The incomparable master of horror and suspense returns with a powerful, brilliantly terrifying novel that redefines the genre in original and un...
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Apr 28, 2010
Nancy
rated it: 
You'll see 4 stars, but it's really 3.5 rounded up.
It's like this. You will like or dislike this book depending on your expectations. If you're expecting the kind of hackle-raising horror that is often associated with this author, you may be disappointed. If you are expecting a slam-bang, linear narrative in which all is revealed, you probably won't want to read it. It is really not so much a novel of horror but more of a look at the whole concept of the connectivity of good and evi More...
It's like this. You will like or dislike this book depending on your expectations. If you're expecting the kind of hackle-raising horror that is often associated with this author, you may be disappointed. If you are expecting a slam-bang, linear narrative in which all is revealed, you probably won't want to read it. It is really not so much a novel of horror but more of a look at the whole concept of the connectivity of good and evi More...
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Apr 03, 2011
Maciek
rated it: 
I like Peter Straub. He's an ambitious writer who tries to do more with his novels, stretch out, ignore the borders and "go there", to the vast, unexplored land of the possibility of invention. Clive Barker didn't name him "a great classicist" without a reason - he's a pleasure to read. His work is intriguing, memorable and intelligent - the weird tale of Tom Flanagan and Del Nightingale that makes Shadowland, the terror of Eva Galli and the Chowder society in Ghost Story and
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8 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Mar 24, 2011
Rachael
rated it:
A story of childhood friendship with a twist.
The book immediately draws the reader in with the mystery of the 'dark matter' and grips from the start. Straub's knack of making us feel we truly know the characters helps the story to flow however it does not seem to reach the climax one wishes for.
It was a beautiful read, almost poetic, but I was left rather disappointed. Questions seemed to be left unanswered for me but perhaps that was the point, and the mystery never could be ful More...
The book immediately draws the reader in with the mystery of the 'dark matter' and grips from the start. Straub's knack of making us feel we truly know the characters helps the story to flow however it does not seem to reach the climax one wishes for.
It was a beautiful read, almost poetic, but I was left rather disappointed. Questions seemed to be left unanswered for me but perhaps that was the point, and the mystery never could be ful More...
Mar 12, 2011
Steven
rated it: 
Interesting read from the POV of a writer. Might have liked it less if I'd read it when I first encountered Straub in the 80s, solely as a reader. What I mean is, the ending isn't really in doubt, per se, in the sense that you're not worried about any of the characters. You know they'll be okay. It's a little like The Decameron, in a way, maybe like Canterbury Tales as well: basically a small bunch of specifically designed people (they're not stock characters; that's important) who all tell
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Jul 08, 2010
D. Eric
rated it:
What a let down. I have loved every Peter Straub book (I have read them all) up until this one. A Dark Matter simply goes nowhere. The characters are uninteresting and even a bit annoying at times, and the constant rehashing of events through the eyes of different characters just gets boring in the long run. There also never seems to be a real driving force or need to find out what really happened, and when we do, we are left with "oh, I read all this for that?" Here is the main s
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(2 people liked it)
Jul 07, 2010
Kirsten
rated it:
I could NOT put this book down, and came really, really close to being completely antisocial while I was reading it. I found it more absorbing than some of Straub's more recent work, although it is also clear that Straub is still experimenting with the reliability of his narrative and the concept of authorship.
The basic premise is pretty straightforward, and one that's a popular trope for horror writers (Straub has even used it in the past). Decades ago, four of Lee Hayward's frien More...
The basic premise is pretty straightforward, and one that's a popular trope for horror writers (Straub has even used it in the past). Decades ago, four of Lee Hayward's frien More...
