Recursion (Book)

The Jolly Contrarian’s book review service™ →Go uptown Index: Click ᐅ to expand: Book reviews Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

Recursion’ by Blake Crouch.

In a rash moment I picked up this book for 99p on Kindle. Blake Crouch, his publicity avers, is some new enfant terrible of Sci Fi: a Philip K. Dick for the twenty-first century. Since Crouch has apparently sold millions and is on top of the NY Times best seller, it won’t do him any harm if a nobody windbag takes his writing style to task, so herewith I will.

Recursion may indeed be breathtakingly imaginative sci-fi; it is so tediously written I doubt I will get far enough into it to find out. The writing is not bad as such: just loose. Wasteful. Flabby. Leaden. Amateur.

The JC gets the odd unsolicited manuscript from enthusiastic amateurs hoping for an Amazon review. They tend to suffer from the same kind of overwriting.

Caption text

Original Text	Rewrite	Comment
Barry Sutton pulls over into the fire lane at the main entrance of the Poe Building, an Art Deco tower glowing white in the illumination of its exterior sconces. He climbs out of his Crown Vic, rushes across the sidewalk, and pushes through the revolving door into the lobby. .	Barry Sutton squeals his Crown Vic to a halt, leaps out and dashes over to the Art Deco doors into the lobby of the Poe Building.	Terrible first line, with far too much detail. Do we care that it is a fire lane, or the main and not some other entrance, or that Barry has arrived by car, or that it is a Crown Victoria? Unless he is in such a hurry to have has squealed up, mounted the sidewalk and bounded out of his vehicle, leaving the door open to the ignored complaints of the doorman, we do not. The present tense is a constraining affectation, but let’s run with that
The night watchman is standing by the bank of elevators, holding one open as Barry hurries toward him, his shoes echoing off the marble.	A night watchman is on hand, holding an elevator open. Barry sprints.	Flabby again. Shoes echoing off the marble? Please.
“What floor?” Barry asks as he steps into the elevator car.		What matters here is a suicidal lady on dandling on the 41st floor. Other than conveying the idea that he’s in a hurry, there’s no real need for any of Barry’s arrival, exit from car, negotiation of revolving doors, conversation with the doorman, journey up the elevator or across the carpeted expanse of the Forty-first floor. These are extraneous paragraphs: they give the reader no important information and tell us nothing about the characters nor their states of mind. And much of it is just stupid. How does an elevator “belie the age of a building”? Who honestly gives a shit that Barry’s ears pop, or there’s a law firm’s office here, or that there is carpet on the floor?
“Forty-one. When you get up there, take a right and go all the way down the hall.”
“More cops will be here in a minute. Tell them I said to hang back until I give a signal.”
The elevator races upward, belying the age of the building around it, and Barry’s ears pop after a few seconds. When the doors finally part, he moves past a sign for a law firm. There’s a light on here and there, but the floor stands mostly dark. He runs along the carpet, passing silent offices, a conference room, a break room, a library. The hallway finally opens into a reception area that’s paired with the largest office.
In the dim light, the details are all in shades of gray. A sprawling mahogany desk buried under files and paperwork. A circular table covered in notepads and mugs of cold, bitter-smelling coffee. A wet bar stocked exclusively with bottles of Macallan Rare. A glowing aquarium that hums on the far side of the room and contains a small shark and several tropical fish.	Example	Example
As Barry approaches the French doors, he silences his phone and removes his shoes. Taking the handle, he eases the door open and slips out onto the terrace.	Example	Example
The surrounding skyscrapers of the Upper West Side look mystical in their luminous shrouds of fog. The noise of the city is loud and close—car horns ricocheting between the buildings and distant ambulances racing toward some other tragedy. The pinnacle of the Poe Building is less than fifty feet above—a crown of glass and steel and gothic masonry.	Example	Example
The woman sits fifteen feet away beside an eroding gargoyle, her back to Barry, her legs dangling over the edge. He inches closer, the wet flagstones soaking through his socks. If he can get close enough without detection, he’ll drag her off the edge before she knows what—	Example	Example
“I smell your cologne,” she says without looking back.	Example	Example
He stops.	Example	Example