As most of you know, I loved reading comic books growing up. The first comic book I ever got was an issue of Green Lantern from the pharmacy in Culver. I remember going up the comic book rack and seeing all the choices. Luckily, they had my favorite character at the time from watching Super Friends on tv…Green Lantern. As I continued reading more comic books, I discovered one of my favorite series was called “What if…” The What If books would be something like What if Superman landed in Russia instead of Smallville or What If Batman’s parents lived.
A friend loaned me a book called, Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch. I don’t recall having heard of the book but he also wrote the Wayward Pines series which sounded familiar. He told me it was good read. I don’t know if he picked this book in particular from little he know of me, but after I finished it I didn’t think it was a random selection.
Dark Matter at its heart is a mystery/thriller with a little bit of science fiction thrown in. For those that don’t care for sci/fi I wouldn’t let that stop you from reading this great book. Dark Matter opens with it’s main character Jason finishing a nice night out with a friend and as he’s going home his night takes a turn for the worse. Jason is kidnapped, knocked out and taken from his wife and son (don’t worry this isn’t really a spoiler and I’ll keep this spoiler free).
This is where the book reminded me of the “What If…” comics. “What if you wake up and the world as you know is very similar but then completely different?”
We follow Jason on his mission to get home, back to his real home. There are some definite good twists in the book that I did not see coming. I don’t want to share much more as I would go in to spoiler territory. But I would definitely suggest picking it up for a read.
Please note: updates to Ryan’s blog are posted by his wife, Karen, on his behalf.
