What to read next if you like Blake Crouch
9 book recommendations
Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch, was a near nonstop read for me when I grabbed in back in 2016. I really enjoy this type of science fiction, that takes big concepts like quantum physics and explains them well, wrapping a compelling plot with characters that are real enough to keep me turning pages.
Dark Matter is about a man named Jason, who put aside a promising career in quantum physics to pursue the more family man lifestyle. One day, he gets kidnapped by someone who looks just like him, and sent into a different reality. Without spoiling much, this book involves the possibility of other realities in which versions of himself that followed other possible life paths do exist and there is now a way for them to find each other. What ensues is a fast paced heart pounding race for Jason to try to get back to his wife and his son before one of his other selves ruins everything.
Ultimately, in my opinion at least, Dark Matter is about love, the exploration of what your most meaningful purpose is, what youre happiness is, how to know it before you don’t recognize it, and how to love your life and your people while you have them, all told in a compelling action packed quantum physics box flying through the multiverse.
I’m working through the show on AppleTV+ which I have thoughts about, but am glad to see people enjoying. Science fiction can be fun. Quantum physics can be fun. Cool cool stuff.
Now. Let me add, if you’re a Blake Crouch kind of a reader, you should dabble in the backlist if you haven’t yet. I was totally engrossed by his Wayward Pines trilogy - it’s one of the only audiobook series that I have listened to, start to finish, multiple times. It is a very compelling trilogy. It was adapted to a series years ago as well but I only got a couple episodes in. The series takes a different turn than the books, but is still entertaining content.
Recursion deals with some heart rending effects of Alzheimers, imagines a future in which massive corporations mess with people’s memories for science, and a similar theme of figuring out how to love who you love and the life you are in is explored in a different way.
Upgrade imagines a scenario in which someone was able to level up their DNA sequence to a superhuman level, the consequences of doing so, and some intense family drama that makes this main character a living danger and speciman that people, including his family, are trying to capture for research, to kill, and to get revenge. Both Recursion and Upgrade were super fast reads for me as well.
Ok lets get into it. If those sound good or you already love Blake Crouch or the Dark Matter show here’s 9 other titles I really really hope you’ll try and why I think you’ll dig them :
The Plotters, by Un-Su Kim - “Any life not spent asking yourself what you truly loved was a cowardly one.” - Assassin doesn’t want to assassinate anymore!! This book is so good, it’s so funny, so well plotted, with a mix of incredibly well written action and fight scenes, and the type of character development that I crave. I love the compelling plot as our hero, who is a very good professional murderer, tracks down the leaders of the organization sending him the jobs, and the journey of his exploration of conscience, personal history, heart, and all of it is so well constructed.
Spaceman of Bohemia, by Jaroslav Kalfar - “Everything that exists, from consciousness to the digestive workings of the human body to sound waves and bladeless fans, is magnificently unlikely. It seems so much likelier that things would not exist at all and yet the world shows up to class every morning as the cosmos takes attendance. Why combat the unlikeliness?” - Spaceman is lonely in space, wondering how his life should exist when he is removed from literally everything, in a space of pause for the cause of his country, and knowing his pursuit of this all is stretching his marriage into an untennible place. How do you cope? How do you balance? How does the maybe made up spider he starts to see and talk to inside the spaceship fit into this? Again, this book uses incredible writing, elements of science fiction, wonderful depth of character development, and great plotting to create a story that examines a life, one’s choices, and how all of us alive impact each other in some way. Loved it. For what it’s worth, the adaptation is a film on Netflix that came out this year with Adam Sandler as the spaceman. I enjoyed it.
Qualityland, by Marc-Uwe Kling - “‘You’re totally crazy.’ ‘Of course,’ says Kiki. ‘It’s the only way to be free.’” - This book is so weird and so good. Imagine the world is run, like actually run openly more so than it already is, by the massive overlord of cardboard box deliveries. The algorithm is so good it predicts what you want before you know you want it. Everything is AI and automated. And then one day, a pink dolphin vibrator arrives at our main character’s door. He doesn’t want this, and never has, never would. So he and a very amusing group of rag tag companions set off to return it. Meanwhile the nation is an edge (surprise, surprise) as there is an election brewing and some skepticism about the state of one candidate in particular who doesn’t seen entirely human. Again, what I love is the characters feel so real, and this bizarro version of a life that feels much too much like this one, is enhanced with cool sci-fi elements to explore themes of what it means to be alive in a world that is trying to program literally everything.
