Dark Matter

Gross, go on, tell me.

So we're going to read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.

Ah, Jesus Christ on a bike.

So make sure you get that, please.

Say that name again.

I'll not be able to remember it.

So Dark Matter.

I don't agree to this.

I do also think you can kind of get that from sci-fi.

And so, like, Dark Matter, for example, by Blake Crouch, when I read that two years ago or whatever, I read it in the fall and I kind of had the same takeaway from it, where I was just like, holy shit.

That's

interesting.

Right.

that you just recommend that

as well but i would also recommend that book in the fall for other reasons because it's so spooky like sci-fi can get really spooky and people don't talk about it in the fall enough i'm like i was freaking terrified reading dark matter terrified myself into an existential crisis

Too spooky, too realistically spooky, unfortunately.

So, um-

Like Dark Matter was.

It was, uh-

Yeah.

I actually had a decent reading month.

Typically, I don't.

So got through Dark Matter.

Great book.

Hello, this is Jean, and for the next hour, I'll be reading from the Sunday, August 30, 2026 issue of the New York Times Arts and Leisure section on the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service.

How scientific is the sci-fi of dark matter? Physicists see proven concepts with lot of poetic license by Connie Chang.

I had the image of a box in a warehouse with a door on it and that was it.

It was 2014 and Blake Crouch was brainstorming ideas for a new novel, having just published the final book in his mystery thriller trilogy, Wayward Pines.

I get interested in a topic, he said in a recent video interview.

That's how it starts.

In the resulting novel, Dark Matter, 2016, and in the Apple TV series, Crouch subsequently created and runs, that box became the central device.

Inside it, a person can be put into a state of quantum superposition, an idea rooted in real science based on the non-intuitive concept that subatomic particles, like electrons can, on some level, exist in two places at once.

Well, actually, first I want to tell Joe thanks for the book recommendation he gave me a few weeks back.

That was, what was that? Dark Matters.

Oh, yeah.

Dark Matters, okay.

dark matter yeah this is by blake couch this is the it's a quantum it's a story about basically quantum physics fucking yeah absolutely just riveting one of these books that i went through like i just ripped right through it and have you seen have you come across the apple show yet oh i love the apple show dude it's awesome

i have not it's good i I have no Apple, well, besides my work phone, but no, I have no Apple.

Oh, everywhere.

You've probably seen his ideas on screen if you're listening, like Wayward Pines, Good Behavior, and recently that massive adaptation of Dark Matter.

The one starring Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly, right?

Yeah, that's the one.

But Crouch doesn't stop at artificial minds.

He moves from the digital world to the physical universe.

This brings us to number three on the list, rating 4.14, Dark Matter, published in 2016.

The quote here captures the crushing existential dread of regret perfectly.

I have not watched the show.

I was thinking of the book Dark Matter where it's all about like differences of different versions of yourself.

They're all, you know, I would not think that those are like half of the main character of the story.

You know what I mean? Like me in another universe is not like a half of Brenton.

It scratches the same itch in my brain.

But what I have a hard time with in this last episode is it kind of feels like, do you know when you read...

Have you ever read like an entire book series really quickly in a row and you're reading the whole series and then the end of the books because they're not that great kind of start to meld together, but you're kind of already like you can't stop even though like you and then you finally get to the end and you finish it and you go.

I don't know if I enjoyed the last like just the last little part of that journey or like a specific part of that journey.

If Altered Carbon suggests your body is disposable, Crouch's work suggests your timeline and your very memories are disposable.

Yes, the compilation highlights two of Crouch's books, Recursion from 2019 and Dark Matter from 2016.

Let's tackle Recursion first because the mechanism here is terrifying.

The book introduces something called false memory syndrome.

The human stakes anchor the quantum mechanics.

Exactly.

But if we want to talk about devastating human stakes, we really have to look at Crouch's earlier book on this list, Dark Matter.

Dark Matter takes the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and strips out all the academic distance, turning it into a hyperkinetic chase thriller.

Let me see.

I do love like these type of multiversity books because it kind of reminds me of Dark Matter.

Dark Matter and Midnight Library.

Dark Matter is like a thriller, like spooky dystopian version of it, which I love.

Do you guys definitely need to read that? It's by Blake Crouch.

But Midnight Library is like another more existential kind of emotional take on it.