop this group from daring to think differently.
Does believing in something give you ownership over it? That's an interesting question, and in the end the ultimate decider for whether Roundworld returns to its spot on an academic wizard's shelf or becomes a tangible symbol of an entire religion. It's also something to think about in relation to our own universe, which we can never actually understand since we can't see the big picture. What else is really out there? Can we even predict it? The conversation could continue infinitely, unlike the decision about Roundworld. That gets an exciting conclusion, one that even involves a decent chase.
Before reading this book, make sure you hit the series from the start. The books do reference each other.
Second book club book #5
This was definitely not what I expected. Accustomed to the stories of other characters famous in this same time period, Odysseus or Achilles, I imagined something, well more epic. Instead, this is a telling of a single life, memoir style. You learn about one immortal person, Circe, in the most intimate detail. You see her hardships, her loves, her quest of self-discovery. Most of it happens in the confines of just one island.
Yes, the elements of an epic are deftly included. Circe takes a few trips, battles some monsters, faces a god or two. She fights to survive and feels great joy and great sorrow. Her immortal life takes many twists and turns until she finally gets where she belongs. It's more of an epic journey toward self-discovery rather than a voyage where the "hero" completes a specific series of tasks. There's no golden fleece at the end of this tale, but there's a strong, smart woman who finds her voice and places herself into her ideal situation to live out her life happily.
The more I distance myself from the story and reflect, the more I like this book. Circe has so much humanity in her right from the start. She's a rule-breaker, but also the product of a family with absentee parents who don't care for her enough when they are present. She's the product of immortals, who Miller paints as very flawed right from the start. Yet, even with this genealogy, Circe seems to naturally rebel from those forces pushing against her. Her natural compassion makes her unique among the gods. It gets her in trouble too.
Banished to her own island, you expect Circle to spend eternity alone, but that's never the case. Even without the island animals who become her companions, she has visitors. Gods and humans alike dot Circe's life in a way that leave a lasting impact. They mold her impressions on who she wants to be and who she wants to be with as she interacts, connects, and fights with humans, gods, and goddesses. Her life is rough in a more extreme way than your typical person, but her internal struggles are very relatable.
This is really a book about a woman and how her experiences shape her. About how she finds courage to be herself. It's epic in its own way and presents a powerful tale that takes you on a journey that goes in unexpected directions, with a very comfortable conclusion.
Book club book #7
This is not what you normally get from a post-apocalyptic book. With less focus on the panic which would naturally occur if a flu epidemic killed off almost all of humanity, Station Eleven is about survival and hope. Zeroing in on one string of interconnected people and the need for art to remain in the world, when almost all else is lost, this book follows a travelling caravan 20 years later. Their purpose is to bring symphonic masterpieces and Shakespearean plays to the remaining clusters of civilization along the northern US/Canada border.
Everyday comforts are gone. People no longer live in traditional homes, they group together in fast-food restaurants, gas stations, airports. Some have chosen to forget the past, let what they've lost go, while others consider it a time to honor and remember.
A loose connection between main characters is established through the life of Arthur Leander, a Hollywood actor. The unique experiences of these connected characters before, during, and after the apocalypse form an interesting narrative of the many directions life can go upon surviving this worse-case scenario. Sadly, Arthur dies the night the flu begins its horrible spread, so we only get to know him through flashbacks. He leaves behind Clark, his best friend, a few ex-wives, a son, Jeevan, the man who tries to save him, and Kirsten, a little girl sharing the stage with Arthur in a production of King Lear. Arthur dies in front of her, on stage, during the show. Each character is touched in some way by Arthur as well as the two copies of two issues of the comic series, Station Eleven, created by his first wife. None of these survivors live out the same life, but they end up intersecting within the story, though not always knowing they're connected.
Using the past to show the reader why these characters belong in the same story, along with the remnants of an old life they continue to hold onto, the story illustrates how one person's life can impact a series of choices made by others, driving their futures. It's a story that rewards the hopeful. People that don't give up and don't try to manipulate the system, but rather live in it to the best of their ability. It rewards kindness and true community -- survival in a way that supports others and invites moments of joy into a vastly altered life. It doesn't deny the existence of hardship, but refuses to allow humanity to get bogged down in the bad.
What survives after the world as we know it ends? What's going to make it above all else? Hope. We can all hope, through this story, that it's hope.
