Will I love Dark Matter?

I shared a love of ghost stories with my mother and we often recommended them to each other.

But Mum had a thing for ghost stories set in the Arctic winter, with its killing cold and six months of darkness. She reckoned that, as a setting for ghostly goings-on, it couldn’t be beaten.

I wish I could still give her a copy of Dark Matter. She would have read it in a sitting. A wonderful evocation of the disturbing power of darkness, cold, and isolation.

I’m a fan of speculative fiction and those rare novels set on Svalbard. This novel satisfies both cravings. 

Spurred by a desire to change his life, Jack Miller joins an expedition to northern Svalbard in January 1937 and is abandoned by his companions as the dark season approaches. Paver mines the psychological page-turning quality of a great ghost story with beautiful language and palpable descriptions of the Arctic landscape and its natural wonders. 

Left alone, Jack must deal with loneliness and isolation and their effects on his psyche. It’s hard to avoid such themes when you’re dealing with an extreme… show more.

In 1937, 28-year-old Jack volunteers for a remote expedition to Gruhuken, the former whaling station on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. He, his four companions, and eight huskies journey north through the brief Arctic summer, their spirits high. At first. As winter approaches, Jack’s companions are forced to leave, until he is utterly alone in a land of never-ending darkness. Bad enough, you might think, but as Jack learns, another presence shares his claustrophobic world of night-time, and the sea is icing over. Soon, it will be impossible to leave. Part horror, part ghost story, this is one of the… show more.

It’s 1937 and the horrors of the Second World War are looming. Young Jack Miller, bored and in search of escape, volunteers to join a scientific expedition to the Arctic. When, one by one, Jack’s companions are forced to leave their camp, he chooses to stay through the long dark winter. But, Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark... Brrrr! If that doesn’t send shivers down your spine, nothing will! The atmosphere in this book is spectacular. Paver did her research, spending time in an Arctic cabin during the dark winter months, and it pays off… show more.

I'm a great fan of ghost stories, especially the disturbing, subtly creepy sort, ones which rely on the gradual building-up of tension rather than gore. Dark Matter is one of the best I've ever read. Hero Jack, who is already on the back foot because he is poor and everyone else is privileged, is part of an expedition to the Arctic Circle. Undeterred by the apparent unease of the captain who drops them off, the team arrive in Gruhuken, on the coast of Svalbard – the scene of an appalling past tragedy. The crew members succumb to accidents and… show more.