Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter
Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter. Science Fiction novel.
Dark Matter starts a bit slow and takes a while to pickup, in fact, the main story doesn’t even start until around halfway in, but once it does, it is a great read.
The story is told in 1st person, present tense. Probably one of the hardest POV’s to write. The writer is limited in what they can show the reader. Blake makes it work. There are a couple of chapters where he switches to 3rd person, which did jar me out of the book, but not so much that I put it down.
It is hard to say if the characters are well defined, since we are inside the main character’s head throughout the book. We learn more about the wife than any other character, including his son. I’d like to have seen a bit more about the son. We get very little about how he is dealing with the events of the story. That said, over all the character development is balanced.
The plot is slow to develop. It starts off going one direction, then flips 90 degrees and runs for while, then does a double back and changes tracks again, however, it never gets lost.
**Spoiler warning**
The first third of the book had me thinking that it was going to be a “…All You Zombies” clone. In part because I figured out who the protagonist was well before Blake revealed his identity. I had mixed feelings about that thought since I am very fond of the RAH’s story. The second third of the book switches gears and starts to resemble the TV show “Sliders” with the, ‘how different can I make this world’. However, Blake adds a nice twist in the last quarter. The last couple of chapters are what makes the book in my opinion. And the ending is the right ending for the story.
I spotted no inconsistencies, or continuity errors, that could not be explained by the dimension hopping. In fact, it is inconsistencies, or lack thereof, that tell the MC when he had finally reached his home world.
This is a good Science Fiction story. It challenges you to think, question what you think you know while keeping you entertained. I'll be looking for this one to be short listed for the 2017 Hugo Award.
Dark Matter starts a bit slow and takes a while to pickup, in fact, the main story doesn’t even start until around halfway in, but once it does, it is a great read.
The story is told in 1st person, present tense. Probably one of the hardest POV’s to write. The writer is limited in what they can show the reader. Blake makes it work. There are a couple of chapters where he switches to 3rd person, which did jar me out of the book, but not so much that I put it down.
It is hard to say if the characters are well defined, since we are inside the main character’s head throughout the book. We learn more about the wife than any other character, including his son. I’d like to have seen a bit more about the son. We get very little about how he is dealing with the events of the story. That said, over all the character development is balanced.
The plot is slow to develop. It starts off going one direction, then flips 90 degrees and runs for while, then does a double back and changes tracks again, however, it never gets lost.
**Spoiler warning**
The first third of the book had me thinking that it was going to be a “…All You Zombies” clone. In part because I figured out who the protagonist was well before Blake revealed his identity. I had mixed feelings about that thought since I am very fond of the RAH’s story. The second third of the book switches gears and starts to resemble the TV show “Sliders” with the, ‘how different can I make this world’. However, Blake adds a nice twist in the last quarter. The last couple of chapters are what makes the book in my opinion. And the ending is the right ending for the story.
I spotted no inconsistencies, or continuity errors, that could not be explained by the dimension hopping. In fact, it is inconsistencies, or lack thereof, that tell the MC when he had finally reached his home world.
This is a good Science Fiction story. It challenges you to think, question what you think you know while keeping you entertained. I'll be looking for this one to be short listed for the 2017 Hugo Award.