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May 09, 2010
Christine
rated it:
In the summer of 1966 eight friends venture into a meadow to take part in a secret ritual. At the end of this ritual only six emerge from the meadow. Those who emerged were changed forever. Lee Harwell was a friend to those who went that night, but declined to go along. Fast forward many decades and Lee is a successful author with a case of writer’s block. An unusual unpublished manuscript found on ebay seems to be the answer to his problem but leads him down a path he never expected to tra
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Apr 15, 2010
Roger
rated it:
Peter Straub is one of two modern writers who are so good that it is a physical pleasure to read his books. There is a scene in every one of his books where I have been drawn in so much that it is as if I'm actually there. From that point until the end of the book I cannot do anything but read the story. That's not to say everything in the book up to that point isn't worth the read, far from it, but it's as if everything leading up to that point is buildup, foreplay, anticipation, and the pivota
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Mar 26, 2010
Peggy
rated it:
This review originally appeared at RevolutionSF.com:
It was 1966 in Madison, Wisconsin. A group of teens fascinated with a self-proclaimed guru named Spencer Mallon agree to participate in a ritual with him. By the time it's over, one of them has disappeared, one of them is insane, one is going slowly blind, one has been literally torn apart, and all have been altered. Years later, the only member of their group of friends who wasn't there, now a successful writer, tracks down his old More...
It was 1966 in Madison, Wisconsin. A group of teens fascinated with a self-proclaimed guru named Spencer Mallon agree to participate in a ritual with him. By the time it's over, one of them has disappeared, one of them is insane, one is going slowly blind, one has been literally torn apart, and all have been altered. Years later, the only member of their group of friends who wasn't there, now a successful writer, tracks down his old More...
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Feb 28, 2010
Wanda
rated it: 
Years after performing a forbidden ritual during which a group of young people are brought in contact with “unspeakable evil” by a guru in 1966, the protagonist, Lee Harwell, reminisces about that night and its sequelae. The incident is set among the swirl of the 1960’s college life in Madison, Wisconsin, and those heady days of Vietnam, predatory gurus, and post teen age angst infuse the narrative. To perform this supernatural ritual, eight people go into a meadow, six come out alive. One body
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(3 people liked it)
Jul 05, 2011
Johnarthurmiller
rated it:
I'm only on page 27, but it's refreshing to see that Peter Straub is putting his money where his mouth is as he did with "Poe's Children," a a wonderful anthology-idea of his in which he combined horror with literary "style" writing. In "A Dark Matter" Straub doesn't write like Earnest Hemingway or Richard Matheson; he lays it down in longer-winding prose, until laters are thrown over the mind, and a weird sense of reality begins to form as only THIS style of litera
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Jun 18, 2011
Cher
rated it:
Okay, so this seems like a reader's digest version of a Stephen King novel. The protagonist is a writer. Check. His childhood crew was a bunch of abused boys and the one beautiful girl they all liked. Check. There was an unspeakable supernatural terror they all confronted in their childhood. Check. I really like his actual sentences, the prose style, but I'm waiting for the plot to take off and do something new.
Ugh -- nevermind that whole "reader's digest" comment. 400 p More...
Ugh -- nevermind that whole "reader's digest" comment. 400 p More...
Aug 11, 2010
Heather
rated it:
If you were forced to distill the world down into it's essence, and the goal of humanity down to it's simplest form, I think that what you would have is the struggle for good over evil. This theme is at the heart of almost everything we do as a people-the way we treat family and friends, the way we structure our society, the way we write our laws. It's the basis for most religions. And it is the theme of an awful lot of literature. Including A Dark Matter, by Peter Straub.
I More...
I More...
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Mar 31, 2011
Eric
rated it:
Okay, I may be going into an area (literary analysis) with which I am not comfortable in this review.
I enjoy horror fiction. Stephen King and Peter Straub are undoubtedly two of the giants of the genre (along with F. Paul Wilson). When I see a new book by any of these three gentlemen, I usually get it the first day it’s out. I love almost everything Mr. King and Dr. Wilson put out. Mr. Straub, on the other hand, I have a more difficult time with, and I think that I finally figured More...
I enjoy horror fiction. Stephen King and Peter Straub are undoubtedly two of the giants of the genre (along with F. Paul Wilson). When I see a new book by any of these three gentlemen, I usually get it the first day it’s out. I love almost everything Mr. King and Dr. Wilson put out. Mr. Straub, on the other hand, I have a more difficult time with, and I think that I finally figured More...
