And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.īefore he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.īefore a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, 'Welcome back, my friend.'' The action barely stops, but the conclusion remains immensely satisfying even after you've caught your breath and returned back to our own universe. Paced like a thriller, Dark Matter is also surprisingly philosophical at its core is this question: 'If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me?' The scope of the novel can seem infinitely huge, but Crouch's protagonist remains relatable and reachable even as the story twists and turns to mind-bending extremes. But the power of love is so strong that Dessen is willing to endure a long, strange quest to find his way home and rejoin his family. He finds himself in a disorienting world both similar and different from his 'real' life. One day he's abducted by a mysterious stranger, and every assumption he'd had about his life is yanked away.

And, with your science knowledge up to speed, he takes you on an incredibly action-packed and winding journey that doesn't let up for a second.ĭark Matter is the story of Jason Dessen, an intensely devoted family man with a lackluster career. With his clear, crisp prose, you might even grasp enough quantum mechanics theory that you won't ever have to open up Google to fully understand. Crouch makes you feel as smart as a scientist, even though you may remember almost nothing from high school physics.

In Dark Matter, Blake Crouch doesn't just build a world: he builds a whole multiverse in which various versions of the world exist simultaneously, with a very singular love story at its core. In science fiction, world building is key-the best books are the ones in which the author creates a convincing setting, where there are exact rules and ways of behaving that make sense unto itself, no matter how far-fetched the overall concept.

Dark matter blake