A Dark Matter

a chiller tour de force*

Good and interesting, but not his best.

BLAH...COULDN'T FINISH IT...TRIED TO READ IT FOR 2 WEEKS. eXPECTED SOMETHING REALLY COOL & SCARY - NEVER DID FIGURE OUT WHAT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT!! TURNING IT IN TO LIBRARY NOW & CHECKED OUT A STEPHEN KING BOOK, "CELL"....

Worst book I have ever read! The concept of the book sounded great, but I was greatly disappointed by all of the bizarre demon stuff. I honestly can't believe I made myself finish it....painful!

Not one of my favorites.

Well, this book is well written, but it is all about what happened in a meadow that made one person crazy, another blind, another disappear, and another dead. And the revelation about what happened just about bored me to tears, especially as it is told three times, from three different perspectives. The 'payoff' was not worth the wait.

This book is not one of Straub's best efforts: it was poorly written and worse, poorly edited! Wrong tenses in sentences, missing words, you name it, the novel showed little to no editing - which is unfortunate since Straub goes out of his way at the back to name the TWO editors and the junior copywriter who worked on the novel. Convoluted sentences, poor plotting and "meh" characters only add...more

This book is not one of Straub's best efforts: it was poorly written and worse, poorly edited! Wrong tenses in sentences, missing words, you name it, the novel showed little to no editing - which is unfortunate since Straub goes out of his way at the back to name the TWO editors and the junior copywriter who worked on the novel. Convoluted sentences, poor plotting and "meh" characters only add to this first-draft novel. Also, a word of advice to Straub: never name your female protagonist "Eel". Eels are not sexy, beautiful, or even pretty. The disparity caused by constantly reading this name only added to a frustrating reading experience. The story itself was okay, if you could get beyond everything else. Although there was only one passing mention to Tim Underhill, there are some rewarding ideas/observations on the nature of love, hate and evil at the end - if the reader manages to stay with the novel that long. Something happens to a close-knit group of kids and they revisit the event as adults. It's probably best to leave this type of story to Stephen King, though. Based on this, his latest novel, I'll re-read everything else Straub has written before picking up any new novel he may write in the future. Disappointing. Very.   hide

I'm about half way through and its not one of his best. Its a little bit confusing. It starts to get good and then stops, not ready to give up on it yet.

Straub is an excellent horror writer and always worth reading. This novel is no exception and deals with an interesting idea, the consequences of a student cult ritual in the 1960s. My main complaint is that he makes the protagonist a writer (many authors are equally lazy...no excuse!!!).