 First edition | |
| Author | Michelle Paver |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Speculative fiction Horror Ghost story |
| Publisher | Orion Publishing Group |
Publication date | 21 October 2010 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 256 (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | 978-1-4091-2378-1 |
| Preceded by | Chronicles of Ancient Darkness |
Dark Matter is a speculative fiction novel by Michelle Paver. Part horror, part ghost story, it was published in the United Kingdom by the Orion Publishing Group on 21 October 2010. [1] [2]
In London in 1937, 28-year-old Jack Miller is stuck in a dead-end job and jumps at the chance to be a wireless operator on a year-long Arctic expedition to Gruhuken on the northeast coast of Svalbard, though he has reservations about the class divide separating him from the other, Oxford University educated, members of the team. Bad luck seems to dog the expedition and when they arrive at Longyearbyen for the last leg of their journey, they are warned to choose another destination as their base, but the vague rumours about Gruhuken fail to dissuade them.
Eric Brown of The Guardian described the book as "a spellbinding read" and "the kind of subtly unsettling, understated ghost story MR James might have written had he visited the Arctic." [3]
Dark Matter was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award for best novel. [4]
Paver includes a number of references to the author Robert Louis Stevenson. Firstly, the Stevenson screen is an instrument designed by Robert Louis Stevenson's father. Secondly, the character Gus Balfour's namesake comes from Robert Louis Stevenson's mother's maiden name; Balfour. This name is also shared by Stevenson's protagonist of his novel Kidnapped .[ citation needed ]
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.
Shirley Hardie Jackson was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories.
Kidnapped is a historical fiction adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, written as a boys' novel and first published in the magazine Young Folks from May to July 1886. The novel has attracted the praise and admiration of writers as diverse as Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges, and Hilary Mantel. A sequel, Catriona, was published in 1893.
William Browning Spencer is an American novelist and short story writer living in Austin, Texas. His science fiction and horror stories are often darkly and surrealistically humorous.
The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 gothic horror novel by American author Shirley Jackson. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and has been made into two feature films and a play, and is the basis of a Netflix series.
Laird Samuel Barron is an American author and poet, much of whose work falls within the horror, noir, or horror noir and dark fantasy genres. He has also been the managing editor of the online literary magazine Melic Review. He lives in Upstate New York.
Michelle Paver is a British novelist and children's writer, known for the historical fantasy series Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, set in prehistoric Europe. For the sixth book of the series, Ghost Hunter (2009) she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a book award judged by a panel of British children's writers.
Brian Evenson is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction, some of the latter being published under B. K. Evenson. His fiction is often described as literary minimalism, but also draws inspiration from horror, weird fiction, detective fiction, science fiction and continental philosophy. Evenson makes frequent use of dark humor and often features characters struggling with the limits and consequences of knowledge. He has also written non-fiction, and translated several books by French-language writers into English.
Jeffrey Ford is an American writer in the fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including fantasy, science fiction and mystery. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humor, literary allusion, and a fascination with tales told within tales. He is a graduate of Binghamton University, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner.
Solaris Books is an imprint which focuses on publishing science fiction, fantasy and dark fantasy novels and anthologies. The range includes titles by both established and new authors. The range is owned by Rebellion Developments and distributed to the UK and US booktrade via local divisions of Simon & Schuster.
Ben Alder is the highest mountain in the remote area of the Scottish Highlands between Loch Ericht and Glen Spean. It rises to 1,148 metres (3,766 ft), making it the 25th highest Munro. The vast summit plateau is home of one of Britain's highest bodies of standing water, Lochan a' Garbh Coire.
Tim Waggoner is the author of numerous novels and short stories in the Fantasy, Horror, and Thriller genres.
Maria Dahvana Headley is an American novelist, memoirist, editor, translator, poet, and playwright. She is a New York Times-bestselling author as well as editor.
Marcus Sedgwick was a British writer and illustrator. He authored several young adult and children's books and picture books, a work of nonfiction and several novels for adults, and illustrated a collection of myths and a book of folk tales for adults. According to School Library Journal his "most acclaimed titles" were those for young adults.
Gillian Schieber Flynn is an American author, screenwriter, and producer. She is known for writing the thriller and mystery novels Sharp Objects (2006), Dark Places (2009), and Gone Girl (2012), which are all critically acclaimed. Her books have been published in 40 languages and according to The Washington Post, as of 2016 Gone Girl alone has sold more than 15 million copies.
American gothic fiction is a subgenre of gothic fiction. Elements specific to American Gothic include: rationality versus the irrational, puritanism, guilt, the uncanny, ab-humans, ghosts, and monsters.
Novelists, screenwriters and filmmakers have set their works in Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic, the northernmost part of Norway yet closer to Greenland. Such works often make use of its Arctic climate, polar bears, isolation and the natural beauty of its dominant glaciers, mountains and fjords.
Exotic Gothic is an anthology series of original short fiction and novel excerpts in the gothic, horror and fantasy genres. A recipient of the World Fantasy Award and Shirley Jackson Awards, it is conceptualized and edited by Danel Olson, a professor of English at Lone Star College in Texas.
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories is an anthology of weird fiction edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer.
Tade Thompson FRSL is a British-born Nigerian psychiatrist and writer best known for his science fiction novel series Rosewater.
Novel ... Finalists: Dark Matter, Michelle Paver (Orion) ...