Dark Matter
by Blake Crouch
Genres: Science Fiction, Thriller, Parallel universes, suspense, gruesome, romance, alternative worlds, 2021-read, thought-provoking,good-twist
Rating: 5/5 ✌👍
Fun, super fun, exhilarating, mind bending/head spinning and absolutely unpredictable!!! I am feeling a little shaky as I write this - with a mixture of excitement and fear at what I just concluded reading. This is absolutely one of the most imaginative, mind blowing sci-fi stories of all time - no doubt! What Blake Crouch conceived in his head and put onto the paper for us to read is like nothing I had tasted before.🙏😋 Its awesome and rich enough to tingle all my nerve centers of thought in brain. 💗
We all know of the three dimensional world we live in, the three dimensions x,y,z and also of a fourth called 'time' - which is not that hard to grasp. But physicists and proponents of Quantum mechanics suggest that there exists a fifth dimension - the space - and that there is not just one world/universe but an infinite number of them - each one created/forked everytime someone has to make a choice. Each of these infinite branches represent the infinite possible combinations of choices made by each person since the very start of existence - yes, still trying to wrap my head around the insanity of this theory! As absurd as it may sound, there seems to be an iota of feasibility behind it - and that's fine right? Okay, so there are all these other universes lying around and they are minding their own thing without running any interference with us/our existence. No big deal. Blake Couch answers us through this imaginative plot of what he thinks could happen if these "independent" worlds cease being independent? What if people can walk from one world to the other and wreak havoc not just in the lives of a selected few but in the whole fabric of the "Multi-verse" as it is called? 😐
This is not a purely sci-fi story. It is multi-faceted. Getting into the basic plot, a lecturer Jason Dessen is living in Chicago with his wife Daniela and their son Charlie. Some twenty or so years ago he was a budding scientist and researcher who could have become an absolute success icon but he chose to give it all up to be a family man. He lives a happy,ordinary life with no regrets except for an occassional pang of "what could have been" if he chose otherwise. Then one day, as if to answer his inner self-doubt, his life is thrown into a turmoil. He loses everything that defined his life thus far - because in a parallel world, his doppleganger, another Jason(called Json2) has invented a box that connects the multi-verse. He kidnaps Jason-1 and drugs him. Json-1 wakes up and finds himself in familiar yet unknown surroundings in a new world and has to risk his life trying to escape people chasing him for information he honestly doesn't possess. With the help of a psychiatrist Amanda, he escapes into the "box" that is the connector to the multi-verse. They enter the box and inject themselves with a drug which enables them to traverse an endless "corridor" lined with doors each of which opens into a parallel world. This is not like time travel - it doesn't take one into a past or the future - just across multiverse at the same time period. The number of worlds they can explore or the number of doors they can open is limited by the number of ampoules of drug they are carrying. He travels through many worlds - all different, most dystopian, several very dangerous and frightening - only to run out of the ampoules and become despondent of never finding his family again. After a few attempts, Amanda sees no hope and abandons him. Jason finds the answer to open the door to a world of his choice - how? And what awaits him - or us, really! - upon his welcome back is so strange(mind reeling) and so scary - we could call it a "blood hell" which it literally turns out to be. So what happens next? Does he end up being with Daniela and Charlie? The universe keeps divinding at each instance of choice - so how many choices did he make walking the corridor/multiverse?? - who would have thought it from this angle?
This is an absolute work of genius! It is a very quick read and I finished it fast enough - couldn't really put the book down. I want to experience more such thrill - so will pick his other great work, Recursion (hoping its just as crazy - crazy within crazy within crazy😂😂😂) soon. Cheers! 😍😎😎
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