I read "Dark Matter" three or four years ago, and, well, wow. Ditto this one, although I'm only about a hundred pages in. I'm going to have to read all of his novels, starting with "Recursion" next.
The central character is the son of a brilliant geneticist who is working for noble goals (spoiler alert: with disastrous unanticipated side consequences). On page 104 she identifies the greatest threat we face, for her son and some of her assistants, "The greatest threat to our species lies within us. ... It's denial. Selfishness. Magical thinking. We are not rational beings. We seek comfort rather than a clear-eyed stare into reality. We consume and preen and convince ourselves that if we keep our heads in the sand, the monsters will just go away. Simply put, we refuse to help ourselves as a species. We refuse to do what must be done. Every danger we face links ultimately back to this failing."
Those are the words of a character in a novel, but Mr. Crouch wrote the novel and thus wrote those words himself. I have a feeling that anybody who could articulate that sentiment that well is not a Republican.
My aging, failing 73-year-old eyes will not allow me to read as much as I used to, but I think I'm going to go through this novel pretty fast.
-- Ron
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