342 pages
English language
Published April 19, 2016
Dark Matter is a science fiction thriller novel by American writer Blake Crouch, first published in the United States in July 2016 by the Crown Publishing Group. The story is about a physicist who is kidnapped and sent to a parallel universe in which another version of his life unfolds because of a different choice he made fifteen years previously. The book draws on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics which posits that every possible outcome of every event creates a new universe or world that runs parallel to our own.Dark Matter received mixed reviews from critics, and was nominated for the 2016 World Technology Awards. The book was translated into Dutch by Corry van Bree as Dark Matter and published by Karakter in August 2016. It was also translated into German by Klaus Berr as Dark Matter: Der Zeitenläufer and published by Goldmann in March 2017.
I really liked this book. It kept me engaged throughout and it's use of the many-worlds hypothesis was sensible and consistent. Highly recommend it.
Effortless to read, requiring more effort to stop reading, and yet I need to complain about a few things--plot things that bothered me. Though I could perhaps be consoled to know there are other universes in which the plot proceeds more to my liking.
If identity is nature plus nurture, those Jasons who branched off recently should be nearly identical to the one narrating our story and yet they seem too different. How much can one change in less than a month? Sometimes less than a day? An hour? For there are several Jason 1s who have split off even in the length of time it took to drive to the abandoned power station. Even going through extreme circumstances couldn't make that big a difference. Jason2 having split off 15 years ago with his ambition could presumably be different, be murderous, but since he dabbled in universe switching, there are …
Effortless to read, requiring more effort to stop reading, and yet I need to complain about a few things--plot things that bothered me. Though I could perhaps be consoled to know there are other universes in which the plot proceeds more to my liking.
If identity is nature plus nurture, those Jasons who branched off recently should be nearly identical to the one narrating our story and yet they seem too different. How much can one change in less than a month? Sometimes less than a day? An hour? For there are several Jason 1s who have split off even in the length of time it took to drive to the abandoned power station. Even going through extreme circumstances couldn't make that big a difference. Jason2 having split off 15 years ago with his ambition could presumably be different, be murderous, but since he dabbled in universe switching, there are many of him out there though in the story, it's as if they don't exist at all. Some should have wanted to replace him in his chosen new universe (or one of many similar ones for there's a new one with each recent Jason 1 split each having its own Daniella and Charlie--turns out there are plenty to go around).
And how did the single Jason 2 we got to meet manage to find his way back so easily and push Jason 1 out into Jason 2's old life? He had much more control of these things than we (and Jason 1)ever learned how to manage which is why Jason 1 finding his way back home seems too miraculous in contrast. There would be several such homes considering the splitting occurring since his abduction but still too few to find believably.
And when he gets there he finds Jason 2 didn't miss research at all and was happy teaching physics. Hard to believe but for a month I guess it's plausible and that's all that has passed.
Though Jason 1 triumphs in the one universe we're paying attention to, there are those others in which he does not--perhaps more of them than those in which he succeeds but do we care? We can only care about the single story in front of us.
Just like our Daniella, we're only interested in our own Jason 1, the narrator. And then, only for a while because I'm now reading [b:Recursion|42046112|Recursion|Blake Crouch|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1543687940l/42046112.SY75.jpg|64277987].
So I got that off my chest but I can't help feel there are others of me in different universes who wrote more insightful reviews.
