Dark Matter By Blake Crouch Forges Great Sci-Fi
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch forges great sci-fi, as a 21st century high point of transformative art continues the tradition of science miracles having a very good and very bad fallout.
Dark Matter provides a visceral thrill ride empowered by science the way Michael Crichton’s work has for decades.
I do not throw around the name of Crichton often, because no one is quite like the late author, the scientist-teacher-turned novelist.
But Crouch in his own brilliant way reminds me of him.
The Following Book Review of Dark Matter by Blake Crouch is Spoiler-Free.
“Are you happy with your life?”
Those are the last words Jason hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious, and he wakes in another world, another reality, exactly like his own except for where he made a fundamentally different life choice that drastically altered his life and those of his loved ones.
Would the science he had given up come to change the course of time?
Or times?
These are not spoilers.
This is just how you get thrown into a story that is every bit as much an intimate lovers’ voyage, as it is a spine-rattling suspense thriller.
Genres are, like rules, made to be smashed, chopped up and baked into a wholesome and delicious culinary innovation.
And so too does the vision of Crouch cook up the best parts of sci-fi, thriller, fantasy, a sprinkling of horror, and a love story into a unique and infamous warning of what tampering with alternate timelines might be like for those equipped with dark matter in the near (or far) future.
I love this book.
It evokes many of the best traits from what I consider to be the pinnacle of time travel fiction, Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity.
Most if not all of the time travel medium, in films, video games, comic books, and novels lift ideas and tropes from Asimov, but Dark Matter takes it all a lot further and also gets very specific with the fringe science theories and experiments with time and matter.
At the heart is a man who loves his wife, Daniela, has his reality and their life together taken from him, and must work with a future science he never invented to try and right the wrongs.
“Last night, I set out to answer a simple question: Where is Daniela . . . This is not my world. Even as those five words cross my mind, I’m not exactly certain what they mean, or how to begin to consider their full weight.” [DARK MATTER, pg. 118, B. Crouch]
Dark Matter continues to blow my mind after each read.
To give this extraordinary book the treatment it deserves, Suntup Editions strove to encompass this classic with a gorgeous signed-numbered limited edition.
The spine is goatskin and feels so soft and smooth.
And since the story deals with alternate realities, what better way to show that than to have three different bradel-bound numbered versions, purple, green, and blue, and then randomly send them to the 350 owners upon release.
They are all great to hold, with a brilliant sheen to the thick cloth covers and the minimalism evokes less is more.
I wanted and was thrilled to get the purple cover.
Unique to the edition is an introduction by another favorite author and one of the most innovative voices of 21st century sci-fi Andy Weir, and he, crouch, and artist Clarcq each signed the book.
All of these Suntup editions are so well made and fit Dark Matter’s story so well!
Suntup made a limited artist edition and a lettered edition as well, and the art that Hilary Clarcq brought makes this tale come alive in an exciting way.
The Forgotten Fiction Grade: YEA (read it!)
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“Dark Matter by Blake Crouch Forges Great Sci-Fi” Was Written By R.J. Huneke.
