If there’s one thing that Blake Crouch does well, it’s giving readers the unexpected. Sure, things may start out “normal” in the real world of his novels, but it seldom takes long before you’re wondering just what the hell is going on! And it’s not simply a matter of plots being too confusing, because they’re really not too difficult to follow. No, most of it comes from time travel, multiple dimensions and, well, science.

Much like he did with multiverse theory in Dark Matter, Crouch has turned the time travel trope on its ear in his new novel Recursion. At its base, the plot is about traveling to the past to change your future. Sounds pretty simple – and it’s been done dozens of times before. What this novel is really about is an exploration of how events in our past have shaped us and how trying to make things “right” can turn out so very wrong. It also addresses not only what it’s like for the person changing the past, but what it’s like for those in the soon-to-be-present who are sure they remember events differently.

Don’t go thinking this is a deep, philosophical novel. Sure, it will make you think about consequences and all those times you might have contemplated how you would change things if you could travel back in time. But this is a definite page-turner thriller, with plenty of action and anxiety (definite big screen potential too). The two main characters are engaging enough to want to know what’s going to happen to them and how their pasts and presents will be changed by what’s going on. And you actually start to care about how they’re going to make it out alive – or if they actually can.

Twists are a mainstay of Crouch’s work and Recursion doesn’t disappoint in that regard either. Don’t be too concerned when the “what did they do?!” time travel back and forth seems to get a little bogged down – there are explanations waiting later on. Ultimately, I’d highly recommend Recursion to anyone who enjoys solid “real world” sci-fi storytelling.