The Stats
- 352 pages
- Published in 2016
- Thriller
- Physics/Quantum Mechanics
- Science Fiction
SYNOPSIS
Dark Matter is a unique Science Fiction novel where main character Jason Desson is faced with an impossible choice. Desson has seemingly everything–a wife, kid, a decent job. But what would his life be like if he had made different choices?
Jason is leaving a bar one night when he’s kidnapped and taken to an abandoned warehouse. There, his kidnapper asks him one question: are you happy with your life? Drugged and left for dead, he thinks this is the end–until he wakes up in a strange bed, to strange people, in a world that is somehow familiar, but somehow not.
In the world Jason’s woken up to, he’s never married his wife. His son doesn’t exist. And, he’s created one of the greatest scientific achievements of all time. It seems impossible–a dream, maybe. Yet, despite going to sleep alone, he continues to wake up in this new world where everything has changed. How will he get home?
Dark Matter confronts the multiverse theory through Jason’s relatable story, the choices we make, and the paths to get there.
REVIEW
There are very few thrillers that I read these days. I find them…predictable, trite, and stale, honestly. I’ve traded out all of my thrillers for horror, which I’m sure you’ve seen from the content I’ve posted lately. And yet, Dark Matter has a unique premise that’s appealed to me and brought me back to the thriller genre–and left me pleasantly surprised.
The novel explores quantum mechanics through the multiverse theory. Crouch breaks this down brilliantly for the average reader (as very few of us are scientists, too) and gives us a story that is both engaging and believable. Or at least, somewhat believable.
If you haven’t heard of the Many Worlds theory, David Wallace breaks it down here–“in the drier and more disciplined world of modern physics, “multiverse” means… well, pretty much the same, only without the prospect of easily moving from one universe to the next.” In Dark Matter, Jason Desson is staying within his own universe, so I suppose this is true. While I’m far from a scientist (although my brother is a physicist actually), what I’m getting from my own research is that some of Crouch’s imagined scenarios here might have been a bit outlandish.
The Many Worlds theory seems to rely on small scale decisions that alter our paths, but if that’s the case, I’m not sure I totally understand how the rest of the world would be altered by a character’s decision. For example, a worldwide pandemic. Would Dessen have traveled and brought the pandemic? Or created the pandemic scientifically? I suppose the beauty of creative freedom is the reader never truly knowing.
That being said, I do feel like there probably were some creative freedoms taken here–though I’m not sure I mind. In some cases, it feels apt to rely on creativity to bring accessibility to a world that the average reader doesn’t know anything about.
Something that really DID get to me about this book though? Amanda. We meet Amanda fairly early on in Dark Matter. She acts as his therapist in the world where he doesn’t marry his wife, and readers wonder whether there was ever a relationship there. There seems to be an intimacy between the two characters, especially when they travel into the box together, and I found their friendship to be wholesome and constant in a state of disarray.
When Amanda suddenly disappeared in the last quarter of Dark Matter, leaving readers wondering where she ended up (with no explanation other than that letter, of course), I kept waiting for the story to come back around and give us some moment where we saw her get her happy ending–and it never came. Instead, we see Jason and Daniela together forever, and Amanda just disappears, leaving a blackhole sized plot hole that I’m still wondering about.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
As far as thrillers go, I found Dark Matter to be unique–I wasn’t expecting the plotline and I enjoyed learning some science-y lingo while I researched about Jason’s story. Yet, it didn’t really keep me captivated the way I’d hoped it would–this wasn’t the kind of book that I ‘couldn’t put down.’ Instead, it actually took me like two weeks to finish this. That being said, I do recommend it. I think Crouch is doing something that other authors aren’t doing, and I’m excited to try out Recursion and Upgrade, both of which also got great reviews.
If you read Dark Matter, let me know in the comments below what you thought of it–and if you’re a physicist educate us on the Many Worlds theory and give us some of your best book recommendations!
Looking for more thriller reviews? Check out this cozy mystery: Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn
Or, check out my guest post on my friend, Dominque’s blog, The Diary of a Reader here.
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