Dark Matter is a Science Fiction novel by Blake Crouch, first published in 2016.
Jason Dessen is your average family man living in Chicago with his wife Daniella and son Charlie.
One day while on his way back from a party a mysterious masked man holds him at gunpoint and asks. “Are you happy with your life?”
Those are the last words Jason hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.
When he wakes up, he finds himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.
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? 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.
Beware of unmarked spoilers ahead.
See his novel Recursion for the Time Travel: variant.
Not to be confused with the novel by Garfield Reeves-Stevens, nor the ghost story by Michelle Paver.
Dark Matter provides examples of:
- Alternate Universe: The box acts as a gateway to these. All the operator has to do is think of the destination they desire & the next time they open the door they'll be in that universe. Unfortunately, subconscious thoughts will also affect the outcome.
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome:
- Bigger on the Inside: The box acts like this when under the effects of the compound. It contains an endless hallway full of doors.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart:
- Despair Event Horizon: Jason reaches it when he considers killing & replacing a version of himself from another universe. Fortunately, he doesn't go through with it.
- Dimensional Traveler:
- Evil Twin:
- He Knows Too Much:
- Heroic BSoD:
- The Homeward Journey:
- Interdimensional Travel Device: The Box can access any alternate universes the operator can imagine. It requires the user injects a special compounds to operate which downplays this trope.
- Kill and Replace: What kicks off the plot of the book. Downplayed, since Alt Jason abducts rather than kills Jason from his universe then drops him off in his original universe before taking his place.
- Love Makes You Evil: The Alt Jasons fall into this trope. All they want is to be reunited with their family no matter what.
- Me's a Crowd:
- The Multiverse: The basic premise of the book.
- There Can Only Be One: The climax of the book. The original Jason makes it back to his family, or did he?
- Trapped in Another Universe:
- What If?
- What You Are in the Dark
