Dark Matter

Blake Crouch is best known for the Wayward Pines trilogy, which has sold more than a million copies and was adapted into a prime-time event series on FOX. He lives in Colorado. From the Hardcover edition.

"You'll gulp Dark Matter down in one afternoon, or more likely one night... Alternate-universe science fiction [and] a countdown thriller in which the hero must accomplish an impossible task to save his family. There's always another door to open, and another page to turn."
--New York Times Book Review

"A mind-blowing sci-fi/suspense/love-story mash-up."
--Entertainment Weekly

"A fast, tasty read with a killer twist. It's a whole bag of barbecue chips...just sitting there waiting for you to devour in one long rush."
-NPR.org

"A hard tale to shake...makes its characters - and readers - wonder what life would have been like had they made different decisions. Relatable and unnerving."
-USA Today

"Propulsive... Dark Matter has plenty of heady concepts and phantasmagorical plotting. But it is also beguilingly rooted in [its hero's] desperate travails, elevating this page-turning adventure into an entirely different dimension."
- -Entertainment Weekly

"A blockbuster read that channels Michael Crichton... I can't remember when I last sat down and blew through a book in literally a single sitting."
-The Verge

"A dazzling book for summer [with] a mind-bending premise, a head-spinning plot that's dialogue-driven and adrenaline-fueled, and a gut-wrenching climax that gave me goose bumps."
--Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"Draws on questions and anxieties we all wrestle with in the dark hours...Crouch has invested [sci-fi motifs] with scientific plausibility, and more unusually, with emotional depth."
--Wall Street Journal

"Crouch takes a sharp sci-fi premise and infuses it with love...A gripping page-turner [that is] concerned above all with the heart, and what we do to it-or let happen to it-over time. Dark Matter is It's A Wonderful Life for the 21st century"
-AVClub.com

"[A] mind-blowing speculative-science thriller that throws in an old-fashioned love story for good measure."
-Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"Enormously compelling...the fastest, strangest thriller you'll read this year."
--Mashable.com

"Might be the most helter-skelter, race-to-the-finish-line thriller you'll read all year, with a clever, mind-boggling final twist."
-- The Guardian

"A pacy, action-driven SF thriller...terse prose, strong characterisation and clever twists make for a quick, smart, engrossing read."
--Financial Times

"A high-tension thriller...always engaging and frequently moving. A strong piece of summertime get-away reading, perfect for those times when the mind wanders to contemplate an alternate reality of endless vacation."
--San Francisco Chronicle

"Exciting, suspenseful and frightening, yet also poignant and heartwarming, DARK MATTER is one of the best books of any year...or any reality."
-Book Reporter

"A mind-bending odyssey of parallel worlds and causality [that] unfolds with all the suspense and strength of a more straightforward thriller, building up to a deliciously surreal climax...memorable and well-rounded characters add a big, beating heart to the tale."
-New York Journal of Books

"Brilliant. A book to remember. I think Blake Crouch just invented something new."
- Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series

"Exceptional. An exciting, ingeniously plotted adventure about love, regret, and quantum superposition. It's been a long time since a novel sucked me in and kept me turning pages the way this one did."
- Andy Weir, New York Times bestselling author of The Martian

"A masterful, truly original work of suspense. Crouch delivers laser-focused prose, a plot that melds science fiction and thriller to brilliant effect, and a touching, twisted love story that plays out in ways you'll never see coming. It all adds up to one hell of a ride."
--Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of The Stranger

"Wow. I gulped down Dark Matter in one sitting and put it down awed and amazed by the ride. It's fast, smart, addictive-- and the mo

This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof Copyright © 2016 Blake Crouch I love Thursday nights. They have a feel to them that's outside of time. It's our tradition, just the three of us-family night. My son, Charlie, is sitting at the table, drawing on a sketch pad. He's almost fifteen. The kid grew two inches over the summer, and he's as tall as I am now. I turn away from the onion I'm julienning, ask, "Can I see?" He holds up the pad, shows me a mountain range that looks like something on another planet. I say, "Love that. Just for fun?" "Class project. Due tomorrow." "Then get back to it, Mr. Last Minute." Standing happy and slightly drunk in my kitchen, I'm unaware that tonight is the end of all of this. The end of everything I know, everything I love. No one tells you it's all about to change, to be taken away. There's no proximity alert, no indication that you're standing on the precipice. And maybe that's what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you're least expecting. No time to flinch or brace. The track lights shine on the surface of my wine, and the onion is beginning to sting my eyes. Thelonius Monk spins on the old turntable in the den. There's a richness to the analog recording I can never get enough of, especially the crackle of static between tracks. The den is filled with stacks and stacks of rare vinyl that I keep telling myself I'll get around to organizing one of these days. My wife, Daniela, sits on the kitchen island, swirling her almost empty wineglass in one hand and holding her phone in the other. She feels my stare and grins without looking up from the screen. "I know," she says. "I'm violating the cardinal rule of family night." "What's so important?" I ask. She levels her dark, Spanish eyes on mine. "Nothing." I walk over to her, take the phone gently out of her hand, and set it on the countertop. "You could start the pasta," I say. "I prefer to watch you cook." "Yeah?" Quieter: "Turns you on, huh?" "No, it's just more fun to drink and do nothing." Her breath is wine-sweet, and she has one of those smiles that seem architecturally impossible. It still slays me. I polish off my glass. "We should open more wine, right?" "It would be stupid not to." As I liberate the cork from a new bottle, she picks her phone back up and shows me the screen. "I was reading Chicago Magazine's re view of Marsha Altman's show." "Were they kind?" "Yeah, it's basically a love letter." "Good for her." "I always thought ..." She lets the sentence die, but I know where it was headed. Fifteen years ago, before we met, Daniela was a comer to Chicago's art scene. She had a studio in Bucktown, showed her work in a half dozen galleries, and had just lined up her first solo exhibition in New York. Then came life. Me. Charlie. A bout of crippling post partum depression. Derailment. Now she teaches private art lessons to middle-grade students. "It's not that I'm not happy for her. I mean, she's brilliant, she de serves it all." I say, "If it makes you feel any better, Ryan Holder just won the Pavia Prize." "What's that?" ''A multidisciplinary award given for achievements in the life and physical sciences. Ryan won for his work in neuroscience." "Is it a big deal?" "Million dollars. Accolades. Opens the floodgates to grant money." "Hotter TA's?" "Obviously, that's the real prize. He invited me to a little informal celebration tonight, but I passed." "Why?" "Because ifs our night." "You should go." "I'd really rather not." Daniela lifts her empty glass. "So what you're saying is, we both have good reason to drink a lot of wine tonight." I kiss