Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Before the masked kidnapper knocks Jason Dessen out, he hears those last words. Before he wakes up and discovers himself strapped on a gurney with strangers in hazmat suits all around him. Before a man, Jason has never met greeted him with a smile and the words “Welcome back, my friend,”
Jason’s life is not what it was in the world he awoke to. His wife isn’t really his wife. He never had a son. And Jason is a recognized genius who has accomplished something truly exceptional, not just an ordinary college physics professor. something not attainable. Is it the dream of this world or another one? And even if the house he recalls is true, how on earth can Jason return to the people he loves?
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
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The answers are found on a journey that is both wondrous and scary beyond anything he could have ever imagined. On this adventure, he will be forced to face his greatest self-doubts as well as a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable antagonist.
Intricate and intimate, mind-bogglingly bizarre and terribly human, and with a masterful narrative, Dark Matter is a science fiction thriller about choices, pathways not chosen, and the lengths we’ll go to live the lives we dream of.
Yet, Jason Dessen, the main character, essentially maintains a routine relationship with his wife of many years and their son Charlie. A chance meeting with his former college roommate who has evolved into everything Jason never was but always wanted to be stuns him. The author wants us to think that despite making scientific advances that were made decades ago, he has achieved some type of eminent honour that no one has ever heard of.
He is taken away by a masked man who we later find is himself, but from another universe, after being startled into thinking everything about his life is terrible because he might have been unable to ever settle down or have children. Instead of being persuaded to enter the other Jason’s reality, where all of his aspirations have come true, he is forcibly forced to do so. His life’s work—a quantum box that allows you to switch worldlines and visit new ones—was created despite the fact that he was never wed, never had children, and neither did he. These new realities are fresh interpretations of what occurred based on the decisions that were taken, but they are also in some way “adjacent” to the previous ones.
Jason decides to flee as quickly as he can in the face of this new reality by acting logically. He ultimately finds the version of his wife from that planet, who is also having a relationship with the previous roommate. Wow! She is brutally murdered by the folks he escaped from in order to bring her back in after they meet up and have a sexual encounter. Her passing is a bitter pill to the stomach because it seemed entirely unnecessary. For starters, it is apparent that she was important to Jason or he would not have been hiding out with her, but how does Velocity believe that killing her will persuade Jason to come back?
What kind of sick and depraved logic believes that killing someone is the best way to jolt them out of their confusion or amnesia, or even get them to want to come back with you?
Jason miraculously maintains his composure despite seeing a murder committed in cold blood right in front of him. When more handy story devices could not be discovered, Ryan, the previous roommate, spills the beans on what actually occurred (Jason admitted everything as a stoner joke, but evidently he saw through it and decided to just tell Her everything). Once more, the author’s credentials as a screenwriter rather than a novelist appear to be demonstrated by the lack of coherence and absurd logic.
Such a ridiculous plot and lack of exposition are not characteristics of good stories. Instead of just stating new characters’ traits as this novel so regularly do, they frequently indulge in more nuanced hints that suggest the features of new characters and their inner workings. It reads like a movie since it is so straightforward and episodic.
