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In 1937, three Englishmen go on a scientific expedition to the Arctic. They are Algie, who we know from a note at the beginning is the one who's left to tell the tale; Gus, the golden boy leader; and James, whose diary makes up all the rest of the book, a desperate working class man who resents the others.
They plan to make their camp at Grukuken, which is in Svalbard, Norway. (Svalbard is also the setting for seasons 1-2 of The White Vaults.) The captain of the ship they hire to take them there warns them in very strong but vague terms not to go to Gruhuken, and even tries to back out of taking them there. They ignore him. Bad move. Gruhuken has a ghost.
Once on Gruhuken, James is terrorized by the ghost he sees but is afraid to tell them others about, and simmers with repressed love for Gus and resentment of Algie. He also, in my single favorite plotline, reluctantly bonds with the huskies they brought with them and one in particular, Isaak.
Isaak is an extremely good and very convincing dog who does things like fall into the bay and get his head stuck in a pemmican can, and he was my favorite character. (I stopped reading at that point to look up spoilers. Isaak does not die and has a happy ending.) Gus is kind of perfect other than his rich guy privilege, which James lectures him on in between pining. Algie bumbles around getting on James' nerves and killing things, including committing and threatening deeply disturbing acts of cruelty to animals.
Gus and Algie leave for a while, leaving James alone. Bad move. All else aside, it's really hard to write as compellingly about a person who's alone than a person who can interact with others. Of course, he does have Isaak and the other dogs... and the ghost.
I enjoyed this novel while I was reading it but was also a bit underwhelmed. It had the misfortune of getting to me when I was listening to The White Vault, an absolutely outstanding fiction podcast that was also a spooky Arctic story and even set in the same general location, and also after recently reading several also absolutely outstanding horror novels. Dark Matter is an uneven novel with some very good elements, but the comparisons I couldn't help making didn't work in its favor.
Pro: The nature descriptions are gorgeous, it's got that page-turning quality, and I loved the relationship of James and Isaak. I liked that it involves queerness. The ending is very good. There's some individual very unsettling moments; my favorite involved, in retrospect, a painting in James's miserable city room.
Con: The ghost doesn't relate to the themes of the book, except in a general "human society can be terrible" way. But it doesn't have any personal relationship with the men, and its story isn't a parallel with any of their stories, again except in the extremely general theme of social alienation. I like it when the supernatural elements are more related to the characters.
Of the three characters, only James is really developed. I liked that he was in love with Gus but I also felt like more could have been done with that. The story slows down enormously when he's left alone, and all relationship development stops because no one else is there anymore.
The letter at the beginning had no point or callback other than to establish that things went very badly, which we can figure out anyway as it's a horror novel. The ignored warnings about Gruhuken are very horror-typical, and I'd have liked that element to be a bit more original or better or something.
The other things I didn't like are spoilery.
( Read more... )
This is a perennial small fandom. I shall check out the fic for it.
Paver's other books include Thin Air, which sounds exactly like Dark Matter only set on Everest, and Wakenhyrst, a Gothic that sounds more interesting. Anyone read either of those?
Content notes: The main dog doesn't die. Two other dogs also survive. The fate of the other dogs is unclear. There's a very disturbing animal cruelty scene on the October 1 diary entry, and another one later one (I forget exactly where). James is mean about Algie being fat.
They plan to make their camp at Grukuken, which is in Svalbard, Norway. (Svalbard is also the setting for seasons 1-2 of The White Vaults.) The captain of the ship they hire to take them there warns them in very strong but vague terms not to go to Gruhuken, and even tries to back out of taking them there. They ignore him. Bad move. Gruhuken has a ghost.
Once on Gruhuken, James is terrorized by the ghost he sees but is afraid to tell them others about, and simmers with repressed love for Gus and resentment of Algie. He also, in my single favorite plotline, reluctantly bonds with the huskies they brought with them and one in particular, Isaak.
Isaak is an extremely good and very convincing dog who does things like fall into the bay and get his head stuck in a pemmican can, and he was my favorite character. (I stopped reading at that point to look up spoilers. Isaak does not die and has a happy ending.) Gus is kind of perfect other than his rich guy privilege, which James lectures him on in between pining. Algie bumbles around getting on James' nerves and killing things, including committing and threatening deeply disturbing acts of cruelty to animals.
Gus and Algie leave for a while, leaving James alone. Bad move. All else aside, it's really hard to write as compellingly about a person who's alone than a person who can interact with others. Of course, he does have Isaak and the other dogs... and the ghost.
I enjoyed this novel while I was reading it but was also a bit underwhelmed. It had the misfortune of getting to me when I was listening to The White Vault, an absolutely outstanding fiction podcast that was also a spooky Arctic story and even set in the same general location, and also after recently reading several also absolutely outstanding horror novels. Dark Matter is an uneven novel with some very good elements, but the comparisons I couldn't help making didn't work in its favor.
Pro: The nature descriptions are gorgeous, it's got that page-turning quality, and I loved the relationship of James and Isaak. I liked that it involves queerness. The ending is very good. There's some individual very unsettling moments; my favorite involved, in retrospect, a painting in James's miserable city room.
Con: The ghost doesn't relate to the themes of the book, except in a general "human society can be terrible" way. But it doesn't have any personal relationship with the men, and its story isn't a parallel with any of their stories, again except in the extremely general theme of social alienation. I like it when the supernatural elements are more related to the characters.
Of the three characters, only James is really developed. I liked that he was in love with Gus but I also felt like more could have been done with that. The story slows down enormously when he's left alone, and all relationship development stops because no one else is there anymore.
The letter at the beginning had no point or callback other than to establish that things went very badly, which we can figure out anyway as it's a horror novel. The ignored warnings about Gruhuken are very horror-typical, and I'd have liked that element to be a bit more original or better or something.
The other things I didn't like are spoilery.
( Read more... )
This is a perennial small fandom. I shall check out the fic for it.
Paver's other books include Thin Air, which sounds exactly like Dark Matter only set on Everest, and Wakenhyrst, a Gothic that sounds more interesting. Anyone read either of those?
Content notes: The main dog doesn't die. Two other dogs also survive. The fate of the other dogs is unclear. There's a very disturbing animal cruelty scene on the October 1 diary entry, and another one later one (I forget exactly where). James is mean about Algie being fat.
