Spoiling Dark Matter (#1383)

Topics/tags: Reviews, insufficiently edited

Trigger warnings: Sexual assault, bad science

A few months ago, I joined the local speculative fiction reading group. It may have started as an SF reading group [1], but it now encompasses a variety of genres, including fantasy, horror, suspense, and magic realism. The books are selected democratically; each fall, everyone can nominate up to three books. Everyone votes for up to ten, and the top vote-getters become our reading list for the year. None of my suggestions [2] made it. That’s okay; I like having other books to read.

Since I’m still trying to figure out how to write about works of art, my muse suggested that I write about the books I read. She’d encouraged me to write about last month’s book before the meeting. I failed. I failed again this month. However, she’s convinced me that a post-meeting musing/review is also appropriate.

This month, we read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Dark Matter has also been made into a TV series on Apple TV. That’s not surprising: The novel is quite visual, and many group members assumed he was writing it with a series in mind. Crouch takes some semi-novel approaches to the problems of writing about the multiverse. After reading the novel, I thought I’d give it a weak recommendation. I read it in an afternoon and an evening, and found it worth the time. However, after our discussion, I am reluctant to suggest that anyone else read it.

Warning! Spoilers follow. I lack the talent to write about the infelicities in the book without revealing major plot points.

For some reason I can’t quite explain, I tend to identify characters in a book more by their roles than by their names. This book only has a half-dozen or so primary characters: Lead (Jason; also Jason9), a kidnapper (Jason2), his wife (Daniela), their son (Charlie), an old friend (Ryan), an evil corporate leader (I forget; it doesn’t really matter), and a therapist (Amanda).

Here’s the gist.

Lead used to be a great scientist. Or at least had the potential to become one. But he gave up his primary research to get married and help raise his son, who had health issues after birth. Now? He’s just teaching Physics at some Chicago SLAC [3]. His wife, who had the potential to become a great artist, also gave up her dreams. Nonetheless, they are happy together.

Someone kidnaps him. Forces him to drive to the South Side of Chicago [4]. Drugs him. Shoves him through a door in a cement block. He wakes up somewhere else, where people he doesn’t recognize (including Evil Corporate Guy) seem to know him well. By now, every reader has figured out that Kidnapper is a version of him from this other universe.

Lead is desperate to get back to his wife. Kidnapper (universe alternate?) is now living with her and sleeping with her. The sex is better than it’s been in years. I mention that only because Crouch repeatedly tells us. But it’s disturbing. She’s unknowingly sleeping with someone who is impersonating her husband. That’s assault. Of course, Lead knows none of this. He just wants to get back to his life.

It turns out that Kidnapper is a version of Lead who decided to pursue science rather than a relationship with Wife. Kidnapper is brilliant and has figured out how to traverse dimensions in the multiverse. Now that he’s developed this technology, he’s realized that he’d rather be with Wife. So he’s switched places. Definitely a good guy [5].

Lots of people die. Or get killed.

Therapist and Lead escape into the room that leads to the multiverse. They try a bunch of doors to other universes. They keep failing to find Lead’s universe. Eventually, they go their separate ways. But Lead makes it back to his universe! Yay! Now he just has to deal with Kidnapper.

And then we get the cool twist. Lead is not the only version of Lead to make it back to what he thinks of as his universe.

Plot twist! It turns out that hundreds of versions of Lead make it back to the same universe. Is Lead the real one? He’s our narrator, so he must be, right? Is there a real one? What makes one more real than another? Why are there hundreds of versions? Well, each time you make a decision, the universe splits. The universe has split uncountably many times between the initial escape and Lead arriving home. So there are lots of versions of Lead. And some are surprisingly murderous [6].

Don’t worry, everything turns out okay in the end. Or does it? Wife never gets to process the assault. We don’t hear what happened to Therapist, who was perhaps the most likable character. At least the book is over.

What did I like about this book? Let’s see. The plot twist was somewhat unexpected. Unfortunately, the twisty implications were poorly explored. The pace of the book is good. As I said, I was comfortable reading it in an afternoon and an evening and did not feel compelled to put it down. I didn’t encounter sentences that made me cringe [7]. I even encountered some that I appreciated. Here’s one.

I know there are fathers who see the world a certain way, with clarity and confidence, who know just what to say to their sons and daughters. But I’m not one of them.

Yeah, that’s me.

All of that made it a good read.

However, …

However, …

However, there’s the whole unexplored (and, effectively, tossed aside) matter of the sexual assault. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t immediately notice it. Now I can’t avoid it. Are we just to assume that Wife can go on without needing to process the trauma of the assault?

Although I missed that important aspect, I found myself concerned about other things, particularly the holes in science. Or the speculation. First off: If there are hundreds of copies of Lead, why aren’t there also hundreds of copies of Kidnapper? Presumably, Kidnapper would have created branches as they figured out how to reach Lead’s world. And why did so many copies of Lead become crazy bastards? It’s not like a lot of time had passed. Perhaps we’re supposed to imagine the horrors they encountered and how those horrors broke them. Finally, how did Kidnapper ensure that Lead ended up in Kidnapper’s world? Maybe those holes don’t bother other readers, but they bothered me. They still do.

I was amused to hear others comment that Lead demonstrated obsession, not love. That seems accurate. Why is it amusing? Because in the afterward, Crouch writes,

[The novel] contains elements of thriller, science fiction, paranoid suspense, the slightest touch of horror, but at its core, it’s a love story—about how our hero’s relationship with the woman he loves has changed him and his world, and just how far he will go to be with her. [8]

That’s about all I have to write about the novel as it stands. But I did have an idea about a different version. In part, I think it would have been interesting to see narratives from the perspective of different characters, or at least of Lead and Kidnapper. You know what might be even more interesting? To have each person who reads the book receive a different copy, each from the perspective of one version of Lead and one version of Kidnapper [9].

Postscript: At some point early in this musing, it struck me that Ralph was correct. I really need to review The Art of Styling Sentences so that I can break out of the three or so sentence forms I regularly employ.

Postscript: For those of you in Grinnell interested in talking about books: The next meeting of the Speculative Fiction Club is at 7pm on the 2nd Tuesday in January at the Grinnell College Bookstore. We’re reading Katabasis by R.F. Kuang.

[1] I’m old enough that I still bristle at Sci Fi and pronounce it skiffee.

[2] Moonheart by Charles De Lint, Little, Big, by John Crowley, and Digger by Ursula Vernon.

[3] Small Liberal Arts College.

[4] What could be a worse place for a North-sider to visit?

[5] /s

[6] I assume those versions will soon be donning hockey masks.

[7] I realize that that’s a low standard. Nonetheless, I too often encounter writing awkward enough that it pulls me out of the narrative.

[8] Page 342 of Kindle version. Emphasis mine.

[9] I told you, I see no reason that Kidnapper’s travels should not have created branches.

Version 1.0 released 2025-12-10.

Version 1.0.1 of 2025-12-12.