Recursion by Aditya (ebook review).

‘Recursion’ by Aditya is a short book containing 9 stories and poems that are very loosely connected and brought together in the final story in the book. There are some philosophical ideas that permeate the collection and, in places, it definitely feels like a thought exercise rather than a fully-fledged story collection. Unfortunately, while the blurb for this book describes it as ‘a confluence of Indic thought and speculative fiction’, it ends up falling short on both counts.

Starting off the collection is ‘Origins/False Starts’ which is a rather creepy tale about a scientist and the artificial intelligence he has developed to help him create life. I actually quite liked this story. It had a really dark ending that was quite satisfying and where it posed questions for the reader to think about, it did so in a way that really worked within the story. I thought it was an encouraging start to the collection, but sadly found that the rest of the book didn’t live up to this early promise.

‘Revival’ followed this and had a structure that I found jarring, taking one full paragraph and then putting odd single line statements in between each of these. It felt really disjointed and the story, about the nature of power over people and the desperate choices people make to save themselves, got somewhat lost in the style.

We’re then taken on an acid trip, a voyage into space and a man’s journey to an island kingdom to study philosophy before dipping into poetry and fighting demons with a man who carries his god with him. An odd mix of stories, each of which had good and bad points, but that never quite followed through on the promising bits. There were also a few editing issues where misprints and errors stood out in an irritating way.

That brings us to the penultimate story of the book, ‘Rebirth’, which was a well-executed tale about one man’s multiple lives and his quest to discover other people like him. Unfortunately, while it was perhaps the best written story in the collection, it also felt the least original. The concept has been covered in a very similar way in books like ‘The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August’ by Claire North and ‘Rebirth’ felt like a teaser for that book rather than something new, which was a real shame.

Ultimately, this was a disappointing little book and I don’t think I’ll be revisiting any further fiction by Aditya in the near future.

Vinca Russell

April 2017

(pub: Aditya, 2017. 94 page ebook. Price: $ 3.27 (US). ISBN: 978-1-52088-307-6)

check out website: https://www.amazon.com/recursion-aditya-ebook/dp/B06XQKJ6G6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=