But what does it mean, 'haunted'?
I looked it up in Gus' dictionary. To haunt: 1. To visit (a person or place) in the form of a ghost. 2. To recur (memory, thoughts, etc.), e.g. he was haunted by the fear of insanity. 3. To visit frequently. [From ON heimta, to bring home, OE hemettan, to give a home to.]
I wish I hadn't read that. To think that something so horrible should have its roots in something so - well, homely.

So I've been making a concerted effort to read more horror fiction for about a year now. Some hits, some misses, but overall it's been a grand old time and I'm glad I finally gave the genre my attention.

This was the first book to scare the fuck out of me.

I'm talking full-on goosebumps and physical reactions to words. I'm talking difficulty sleeping after reading certain passages. I'm talking about a newfound fear of looking out of windows at night.

What I'm trying to say is that this book was awesome and you should read it.

I was nervous going into it because I had just recently read The North Water by Ian McGuire - a historical drama taking place in the Arctic Circle and focusing on themes of isolation - and I was afraid that I would make too many unfair comparisons with this book - a historical drama taking place in the Arctic Circle and focusing on themes of isolation. Fortunately I lucked out in that these two books are pretty different once you look under the surface. Instead of straight prose, Dark Matter is presented in the form of several journal entries over the course of an academic expedition that is firmly at the mercy of Murphy's Law. It's also decidedly less gory and violent than The North Water; everything that happens here is much more of a slower, more subtle buildup, but still with one hell of a climax.

This book is kind of marketed as a ghost story, but this isn't a silly man with a sheet pulled over their head or a wacky poltergeist story; the core supernatural aspect of this story is downright sinister and angry and unfortunately as we find out later, justified. It was a really interesting take on the subgenre that I found convincing, specifically the idea that if something truly, deeply heinous occurred at a particular place, why wouldn't it resonate and echo long after it happened? And why shouldn't those echoes sometimes be more threatening than others?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to turn all the lights on and crank up the heat.