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Title: Dark Matter
Series: ——
Author: Blake Crouch
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 354
Format: Digital Edition
| Synopsis: |
Jason Desson, a once up and coming scientist [which type, I forget. It doesn’t matter to me or any normal person who reads this book. It would be like describing which handgun some hero used. It only matters to a very small segment] chose his family life with his wife and son-to-be over his career and now teaches at a local college.
He is kidnapped one night and wakes up in another world. He figures out he’s in a parallel universe and with the help of one the scientists from Jason2’s world, attempts to get back to “his” world. And ‘his’ Daniella.
After much experimenting and whining and other bs, he makes it home. Only to find that what makes the whole paralell universe thing viable is that there are over 70 other Jason who all made it back too. Our Jason thinks of a clever plan, rescues his wife and son, outsmarts all the other Jasons and uses his son to find a new world to start a new life on.
| My Thoughts: |
I wanted to enjoy this more than I did. Part of it is that everything is predicated on an atheistic outlook, ie, there is no Supreme Being, no Supreme Observer. Schrodinger’s Cat razzle dazzle means diddly squat if there is one all knowing, all seeing, all powerful God. Dark Matter, too. The second issue is where is all this energy coming from to create all these branched universes? Parallel worlds being created with every choice we make sounds great and if you’re 25 is a great idea to bat around, but when you look at it through the lens of universal constants, it is as pie in the sky as the moon being made of green cheese. The third ramification is that of the soul. That is theology and once again, it is completely bypassed and ignored. For me, that as actually more important and the lack of thought about it pushed me out of the story.
Ok, with all of those out of the way….
Ha, who I am kidding.
I enjoyed this. BUT…
Sliders. Stargate SG1. Other tv shows I can’t even remember off the top of my head. I kept getting flashes of those while reading this. I felt like I was re-treading an old trail.
It was fun. It was interesting. It wasn’t original though and I have to admit, from all the rah, rah, rah I’d heard about Crouch, I was expecting something original. Crap, maybe I’m getting old. I can handle unoriginal ideas. I thrive on the Hero’s Journey, Coming of Age stories, the Underdog Winning against Impossible Odds, the Evil McEvilson getting his Just Rewards [of death!]. But this was like those conversations I had with my friend Isaac when we were in highschool, bibleschool and shortly after. As soon as the guy in the mask showed up, I knew every major plot point that was going to happen and that disappointed me.
This was not a bad book by any means. I would recommend it to “New to SF” readers, it’ll blow their minds. But my mind’s already been blown by this idea, 15-20+ years ago. Timothy Zahn explored this in his short stories. Go read his short collection Cascade Point and Other Stories.
I just wanted to like this more and I couldn’t.
★★★☆☆
I bought this a year ago and the more reviews I read the more I think it will stay on my TBR forever, in whatever version of the universe.
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Well, if you bought it, maybe give it a chance? I borrowed it, so it was no biggie for me.
I am looking forward to how his Pines trilogy compares to this. I liked the writing, so I’m hoping that carries over.
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I might give a chance, but so much else to read and not enough time. I thought this was a debut btw, good to know.
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He wrote his Wayward Pines trilogy first.
But from the reviews and ‘rah, rah, rah’ [I happen to like that phrase, if you couldn’t tell], it is made to feel very much like a debut novel…
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I watched the first season of the TV series spawned by the Pines book. It has a killer sci-fi twist, but it takes too long to get there. I believe I’ve read reviews saying something similar for the book.
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Good to know. I’ll temper my expectations accordingly. Thankfully it’s only a trilogy 🙂
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The season I saw was probably only based on book 1, I suspect there are different plot lines for the other books. The TV series ended by suggesting another type of crisis.
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I’m sorry you didn’t like this as much as you wanted to. I loved it. I don’t need an assumption of faith or mythology to enjoy scifi personally. But It would have made for a good topic to broach in the story, that’s for sure.
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Thanks for commenting Rebecca. For some reason this went into my spam folder. But now it’s safe 🙂
Anyway, glad you enjoyed this. Would you mind telling me how old you are [which decade?] and how long you’ve been reading SF? I am trying to nail down if my intuitive “new to sf” actually has any basis or not. Thanks!
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Mrs Lee from Librarything reminded me that the show I couldn’t think of was Fringe. She was spot on. This is exactly like a story arc from Fringe.
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hehe well I’m rather new to sci fi and this is on my list, so…. 😉
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I think you will like it. And you probably won’t have my hangups with it either…
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Ah that’s good
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I’ve got this one on my TBR Pile…Or should say I had…? After reading your review…
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I would highly caution you. I think you would dislike this more than me but if you do read this, I’d be super interested in seeing how my prediction came out.
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I appreciate yer comments matey. I did have some issues with the book but overall highly enjoyed it and would certainly recommend this to a newbie sci-fi reader. I have read some of the author’s other work and find it fun if silly. Check out me review of this one if ye like. No pressure.
x The Captain
https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/the-captains-log-dark-matter-blake-crouch/
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Thanks Cap’n!
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Sounds like it’s a fun, quick, entertaining read from most of the reviews I have read. But nothing mind bending.
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As long as you don’t mind reading “old hat” material, it should be fun…
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Yeah, the book was a pretty shallow experience but I loved it all the same because it was just so damned addictive 🙂
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I’m just not used to my science fiction telling the same story that I’ve read in past years. My fantasy? Absolutely. I expect it in fact. But SF I expected more from. Live and learn I guess…
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I’m surprised to seeing another pretty recently-released book being reviewed on here! 😛 I can definitely see where you’re coming from though. If it’s blown away, you just can’t blow it again! Glad to hear you still enjoyed it though. I’ll probably try this out some day in the future. Great review.
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I’m putting more recent books in my High Priority collection so I get around to them within a couple of months at most instead of a couple of years, lol…
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Hahahah now I can use you as my guinea pigs for recent titles too! 😀
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