Mar 21, 2011
Eric
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Jun 02, 2011
Lisa
rated it:
Why is it that none of Peter Straub's books has ever been wholly satisfying? I've always been a little frustrated by his novels, even the one that made him famous (Ghost Story.) I think thus far Shadowland has come the closest to indelibility (is that even a word?) for me - but I thought this one might give it a run for the position.
Initial reflections: Mr. Straub is a tricky dude. You know the story is going to be a little eerie, tinged with occult overtones, unexplained occurre More...
Initial reflections: Mr. Straub is a tricky dude. You know the story is going to be a little eerie, tinged with occult overtones, unexplained occurre More...
Jul 28, 2011
In the mid-1960s, a small group of high school students, two college students and a self-declaimed guru attempt to perform a ceremony to break through to higher level of spirituality and reality accidentally make a tear into a netherworld filled with evil, leaving one of the participants dead. Decades later, writer Lee Hayward, married to Lee Traux, one of the high-schoolers, attempts to get to the truth of what actually occurred as he interviews each of the survivors. Each character's own true
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Jun 07, 2011
Gertie
rated it:
Wow. Now before you go thinking that is a good wow, it's not a "this was amazing" Wow but a "what the holy heck was he thinking??" type of Wow. I have read a few books by Straub in the past; I recall enjoying them enough to read more by him, so I thought I'd give this book a try.
It's a mess. Really, I don't know who he wrote this for - himself, perhaps? Overall this book has very little to offer the reader. Why? Well, despite the 400ish pages, very little happens. More...
It's a mess. Really, I don't know who he wrote this for - himself, perhaps? Overall this book has very little to offer the reader. Why? Well, despite the 400ish pages, very little happens. More...
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Apr 06, 2010
Bookmarks Magazine
rated it:
Six book critics venture into a new novel by a best-selling horror writer. The writer is said to have magical abilities to blend horror conventions with literary fiction to keep the pages turning. He is even said to have touched Stephen King! Four of the critics come away convinced that a transcendent supernatural event has occurred, which may have something to do with the nature of evil. But two are horribly scarred by the event--unbearably bored, convinced they have just read a rejected script
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(3 people liked it)
Feb 15, 2010
Paul
rated it:
Peter Straub’s A Dark Matter takes the setup that Stephen King turned into a horror trope: a group of friends face unspeakable horror as young ‘uns then reconvene when they’re old and damaged to finally defeat that unspeakable horror. Only Straub smartly plays it without the rematch. A Dark Matter isn’t the coming of age take as described above, it’s about age itself, and the events and people who shape us.
Lee the narrator is a middle-aged man, best selling novelist married to anothe More...
Lee the narrator is a middle-aged man, best selling novelist married to anothe More...
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(6 people liked it)
Apr 04, 2010
Edwin
rated it:
Not sure what to make of this book. Stephen King (a repeat Straub collaborator) and Michael Chabon gave it glowing blurbs on the dust jacket, and not having read a lot of horror/suspense novels, A Dark Matter seemed like a good one to try.
Straub succeeded in holding my attention for the book's entirety and, like narrator Lee Traux, I desperately wanted to know what happened to Traux's then teenage friends in a University of Wisconsin agronomy meadow in the late '60s under the leader More...
Straub succeeded in holding my attention for the book's entirety and, like narrator Lee Traux, I desperately wanted to know what happened to Traux's then teenage friends in a University of Wisconsin agronomy meadow in the late '60s under the leader More...
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Jan 31, 2011
Aaron
rated it:
It occurred to me about one hundred pages into this novel that this novel is, stylistically, more like Stephen King than anything Peter Straub has ever done before. Taking a cue from "Uncle Stevie", Straub lets this one fall apart by the ending.
In theory, the general Rashomon-esque conceit of getting the full story from the differing viewpoints of all the characters involved is a neat idea. However, by the end, we don't really know what actually happened and a good amount o More...
In theory, the general Rashomon-esque conceit of getting the full story from the differing viewpoints of all the characters involved is a neat idea. However, by the end, we don't really know what actually happened and a good amount o More...
Mar 05, 2010
Tom
rated it:
I have a hold on this title at my library; looking forward to what promises to be a blast from the past! See a cool review of A Dark Matter here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...
