Time Travel

Recursion by Blake Crouch, Narrated by Jon Lindstrom & Abby Craden

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Blake Crouch guides us through a narrative full of twists and turns, switchbacks, and–well, obviously–recursions, as he tackles the well-trod ground of time travel, bringing a fresh new spin to the topic. False Memory Syndrome is becoming a plague, as people find themselves suddenly–and seemingly at random–overwhelmed by new memories of a life that wasn’t the one they’d been leading up until that moment. These memories are as vibrant and real as the ones they’d had access to only seconds earlier, and the confusion and contradiction are enough to drive people mad.

One detective’s obsession with the often disastrous impact of these false memories and the unknown vector by which the mental illness is transmitted leads him to an inevitable meeting with a research scientist focused on salvaging memories for those suffering from dementia, as she hopes to ease the horror of that debilitating condition. Unfortunately, a wealthy and powerful benefactor with seemingly unlimited capacity to predict market trends and so much more has his own goals for the technology, and he’s seemingly two steps ahead of both of them.

Crouch takes us from the seemingly innocent and altruistic beginning to the cataclysmic end, as the truth–and reality itself–becomes a tangled mess of interwoven timelines. At once thrilling and depressing in the way it captures the worst of human nature, this is a must-read.

The narration provided by Jon Lindstrom and Abby Craden is fantastic, and they thoroughly capture the characters and bring the listener into the story.

https://www.audible.com/pd/Recursion-Audiobook/1984886878?action_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp

The Backbone of the World by Stephen Graham Jones, Narrated by Charlotte Flyte

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Stephen Graham Jones has a knack for forcing his readers to look at the world–and aspects of it–in wholly different ways. The Backbone of the World will have you looking at prairie dogs (of all things) and our perceptions of time differently. If this installment of the Tresspass Collection is indicative of what the rest of the stories have in store for me, it’ll be one hell of a trip.
Millie Two Bears is a lonely, socially isolated living on property that she’s about to lose with her husband in prison and his family breathing down her neck to parcel up the land. When she invites a peculiar stranger to rent the camper on the property, she has no idea what sort of repercussions it’ll have and how it ties in with the peculiar prairie dogs plaguing the distant edge of her land…and something growing deep in the earth below.
Jones’s knack for taking the seemingly prosaic and transforming it into the mysterious and sinister is on full display. The simple reservation life of a woman with all-too-familiar troubles gets upended as her everyday environment becomes increasingly unsettling.
Charlotte Flyte’s narration of Millie’s story is superb, and she makes the listener feel as if they’re hearing the story from the woman living it.

Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds, Narrated by Natasha Soudek

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Most of my exposure to Alastair Reynolds has been in the form of grand, far-future space operas. Reynolds’s work appeals to me, in large part, because it’s typically heavy on the darker aspects of human nature–as well as the incomprehensible or frequently sinister nature of other intelligences humanity encounters amongst the stars. Of course, there’s also the necessary focus on the uncaring and hazardous nature of the universe itself.
While Permafrost takes place on Earth, in our not-too-distant future, it’s imbued with that theme of humanity struggling against forces of a universe that is indifferent to our survival. Only a couple of decades from where we find ourselves today, an unexpected global catastrophe begins. As insect, plant, and other animal life dies off, we find the remaining human population facing imminent starvation and dwindling numbers. The only solution is to find a way to make small changes in the past that will allow the humans of 2080 to implement their only chance of saving the human life that remains.
Unfortunately, we can’t send anything like a human being into the past. However, scientists have discovered a way to tether two consciousnesses separated by half a century or more via a neural interface grown from nanoscale machines transported back in time. By sending pilots–individuals who will assume control of an unwilling and presumably unwitting subject–downstream and into these hosts, the Permafrost project hopes to salvage the only thing that can save the future.
The unlikely protagonist of Valentina was a surprising choice, an elderly woman and mathematician, the daughter of a mathematician who specialized in paradox and the potential for time travel. Chosen as the first pilot sent back, Valentina soon discovers unanticipated consequences of assuming control of a host. More than that, Valentina learns the chilling truth that there might be forces further upstream, unexpected foes who might not want them to succeed in their mission.
The final scene of this novella is positively heartbreaking but totally in line with the sort of ending one might expect from Reynolds.
Natasha Soudek’s narration is perfect for both Valentina and Tatiana, capturing the differences between the two characters with effective nuance. She successfully managed to tackle the other characters no less effectively.