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riggycat OP t1_ja711u8 wrote

Reply to comment by raresaturn in Is Blake Crouch sorta "eh" or am I missing something? by riggycat

Oh, yeah, Dark Matter. It was better than Upgrade, I guess, but it was the same formula as Upgrade, was it not?

>!There's a guy with unrealized ambitions working in a tech field. The guy gets injected with a subtance. Through a series of mistaken identity/circumstance, the guy is forced to run away from shadowy organization. Sci-fi fuckery happens. "Who am I?" "I miss <Wife> and <Child>."!<

I'm only halfway through Upgrade and I swear to god the twist going to be like >!"the evil lady worked for my employer the whole time šŸ˜²"!< or something.

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ferrous_second_vowel t1_ja832ya wrote

You're free to dislike the book, but this isn't a particularly accurate summation of Dark Matter. It feels forcibly reductive, like squinting hard enough to make two kind of similar things appear identical. Did you read the book, or just read a summary?

>!"working in a tech field" He's a college professor?!<

>!"mistaken identity/circumstance" Yeah, but when does this happen in Upgrade?!<

>!"injected with a substance" He's drugged? Just a regular old knock-out cocktail, not super sci-fi brain juice!<

>!"run away from shadowy organization" ??? He escapes a lab at one point, if that's what you mean?!<

>!"who am I?" I mean, kind of? The way the book questions "what makes a person who they are, their choices, or their experiences?" Again, though, pretty reductive.!<

>!"Sci-fi fuckery happens." "I miss <Wife> and <Child.>" These are accurate.!<

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UUDDLRLRBAstard t1_ja8wbbf wrote

Mmm I read Recursion and Dark Matter within weeks of each other and I have to say I agree with the broad strokes as presented.

Some authors use the same hammer on multiple books, and it shows.

The [science concept + psychedelic] formula was there for both books, enough to the point that Iā€™d considered it to be his ā€œthingā€.

I havenā€™t read the one that is the subject of the OP yet but if the pieces are there then we may have a pattern.

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