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Dark Matter (2010)

by Michelle Paver(Favorite Author)

4.09 of 5 Votes: 6

ISBN

1409123782 (ISBN13: 9781409123781)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Orion

review 1: I came very close to giving this 5 stars because just when I'd begun to feel that the art of the traditional ghost story had been lost - well, here it is again with all its subtlety and restraint and control of the subject matter. I'd suggest that if you can't find much of interest in this book and you feel that nothing happens then you've missed most of it. Truly excellent. I've held back from giving it that extra star because Jack's unwillingness to leave Gruhuken - implausible on the surface - hinges on his relationship with Gus and Paver didn't give me quite enough to make me believe in it. This one will stay with me though and not just because I read it on a blustery evening in November with the power out and candles flickering in the hall.
review 2: N... moreow that's how to do a ghost story. It's beautifully restrained until the end, but Paver slowly builds up the atmosphere and the menace. 1937, and a group of young explorers head off to spend a winter in the Arctic. One of them, the lower middle class outsider in a bunch of toffs, keeps a diary. One by one, accidents or illness befall the rest of the team, and by the time the sun sets for the winter, he is alone, except for his huskies and something terribly malevolent lurking outside in the darkness. Every trick in the ghost story book is in here, from the cryptic warnings of the captain whose boat takes them to their camp to the ultra-rational narrator desperately trying to rationalise what's happening to him, but it's all interspersed with beautiful description of the Arctic and some nice character work. The sense of place is so strong and atmospheric that the narrative tricks don't seem as cheap as they could, and so the slow build works. Kudos to the photographs too: each chapter ends with a black and white picture of the Arctic, and they add substantially to the overall atmosphere. less

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