Refer to Peter Straub's A Dark Matter, p. 244. Also Agrippa Cornelius' Three Books Of Occult Philosophy.
This was a little hard to get into, but intrigued me after the first few chapters. I'm glad I stuck it out.
The plot revolves around an incident that happened in the 1960s, as told More...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...
Refer to Peter Straub's A Dark Matter, p. 244. Also Agrippa Cornelius' Three Books Of Occult Philosophy.
This was a little hard to get into, but intrigued me after the first few chapters. I'm glad I stuck it out.
The plot revolves around an incident that happened in the 1960s, as told More...
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Mar 09, 2011
M.
rated it:
Peter Straub is a talented guy. I believe that he must be one of the most intelligent writers whose work I read regularly. And make no mistake, I did enjoy A Dark Matter. Mr. Straub's talent for prose and character led me to crash through the book at triple speed; afterwards, I spent close to a day in a state of mildly-exalted satisfaction.
It couldn't last, though. It never does. And once I came back to earth, I realized just how little substance there actually was to the story. For More...
It couldn't last, though. It never does. And once I came back to earth, I realized just how little substance there actually was to the story. For More...
Jul 25, 2010
Rdriley
rated it:
Ugh. What a complete waste of time this was. Whatever mojo Straub had in crafting classics like "Ghost Story" and "The Throat" is utterly absent here.
The story itself is somewhat engaging, but the characters are barely drawn, the dialog is wooden and often cringingly unrealistic, and the structure is just a mess.
Straub seems to be aiming for a sort of "Roshomon" type of tale, but all he really does is repeat the same hackneyed scenes from th More...
The story itself is somewhat engaging, but the characters are barely drawn, the dialog is wooden and often cringingly unrealistic, and the structure is just a mess.
Straub seems to be aiming for a sort of "Roshomon" type of tale, but all he really does is repeat the same hackneyed scenes from th More...
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Oct 31, 2011
Michelle
rated it:
This is fast-paced book that was hard to put down. Near the end I did skip some pages because there were ... activities that I'd rather not read about. On the whole a good book although is seemed to be primarily back story.
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Jul 16, 2010
Cab
rated it:
The story revolves around an event that occurred in 1966 in Madison WI, when 4 teenage friends get caught up in an occult ritual performed by Spencer Malon; with whom they have become infatuated.
The narrator of the story is Lee Hayward, who was friends with the 4 and is now married to Lee Truax, one of the participants in the “Dark Matter”. The story is relayed from the perspective of each participant and how it’s shaped or damaged their respective lives, including that of the narra More...
The narrator of the story is Lee Hayward, who was friends with the 4 and is now married to Lee Truax, one of the participants in the “Dark Matter”. The story is relayed from the perspective of each participant and how it’s shaped or damaged their respective lives, including that of the narra More...
Jan 29, 2012
Barbi
rated it:
"A Dark Matter" should have been entitled "A Dull Matter." It was dull, duller, dullest. A dustbowl of tedium. Although billed as a supernatural thriller, it is only marginally supernatural and certainly not thrilling. This was my first Peter Straub novel and perhaps will be my last. I resent having spent so many precious hours slogging my way through this book, hoping it would redeem itself and that I would be rewarded with a clever denouement, only to be further and finally
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Mar 08, 2011
Joey
rated it:
Mysterious and intriguing, if a little slow-going at times. The story unfolds gradually (and sometimes repetitively) through a series of different accounts of one central event (a catastrophic ritual conducted by students during the 60s). Some scary moments, and a vague sense of doom pervades the book, but the whole thing just doesn't amount to very much. The plot eventually evaporates into obscurity; there really is no "big reveal" and I arrived at the last page thinking "that'
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Nov 27, 2011
Andre
rated it:
Some forty years ago, Lee Halwell’s best friends, including his then girlfriend, also named Lee but nicknamed The Eel, joined up with a self-proclaimed spiritualist named Spencer Mallon. Mallon is the type of guru that was as common in the sixties as bad acid, but the trip upon which he takes his small band of acolytes is anything but common. While Halwell remained home, convinced that Mallon is a fraud, The Eel and his friends met with Mallon at a local meadow where they performed an arcane rit
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