Recently, the series «Dark Matter» was released on Apple TV+ streaming, and we already had a review of it review. This TV show is an adaptation of the science fiction novel of the same name by the famous American writer Blake Crouch. Of course, a book is always better than a TV series or movie based on it, but there are rare exceptions. In this case, the project from Apple TV+ turned out to be adequate, so, as you can imagine, the book was at least good. Of course, if you like single fantasy novels. Or rather, sci-fi thrillers. This book was published in Ukrainian by «KM-Books» back in 2017. On the occasion of the series release, they re-released the novel with a cool movie cover. This is the version I read, and now, as always, I’m sharing my impressions.
Pluses:
cool and unexpected main idea; an interesting combination of science fiction, action, and thriller; despite its mass appeal, the book raises important issues of life choices and paths; the author skillfully immerses the reader in his well-built world; updated and bright movie cover; good quality of the publication
Minuses:
Crouch sometimes gets carried away with excessive psychologizing and fails; as in most of the author's books, his characters are the weakest part of them
«Dark Matter»
Author Blake Crouch
Translator Olga Zakharchenko
Publisher KM-Books
Language Ukrainian
Number of pages 416
Cover Solid
Year of publication 2024
Size 130×200 mm
Website kmbooks.com.ua
Jason Dessen lives in Chicago with his wife Danielle and son Charlie. He teaches physics at a local university, and she paints and teaches others to do the same. They both once had big plans for their careers, but chose to have a son, a family, and a quiet middle-class life.
One evening, Jason goes to a party for his friend Ryan, who has won a prestigious science prize in physics. The party was held at their favorite bar, and the hero promised his wife not to be late and to be on time for dinner. But it didn’t work out.
After the party, a stranger kidnaps him. He threatens Jason with a weapon, drags him to the outskirts of the city and drags him into a strange room, after which he loses consciousness. When the hero wakes up, he finds himself a famous scientist with a large team and an incredible project under his leadership. But now he has neither a wife nor a son. What kind of world is this? Where is Jason, and how did he get home?
Ukrainian readers are probably better known for Blake Crouch’s trilogy «Deceptive Pines», which was also made into a TV series, but it was significantly inferior to the books and definitely worse than «Dark Matter» from Apple TV+. But the writer also has a lot of cool single fantasy novels. «Dark Matter» is just one of them.
This is a popular science thriller with elements of mysticism and action. The book is written brightly and interestingly. There are a lot of events, unexpected plot twists and unusual plot moves that the reader almost never thinks of on their own. Crouch always surprises, and this is one of the best aspects of his books.
He also writes not super-cool, but well enough to keep the reader in suspense. According to «Dark Matter», you can basically derive a formula for the success of the writer’s novels. He takes an interesting scientific thesis, twists it, adds surprises, transfers it all to modern realities familiar to everyone, and twists the situation as much as possible so that the characters always act and do not stop until the end.
His characters are the worst. They are just normal and can adequately move the plot. Because it is the story and its scientific basis that are the main elements, and they make the characters act. The author also tries to enter the field of psychological thrillers, but, in my opinion, he is not very good at it.
Despite all its entertainment and classic signs of a bestseller, «Dark Matter» also makes you think about your life. This novel is mostly about our life paths that we didn’t follow, but could have. It’s also about how often we take the close and important people in our lives for granted. And they may simply disappear, or they may not exist, so the novel seems to teach us to treat our family with maximum attention and love, but it does so carefully and without being intrusive.
«Dark Matter» — a book that says that we — are our choices, and our choices — are pure randomness. Any decision or small event we make can change literally everything, and take our lives in a completely different direction.
I’d like to mention the new cover and the overall updated edition. No matter how negative some people may be about movie covers of books (this is especially true for ardent book lovers, and I understand them), I mostly like them. In the case of «Dark Matter», everything turned out well, too. We have a stylish shot from the series with my favorite Jennifer Connelly on the cover. It’s already cool.
It’s also definitely much cooler than the old cover. It was, to put it mildly, very simple, and it also followed the former tendency of many Ukrainian publishers to disguise fantasy books as something universal because this way they somehow increased their chances of being bought.
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