"Dark Matter" Is A Shining Star In The World Of SciFi

Title:  Dark Matter
Author:  Blake Crouch
Review Format:  eARC
Length:  352 pages
Publisher:  Crown
Rating:  5 Stars

“Are you happy with your life?” Thoseare 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.  -Goodreads

My Thoughts
Jason Desson is a man content. At least as content as one can be who is conscious of the fact that he could have been someone else.  Someone more.  Someone different.

Someone other than the married, Quantum Mechanics professor, teaching introductory level coursework at a mid-level college in Chicago.

Until the night when someone else becomes this someone.  Sending Jason Desson and everything that he thought he knew about himself, his world, and his reality on a journey that will take him across multiverses. Showing him versions of his life and the lives of those he loves, that he could never dare imagine... let alone live.

We've all done it.  Sat back and wondered how our lives would be different if...

There is always that one moment.  That one marker on the road of life that will forever stand as your personal fork.

For Jason, that fork is his fifteen year old son, Charlie, and wife, Daniela  The choice, to turn his back on science, on the accolades, discoveries, and fortune. For a currency of a different kind.  One made up of smiles, hugs, and togetherness. One spent on time, love, and the building of the family that he now stands to lose forever.

Author, Blake Crouch, takes readers on a scientifically fueled thrill ride.  Where principles of quantum superposition are manipulated, and one man's world of possibility suddenly becomes his reality in every universe in which he exists.

But...

The real fun for readers and the adventure for Jason begins after he hears the words "Are you happy with your life?" Just before he finds himself thrust into that of another.  Jason.

One who has everything that Jason does not.  Except the one thing that he does... family.

And readers get a front row seat to every minute of the mind bending action, suspense, and wonder of it all.  Crouch writes in a way that makes the complexities of his novel both understandable and accessible to his reader.  In effect making his audience a part of Jason's world.  Able to see what he sees, feel what he feels, and know what he knows.

Not grand or overt in any sense of the word.  The twists in this plot are always well timed, unexpected, and very profound.  The suspense created within the story is never forced or contrived. Functioning as a naturally occuring situational element.

The real star by far however, is Jason Desson, himself.

A man coping with the knowledge that he has truly become his own worst enemy.  In a very real way!

Making him realize that sometimes the real value of the possibility of what could be, lies in the appreciation of what is.

An 'is'... that he will defy every law of physics to protect.

As he answers the question...

Are you happy with your life?

About Blake

Blake Crouch is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of the forthcoming novel, Dark Matter, for which he is writing the screenplay for Sony Pictures. His international-bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy was adapted into a television series for FOX, executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan, that was Summer 2015’s #1 show. With Chad Hodge, Crouch also created Good Behavior, the TNT television show starring Michelle Dockery based on his Letty Dobesh novellas. He has written more than a dozen novels that have been translated into over thirty languages and his short fiction has appeared in numerous publications including Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Crouch lives in Colorado with his family.
Find Him:  Web / Facebook / Twitter

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