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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intertwining Stories, June 26, 2007
This review is from: Recursion (Mass Market Paperback)
Against the backdrop of today's world, in which governments become ever more intrusive into our daily lives and computer-based observation of our actions runs rampant, Ballantyne's vision of the future definitely hits home. Yet "Recursion" is hardly a ham-handed allegory; it has relevance to today's issues yet tells its own story. Nor do its characters face easy choices; it's often hard to tell what the "right" path to take is, and Eva, Constantine and Herb, much like real people, often have to cross their fingers and pray they've made the right choices.
The plot is intricate and delicately woven across three time periods. Setting a story in multiple time periods is extremely tricky, and risks causing those stories set in older times to feel irrelevant or unnecessary. Neither is the case here; Ballantyne does an extraordinary job of making each story important, revelatory, and fascinating, as well as necessary to understanding the other characters and events in the book.
The writing is lean and precise; most of the characters (particularly Eva, Constantine, and the Watcher) are fascinating and their stories amazing. I loved unraveling the events of this book. It walked a good line between explaining enough that the reader could keep up, yet not so much that it felt dumbed-down.
My only problem with this book is the third story. The story itself is quite interesting, but the characters of Herb and Robert (Herb's government-provided companion) are both a bit flat, particularly early on. Herb is one of the least-developed of the book's major characters, which is a bit odd since he's billed as its main character. Constantine and Eva were interesting enough to largely make up for that, but it is an unfortunate flaw in an otherwise amazing book. Still, as I said, it's Ballantyne's first novel, and that this is the only real flaw in it is quite impressive. I can see why he did it this way---Herb does change and grow over the course of the book, after all---but he still needed to start off with more of a hook to make him compelling. At first I found myself looking forward to getting back to Eva and Constantine's stories as I read Herb's.
This is a fascinating book that mixes technological science fiction with interesting philosophical questions and quite a few unusual characters, and I definitely believe it's worth a read if that's what you're looking for.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Cheesy cheesy, January 14, 2011
This review is from: Recursion (Mass Market Paperback)
The writing was so cheesy I grimaced again and again. Herb had about the intelligence of a cow, which conveniently allowed Johnston to explain the world to the reader in a manner that reminded me of the famous column "If all stories were written like science fiction stories." The ending was unconvincing and bizarre.
Probably the lamest part of the book is the implausible von Neumann machines which are the basis of essentially the entire plot. Apparently these little guys can build duplicates of themselves out of -anything-, including:
* Water
* The recently-molten iron core of a rocky planet
* Duplicates of themselves
Not only that, but after converting every gram of mass on a planet while avoiding melting, they can overcome the gravitational binding energy of the entire planet and form themselves into a long spear for attacking enemies. Note that wikipedia says that for an Earth-sized planet that's 37.5 megajoules per kilogram of mass. Pretty good for a bunch of little model robots with spider legs.
And of course (why not?) even spaceships can reproduce by mitosis. Somehow the carpet reproduces into two carpets half as thin. The whole ship can split this way and reassemble itself completely in minutes. When Herb opens a container of coffee in one of the split ships, it's half full. I laughed out loud.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very Entertaining, November 20, 2006
This review is from: Recursion (Mass Market Paperback)
I picked up this paperback knowing nothing about the book (or author for that matter). The synopsis looked interesting.
I wasn't expecting too much, but was happily surprised to find the book very engaging and well thought-out. It was an excellent read that delves into AI (in a sci-fi kind of way) and implications of self-replicating machinery. I've recommended it to several friends and they've enjoyed it as well.
I'm looking forward to more sci-fi from Mr. Ballantyne.
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