Waypoint Kangaroo, by Curtis C. Chen - Kangaroo is a spy who has been demoted. He also has a special talent - access somehow to a personal black hole, within which he can stow just about anything. He gets sent on a voyage, basically to chill on an interplanetary cruise, but of course nothing goes as planned. This is heavier on the unique fast placed plot doing cool things with science fiction, than a story based on heart, but it is compelling, original, and really fun. If the uniqueness of what Crouch does with his plots is what you like, I would def push this one into your hands.
The Regional Office is Under Attack, by Manuel Gonzales - This one is twisty and amusing, and so original. It’s about a future in which there is a large corporation that employs oracles that are trying to prevent the world’s annihilation. Surely nothing there can go awry. Two badass lady assassins, one with a mechanical arm (maybe), a mole at one of headquarters, and approaching doom, this ride is unique. Great fight scenes, it’s a lot of fun, but also so weird. I was entertained and amused by this one.
The Punch Escrow, by Tal M. Klien - “It’s funny how the devout pretend like they want people to ask questions, but really they only want you to ask the questions that they have answers to. You ask the wrong questions, things they don’t want to answer, they get mad.” - This is probably the closest in many ways to Dark Matter, but is just as intriguing and clever, compelling, and propelled by heart. Have you ever wished to teleport? Well in this universe you sure can. And people do all the time, for travel, pleasure, everything, it just is a transportation solution. Of course this comes with complications, and for one man, it creates a duplicate self. Obviously the powers that be aren’t cool with this, he isn’t cool with this, his duplicate isn’t cool with this, and it uses that rad sci-fi technological future scenario to examine what it means to be your own self, what it means to explore your wants, your identity, and to explore your place in the world. I loved this one and wish more people would read it.
Sleeping Giants (#1 of The Themis Files trilogy), by Sylvain Neuval - "“If you fall in love with someone, there’s a good chance the person won’t love you back. Hatred, though, is usually mutual. If you despise someone, it’s pretty much a given they’re also not your biggest fan.” - In the beginning of this trilogy a young girl falls into a pit, inside of which is a giant robot hand. Turns out there are pieces of a robot, a giant giant one, buried all over the planet. Of course, the world assembles them, and turns the robot on. This is a really great series that explores linguistics, the consequences of science and discovery and the morality of interspace interactions. It also wonders about how people can handle relationships with each other when grappling with such massive massive possibilities that explode their concept of life, truth, and everything that seems to be known. It’s interesting, thought provoking, told in a cool format that I found propulsive with interviews and reports and dialogue. Loved it. The whole series is interesting and quick paced.
Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older - “The dead were so alive! They carried their whole lives with them in those tall, walking shadows, brought each second, each thrill and tragedy with them wherever they went.” - This is technically a YA story but it is so rad I wish more people would read it. It is about family, heart, self-acceptance and identity, knowing your own strength and power, and I haven’t read anything really like it since. Our talented main character feels so out of place and knows there is stuff going on within her family and within her neighborhood, not to mention the wider world. And then she starts to discover that the art she makes, the murals and paintings she creates, have actual power to them. As something ominous moves towards her home and the family she has, she has to step into her own abilities and use the power of her family to save and strengthen and preserve her culture and keep the family safe. It is wonderful.
The Last Policeman (#1 of a great trilogy), by Ben H. Winters - “The dream that I've been having, about my high-school sweetheart, is not really about my high-school sweetheart, when you get right down to it. It's not a dream about Alison Koechner and our lost love and the precious little three-bedroom house in Maine we might have built together, had things gone a different way. I am not dreaming of white picket fences and Sunday crosswords and warm tea. There's no asteroid in the dream. In the dream, life continues. Simple life, happy and white-picket lined or otherwise. Mere life. Goes on. When I'm dreaming of Alison Koechner, what I'm dreaming of is not dying.”
Our main character is freshly graduated from the detective academy when the news of an earth ending asteroid is announced, and he’s just been given his first murder case. What the hell does he do now? It is indeed an unavoidable apocalypse. The have tried everything, and there are three months left. What is the use of solving a murder when the world will end anything, and soon? What, when left with a finite and known quantity of time do you do with yourself? This trilogy is a such a good fever dream of a series to me. I really enjoyed the extreme moral implications and questions the plot brings up. It is in that sweet spot of apocalypse fiction, science fiction future scenarios, and rad character development that made me cry very real tears at the end of these three books. It is seriously one of the best series and series endings I have EVER in my life encountered. Ugh it is so good and so moving.
Hopefully one, or all of these, will get into your library cart, your bookstore browsing list, or anything else. These authors are doing such original and compelling things that push science fiction, discussions of morality, existence, what it means to be human, to be alive, to be intentionally present in the world when the world is a mess. I love these books and hope you’ll try them out.
