Book Review – Dark Matter By Blake Crouch - Cave To The Cross Apologetics

Dark Matter By Blake Crouch

Synopsis:

“A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy.

Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.

“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream?

And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human–a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.” (Taken from GoodReads page)

Review

The Writing

At about 300 pages, the first thing you’ll notice about Crouch’s prose is that he writes in almost all single sentences which makes reading through this fly. I’m no English doctor so I’m sure there’s some reason for this (maybe it’s in playwright form) but it seems only to keep when focusing in on the first-person perspective of the main character. It really keeps you moving through even during the high-action moments.

The Plot

This is a typical story of the multi-universe where one can get lost in the science and logic. Crouch puts just enough science in to make it believable enough and hurts your head with enough logic – or lack thereof – to keep the purpose of the story from going astray. Sometimes when reading these types of stories the story stalls (or the reader’s attention) when the main character either takes too much time before experiencing the multiverse or too much time not believing he’s experiencing the multiverse. That was slightly what’s experienced here.

What this book does is that it, to use an overused experience, provides a rollercoaster. That is not to say the time between exposition and action isn’t done well as the author really does hold tension well and releases it. The type of main character we follow necessitates a need not to be super-Rambo. The rollercoaster is this book follows the tropes of a multiverse story but what it turns out to be is really a great story of a loving relationship. One of a man for his wife; a man for his son; and a man for his family.

The Relationships

This book really shines in the last third which almost makes the story seem like two different stories. The somewhat focus on the family storyline is there in the first two-thirds of the book but the emphasis isn’t there as much. I’m not sure if this is a deficiency as much as it is purposeful. Whichever way, the reward is the finale. My only qualm with that portion is there are a few lines towards the end where Crouch almost doesn’t trust the audience enough to get the point he’s making and there’s almost a “Full House” wrap-up explanation of “Just like in life, it’s about the choices you make”. I guess this could follow the feelings of the main character and the need to express this sentimentality but it did feel like a very Saturday-morning-cartoon lesson. There is also more of a focus of the main character’s relationship with his wife and less on his son. As a sucker for a good father-son story, it would have been nice to hear more pining for his son and the relationship he had with him.

Why Does God Need A Tesseract?

What we don’t find discussed at all is how the makeup of the metauniverse includes all permutation just happens to come about. There’s no discussion of God. A similar type storyline would be the classic TV show Quantum Leap. Even there, the writers (writing back in the ’90s when you still had to think about these things) attributed the clearly not random leaping of Sam Beckett was because of God/Time/Whatever. Here, even in the world between worlds, there are rules that govern outcomes. To be fair, the glancing over a lot of the timey-wimey sciencey stuff is on purpose but this type of infinite worlds is a needed characteristic for evolutionists who need to beat the odds for random mutation to come up with a world in which we live in.

The reader should be aware there is some cursing and sex outside of marriage in an affair type of way. The character knowingly sleeps with a parallel version of his wife who is not his wife. The wife as well unknowingly does so with a version of her husband she doesn’t know is her husband. The outcomes are pretty much hand-waved away in the last act of the book and seems to undercut the ultimate theme of the book of love for “the one” knows no bounds. In a world of infinite rolls of the dice, what are relationships and love other than just that universe bouncing molecules together? What are relationships without a Creator? What is marriage without the Covenant Maker?

Summary

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch is really a great example of what sci-fi is supposed to do – provide a lesson or touchpoint for the life we live in a story that allows for the drama of the paranormal. What starts out as a multiverse story turns into a multiverse story with a really good relationship and life choices matter story. I would really recommend this story with the caveat that if you find the story just a normal story of the multiverse that the payout is the latter half.

Final Grade

A-