Dark Matter

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Michelle Paver

January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered a spot on an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves for Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year. Gruhuken.

But the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. And Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark.
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Judy

I have always enjoyed ghost stories and this one requires hardly any suspension of disbelief at all. From the moment Jack and his team arrive at Gruhuken, far to the north of Norway’s last towns and villages, it is clear that something is not quite right. Not right at all, in fact.

The men busy themselves with setting up their experiments and, to begin with, don’t share with each other the deep, atavistic fear that gradually takes hold of each of them. There are no weeping apparitions or shrieking phantoms in the night – a night which stealthily becomes ever longer - but each man is increasingly privately seized with growing dread. Gruhuken, they begin to fear, doesn’t welcome them. And as the darkness deepens and one by one they leave, sick or injured, it is Jack who must carry the expedition’s hopes – and the growing psychological burden – all on his own.

Denouements in ghost stories can be terribly disappointing. All that tension and fear released in an unsatisfactory, feeble finish. Be not afraid. Well, actually, be very afraid. Dark Matter’s fearful conclusion will have you exchanging the light bulb in your bedside lamp for a much higher wattage before you dare even think about going to sleep.

Richard

Ghost stories don’t much frighten me but this one did. Quite a lot, actually. Michelle Paver’s tale is chilling in every respect, set as it is in the High Arctic. The place is the perfect backdrop to a story which depends on isolation, darkness, and bone-freezing cold to work its way steadily beneath the reader’s skin.

We start in fog-bound London. It is 1937 and the capital is jumpy about the looming war with Nazi Germany. Twenty-eight-year-old Jack is broke, lonely, and looking for an escape. He gets it when a small group of public-school educated explorer-adventurers offer him the chance to be their wireless-operator on a scientific expedition well inside the Arctic Circle. They arrive in summer, when the sun never sets: an ethereal world of midnight sunlight and strange, brooding silences.

The group commandeer a lonely, deserted outpost where once was a mine, and set up camp. But a series of accidents and strokes of bad luck mean that, one by one, the expedition’s founders must return to civilisation further south. Eventually Jack is left quite alone. Or is he? As the sun sinks ever lower in the frozen sky, finally to disappear comprehensively beneath the horizon for the pitch-black Arctic winter, Jack becomes horribly aware there is another presence in the camp. And it is not a friendly one.

Reviews & Comments

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  • Mesmerizing book, the best ghost story I have read in a very long time and one I know I will read over and over. The build up and tension had you turning the page, and felt the fear of living alone, but not so alone in and Arctic research station with nothing but a loyal dog and a sinister spirit of revenge hanging over the whole bay of Gruhuken. I was left with an overhanging anxiety at the end...how long before the film is made?

    Heather Kai

  • very well written and beautifully crafted book, got goosebumps from the moment I picked it up to when I put it down, loved the era when the book is set, we still had so much to learn about the world and there was still a true sense of adventure. The dark side of the book is is not over played and leaves the reader to come to their own conclusion brilliant..

    christine howe

  • A very atmospheric book, with wonderful description. I felt as though I was there. It combined two of humans greatest fears, darkness and isolation. Adding to this a malevolent force surrounding the camp, the nightmare begins. Yes it did get me closing my curtains. Brilliant. I will read it again.

    Eloise

  • Could not read this when alone. Brilliant building of tension and dread, I felt for the main character (and his dog). Lovely descriptions of the Arctic too. Was kind of glad when I finished it - I'm still looking over my shoulder for the man who waits....

    Jill

  • really enjoyed this book - a real page turner.

    ingrid

  • This book is unusual, and beautifully written. I read it twice in one week, because I wanted to appreciate the style and depth of writing, and the shivers it sends down the spine when reading late at night! A phenomenally well thought out book. Loved it.

    Kris S

  • What a book! Couldn't finish it though it frightened the life out of me and had me watching for shadows in the dark and hiding under the duvet at night. It was the withdrawal of the basic need of all humans, daylight, that created the fear. How could you live in the dark 24 hours a day for months on end? As a child you were always afraid of the dark - that is something that is inherent in all of us, but to experience that as an adult for months on end is terrifying. Very well written and completely absorbing.

    Joanna

  • This book is probabaly the most unusual I have read with the least characters in it for the majority of the book. It is brilliant!!!!!!!! Very clever, very moving and in some places disturbing. A page turner and one that I will remember for a long time.

    Michelle Keene

  • Loved this book. The tension was built up very well & the dark atmosphere was almost tangible. I read it in two sittings, just couldn't wait to find out how it would end.

    Áine

  • I thought that the style of writing was good, however, I found the plot boring.

    Karen L S

  • I found this book a real page turner and had to make myself put it down to go to sleep. The tension built nicely and constantly made you wonder how you would cope in the same situation. In a world of instant communication it's easy to forget that not so many years ago people could literally be "on their own" and days away from help. The only criticism I have is that it finished too quickly. After building all that tension it was over in a flash and left me feeling a bit disappointed.

    Annabel MacGregor

  • This is not my usual type of book so I was so glad I read it on holiday, I really loved the characters and was scared, felt like I was there with them, please give it a chance, it's a brilliant read

    Hayley

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