Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

[inlibrisveritas]

4.5 Stars
-
Dark Matter is a science fiction lovers dream! Well it’s my dream…I’m in love with stories like this. I’ve watched so many moves going over time travel/different realities and I live for the thrill of seeing how horribly wrong it’s going to go. Dark Matter delivered.

I will admit that the concept isn’t new and I’ve seen it in other places, but the execution of it is really great. Blake Crouch gives us a man we really want to root for and sets everything on it’s head a few dozen times. I loved is visualization of Jason’s journey. It’s got a few different things going for it: there is plenty of action and heart stopping moments, there are characters you come to truly care about/root for, and there are a lot of little philosophical moments that make you think about all the possibilities of your life. I don’t usually find a lot of reason to turn my reflection inwards while reading sci-fi, at least not in a truly serioues way…but Dark Matter had me doing that. What would I do differently if I could? Where would I be if ‘x’ hadn’t happened? So on and so forth.

By now you can probably tell I’m being deliberately vague on what/who I did enjoy, and I’m seriously only doing that because it’s a thriller that lives off of surprise. I think if I give too much away it’ll dampen the emotional response, and I’d have done you a disservice. But I can tell you other than the fact that I really enjoyed Jason’s character, is the fact that it’s a well written book. The writing is fresh and crisp, and while it’s fast paced it doesn’t trip over itself trying to get to the point sooner than it needs to. Crouch takes time to set up scenes and draw out emotions before really hitting the idea home.

Overall I am super pleased with this one, and I think sci-fi lovers will find it to be, at the very least, a really fun and entertaining read.