Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

352 pages

Published July 10, 2016 by Crown.

ISBN:: 978-1-101-90422-0

(251 reviews)

One night after an evening out, Jason Dessen, forty-year-old physics professor living with his wife and son in Chicago, is kidnapped at gunpoint by a masked man, driven to an abandoned industrial site and injected with a powerful drug. As he wakes, a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend." But this life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife; his son was never born; and he's not an ordinary college professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something impossible. Is it this world or the other that's the dream? How can he possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could have imagined--one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. …

15 editions

kevinpotts reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Great premise that asks a fundamental question: what could have been? Mr Crouch does a fine job of creating a tense, Michael Bay-type script around the concept, but I was hoping for more. Another layer of introspection, a bit more character depth. For example, the book flips to the protagonist's wife twice, but never spends time there except to make the end sequence more plausible. Amanda, the sidekick, is a one-dimensional and serves only to prop up Jason. The book is a blur of single. sentence. paragraphs. that try to create a sense of pace but are ultimately exhausting. Three stars for a good premise -- and a convincing ending -- but 30% more words and a hair of patience could have really brought this to life.

ManyRoads reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This is an amazingly good & exciting read. The interplay between basic physics (Schrödinger's cat) and human psychology is quite intriguing. The novel is full of surprises. I'll try to set the stage for the novel with a couple of quotes:
"Don't believe everything you think..." -and-
"Be true to yourself."
I highly recommend this 'thriller'.

vinibaggio reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Fun book.

bedone reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I didn't expect to like this book so much.

I've never read anything else by Blake Crouch. I figured this would be a fun, light, thriller. At the end of the first chapter, I figured I knew where the story was going, and I was right. Along the way, though, the book also asks some questions about what defines our personality and what makes us unique in the world.

I usually give 3 stars for books that are good but not great, and four stars for books that I really want to recommend to people. I really almost gave this one four stars. I'm going with three because Crouch's writing style -- lots of short, choppy, sentences -- is annoying. I wish I could give three and a half.

marksutherland reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Just read Recursion instead.

The Macguffin at the heart of the book is pretty much the only thing that kept me going as it's an interesting take on multiverse hopping.

Unfortunately, the story that's wrapped around it is a pretty miserable middle age crisis melodrama, where a mediocre white guy gets to justify doing a bunch of crimes. Of the two named women in the book one is raped and the other just written out of the story. I don't recall a single non-white character being established.

It feels like a wasted opportunity as there is some interesting philosophy of identity and morality to be explored in this space but this is swept aside so that the supposedly super genius protagonist can take forever to work out what is made obvious to the reader from the start.

Can't wait for the movie.

Martin reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

None

3 stars

I didn’t intend to stay up all night reading this novel, but that’s what happened. I think partly it was with a slightly sick feeling of wanting to get it over with. This reads like a revenge movie, which I disliked from very early on, but I was also intrigued by the quantum physics premise and science-aspects.

Definitely a page turner, and it wraps up nicely.

I had a hard time liking the main character.

V171 reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Thrilling! I haven't read a good sci-fi thriller in a long time, and this was a good one to get me back into the genre. Fascinating story and great pacing. I wish the characters were a bit more distinct, but still a great read.

jpoesen reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Not bad, but similar in style, buildup, and atmosphere to Recursion. After Recursion, Dark Matter feels formulaic.

lijadora reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Well written, entertaining. There's many plot twists, with the twists in the 'WTF' category outnumbering those in the 'saw that coming' one.

Nice about this:
(1) It puts on new glasses to our own reality (small choices have big consequences)
(2) Spins out what infinite versions of the same universe might mean in a way that I can relate with the concept.

Armamix reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Storygraph'

2 stars

First of all, I kind of liked this novel, it generated some thinking. Second of all, I have an issue.

If every choice Jason makes creates a new timeline with a new Jason that works to get back to his "original timeline", why doesn't every choice Daniela (or Jason 2, or any single one of their close friends, family, pets or house bugs) make create a "new original timeline", why is there only one of those, and why do all the Jasons end up in exactly the same one

I also kind of want to know what happens in that timeline after protagonist-Jason escapes. I pity the police department tasked with making sense of that crime scene, and the myriads of dejected Jasons moping about.

Martijn Reintjes reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

What if, there is not 1 universe, but a multiverse of worlds, each one a branch of a tree with a different outcome. Like, one world where I write this review, and one where I don't.
And what if, there is a way to travel between these worlds. What would happen?

Pretty hard stuff to wrap your head around, right?

Dark Matter is a trilling read, it explores this weird part of quantum mechanics theory that explains that this multiverse could actually be real.

Go read it and expand your mind!

Mads reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I'm glad I stuck with this one. The first half dragged, but it picked up. Not a bad thriller, and the sci fi elements were fun. Ultimately it was pretty average.

I think I'd have liked this better as a Harrison Ford movie in the late 90s.

ghostchaser reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This has a good Sci fi beginning about the middle I thought it was A typical ( and guessed at the ending ) but some twist and turns The ending was quite good.

Jameson reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Review of 'Dark Matter' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Emotional, suspenseful, and wrapped in some intriguing ideas about quantum physics, identity, and the multiverse. The author says he was inspired by Crichton, and I think it shows—in a good way.