Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

[pamela]

First of all, let me say that Dark Matter was a fun read. It was a popcorn thriller that had me at the edge of my seat, and I devoured it in a matter of days. But I'm not going to pretend like it was good. It was to science what Dan Brown is to art history - a surface-level exploration of something that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Dark Matter has excellent pacing. It moves quickly from one moment to the next, dragging the reader along in its wake. It makes it easy to forget the elements that usually make up a good story. And those elements simply weren't there for me. There was absolutely no character development for any character. Satellite characters especially simply existed when they were needed for the plot and were written out the second they weren't necessary anymore. Even the book's primary antagonist got the same treatment.

And don't even get me started on Crouch's writing of women in Dark Matter. There are two female characters. One is put on such a pedestal that it almost becomes farcical, and the other literally exists to be a possible love interest and is simply removed from the plot when Crouch realised that a romance might ruin the gravitas of the rest of the narrative.

And then we have the science. The less we think about that, the better, honestly, because it's barely explained in the narrative, and the bits that are explained are contradicted by the way the narrative played out.

Had Dark Matter not been such a fun, fast-paced read, it would have got a much lower rating from me. But despite its shortcomings, it was still an excellent bit of escapism. If that's all you're looking for, definitely give this book a shot. But don't expect any hard-hitting sci-fi or deep and profound revelations. Set the bar low and enjoy the ride.