Recursion

by Tony Ballantyne

Bantam Spectra, 406 pp, $6.99

Recursion is Ballantyne’s first novel.

Herb is a twenty-third-century designer of self-replicating machines, from a wealthy family who has turned to illegally building a city. When he returns to check on it, he finds the place stripped and swarming with self-replicating machines he can’t turn off. Worse - the Environment Agency was watching the whole time. His punishment is to fight a hopeless battle in the farthest reaches of the universe against machines faster and more deadly than his own in the company of an AI who may not be what he claims.

The war of machines was set in motion 200 years before - by Mankind itself with the encounter of a confused young girl and a nearly omnipotent AI.

What’s really going on seems to be in eye of the reader, with virtual clones and multiple copies and lies as truth. Yours truly may have to read next year’s release of volume 2 titled CAPACITY to figure out. But the writing is crisp, the characters well-written and the plot carries you along quite nicely. I recommend it. It is a mind stretcher. And we might even get an idea of what it means to be human. - Pam Allan