College physics professor Jason Dessen is kidnapped, knocked unconscious--and awakens in a world inexplicably different from the reality he thought he knew. - (Baker & Taylor)
Kidnapped and drugged at gunpoint for inexplicable reasons, physics professor Jason Dessen awakens in a lab and is informed that his entire life has been an illusion and that he is being hunted by a deadly adversary. By the best-selling author of the Wayward Pines trilogy. - (Baker & Taylor)
A mind-bending, relentlessly paced science-fiction thriller, in which an ordinary man is kidnapped, knocked unconscious--and awakens in a world inexplicably different from the reality he thought he knew. - (Baker & Taylor)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • COMING SOON TO APPLE TV+ • A “mind-blowing” (Entertainment Weekly) speculative thriller about an ordinary man who awakens in a world inexplicably different from the reality he thought he knew—from the author of Upgrade, Recursion, and the Wayward Pines trilogy
“Are you happy with your life?”
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the kidnapper knocks him unconscious.
Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.
Before a man he’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 professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
Is it this life or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how will Jason make it back to the family he loves?
From the bestselling author Blake Crouch, Dark Matter is a mind-bending thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of. - (Random House, Inc.)
Blake Crouch is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. His novels include Upgrade, Recursion, Dark Matter, and the Wayward Pines trilogy, which was adapted into a television series for FOX. Crouch also co-created the TNT show Good Behavior, based on his Letty Dobesh novellas. He lives in Colorado. - (Random House, Inc.)
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Brilliant scientist Jason Dessen was on the verge of a major breakthrough when his life took a different turn—instead of completing his work on quantum superposition, he married his pregnant girlfriend and now lives a relatively happy life as husband to the gorgeous Daniela, father to teenage Charlie, and professor of undergrad physics at a small Chicago-area college. All is well—if not very exciting—until the night he is abducted and bludgeoned, and wakes up in a different time and place . . . or, perhaps, it's a different plane. Turns out there's another world, one where Jason didn't marry Daniela but went on to create a box that can transport someone into a parallel universe—don't worry, all that's needed is a basic understanding of Schrödinger's cat. It's very strange and a little thrilling to him, but all Jason really wants is to get home to his wife and son. This proves quite daunting, as every trip through the box takes him to yet another plane, mostly with disastrous results (think butterfly effect). Crouch keeps the pace swift and the twists exciting. Readers who liked his Wayward Pines trilogy will probably devour this speculative thriller in one sitting; also offer this one to those who enjoy roller-coaster reads in the vein of Harlan Coban and can appreciate the need to suspend their disbelief. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: If buzz at the recent Public Library Association conference is any indication, Crouch has something very big here. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.
Kirkus Reviews
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller. Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago's Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers "a sucker punch" as he heads home that leaves him "standing on the precipice." From behind Jason, a man with a "ghost white" face, "red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes" points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief. Copyright Kirkus 2016 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
Excellent characterization and well-crafted tension do much to redeem the outlandish plot of this SF thriller from Crouch (the Wayward Pines trilogy). Jason Dessen, a quantum physicist, once had a brilliant research career ahead of him. But after a girlfriend's unexpected pregnancy and the birth of a son, this future was derailed. Now Jason is a professor at a small Chicago college, content with his warm and loving family life until he's abducted into a world in which his quantum many-worlds theory has become a fully realized technology for inter-dimensional transfer. In this world, Jason didn't marry his girlfriend and never had a son. Jason is determined to get back to his family and his own world, but nefarious powers in the alternate reality conspire to stop him from revealing the criminal lengths they have gone to create the world-hopping technology. Crouch makes little attempt to justify the underlying science fiction MacGuffin, but a rousing and heartfelt ending will leave readers cheering. Agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management. (July)
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