517 pages
English language
Published July 10, 2016
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. …
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. --
Nach Upgrade habe ich mir Blake Crouches Dark Matter nochmal zu Gemüte geführt. Immer noch höchst unterhaltsame Science Fiction. Als nächstes: Recursion.
Entertainende sci-fi-thriller waar je niet al te diep over na moet denken. Aardig basisidee, tikkie eendimensionale karakters (vooral de vrouwen), cheesy dialogen, niet het fraaiste proza. Maar spannend, met wat leuke twists. Prima vakantielectuur.
Спойлеры ай гесс.
Ваша личность определяется чередой решений, которые вы принимаете на протяжении своей жизни, постулирует Блейк Крауч.
Что ж, одно из этих решений — считать ли научной фантастикой очередную книгу, щеголяющую буквальной интерпретацией эффекта наблюдателя в квантовой механике. Да, немалая роль в Dark Matter отводится субстанции, заглушающей очаги формирования сознания в префронтальном кортексе, и помогающей таким образом предотвратить нарушение квантовой когеренции в объектах макроскопических масштабов (да-да, в путешественниках между мирами).
Если у вас после прочтения предыдущего абзаца не начали скрежетать зубы — что ж, Dark Matter удивительно цепкий и крайне компетентно написанный, хоть и достаточно идиотский, триллер-pageturner... где-то первую четверть своего объёма. Далее мне только и оставалось гадать, какой ещё очевидный мысленный эксперимент автор ввернёт в книгу. Парадоксальным образом, это оказалось достаточно увлекательным занятием: читать Dark Matter достаточно интересно, хоть и совсем не по тем причинам, на которые, вероятно, делалась ставка.
Собственно, главная проблема книги для меня — …
Спойлеры ай гесс.
Ваша личность определяется чередой решений, которые вы принимаете на протяжении своей жизни, постулирует Блейк Крауч.
Что ж, одно из этих решений — считать ли научной фантастикой очередную книгу, щеголяющую буквальной интерпретацией эффекта наблюдателя в квантовой механике. Да, немалая роль в Dark Matter отводится субстанции, заглушающей очаги формирования сознания в префронтальном кортексе, и помогающей таким образом предотвратить нарушение квантовой когеренции в объектах макроскопических масштабов (да-да, в путешественниках между мирами).
Если у вас после прочтения предыдущего абзаца не начали скрежетать зубы — что ж, Dark Matter удивительно цепкий и крайне компетентно написанный, хоть и достаточно идиотский, триллер-pageturner... где-то первую четверть своего объёма. Далее мне только и оставалось гадать, какой ещё очевидный мысленный эксперимент автор ввернёт в книгу. Парадоксальным образом, это оказалось достаточно увлекательным занятием: читать Dark Matter достаточно интересно, хоть и совсем не по тем причинам, на которые, вероятно, делалась ставка.
Собственно, главная проблема книги для меня — её математически выверенная эффективность, способность задавать большие вопросы оптом, не останавливаясь ни на секунду чтоб полюбоваться пейзажем. В параллельной вселенной Блейк Крауч мог бы разрабатывать баттлрояль-игры: если у вас есть набор достаточно безотказно работающих простых в применении способов заставить клиента сидеть на краешке стула, то зачем останавливаться и придумывать что-то сверх этого?
Ещё об этом вроде бы не слишком принято говорить, но я не вижу ни одной творческой причины, по которой Dark Matter и Recursion это две разных книги.
Nice story
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.
Fun book.
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.
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!
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.
A fun book in the Crichton tradition. A pretty quick read.
Part multiverse sci-fi, part thriller. Neither part quite fleshed out enough to be satisfying. Not bad, but not great either.
Good pacing at the start, but the writing got repetitive after a while, which allowed me to blaze through. A fun read.
My mom took me to the bookstore to buy a book for my birthday - which, I guess, is the adult equivalent of going to the toy store and being told to pick out any toy you want. I was excited when I saw this book because I had just read somewhere what a great book it was, and then I spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out where I read that it was such a great book (which I never did). I have always loved the idea of the multiverse where the various choices we make create multiple universes where we live different lives.
I read the book in a week, which is embarrassing for a librarian to admit, but for me that is quite the accomplishment. I was excited to go to bed each night because I knew I would have a few minutes to read …
My mom took me to the bookstore to buy a book for my birthday - which, I guess, is the adult equivalent of going to the toy store and being told to pick out any toy you want. I was excited when I saw this book because I had just read somewhere what a great book it was, and then I spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out where I read that it was such a great book (which I never did). I have always loved the idea of the multiverse where the various choices we make create multiple universes where we live different lives.
I read the book in a week, which is embarrassing for a librarian to admit, but for me that is quite the accomplishment. I was excited to go to bed each night because I knew I would have a few minutes to read before I passed out (10 minutes if I'm lucky, but usually 5 minutes tops). It's not that the writing was so great. I love beautiful writing - those lines that are so perfect in their simplicity and the way they capture the emotion (although I do love the line in this book, "There is something so lonely about a place that is almost home". I thought that was beautiful.) But the writing was definitely engaging and I think the author did a wonderful job of setting a tone of desperation as the protagonist fights to find his way home. I could not put it down, but I also didn't want it to end. The struggle, as they say, is very real.
It frustrates me that good reads doesn’t have a way to uncheck “want to read”. I was stuck with this book on a trans-Atlantic flight and DNF’ed it with extreme prejudice at page 100. Right around when both alternate-world Jasons have slept with both alternate world Danielas and then successful artist Daniela gets shot in the head and fuck. This. Extremely predictable and boring book.
Some folks seem to really love it, but I just couldn’t see any possible ending that made all the super heavy handed heterosexual male fantasy bullshit worth putting up with. Sorry everyone.
