I’ve just finished reading Dark Matter by Bruno Rothgiesser.

TLDR: read it if you haven’t yet. The unique atmosphere and unsettling paranoia of Dark Matter make it perfect for those looking for a philosophical scifi story. Highly recommend.

Review. No spoilers

We live in an over saturated world. Shock content isn’t shocking anymore, and while it gives more creative freedom to writers, it tends to pull the attention away from the core ideas. And scifi is all about ideas.

There is a tremendous weight in low-contrast language and there is tremendous value in content that doesn’t shock. It makes you watch out for fine details.

Dark Matter is a clean and cerebral read. It’s a dance around the uncanny valley of robots that feel almost human. The trust is flimsy, the conversations between the human and robot characters are interrogations disguised as dialogue. The atmosphere of the book is sterile - like you are staring into an ultraviolet lamp - you eyes hurt and you don’t know why.

This is by design.

This book is unsettling and uncomfortable not because it’s gratuitous or bizarre, but because of carefully crafted paranoia present on each page. Choosing space as a setting amplifies the creepy loneliness, the claustrophobic nature of the book.

There is another layer that I’d like to point out. Without spoilers - check the narrative voice of every character POV. Check out their spoken voices. There is a crucial difference in tone which further enhances the gap between the mindset of the characters in this story.

Bruno is a technologist, and he actually understands how to relate the interaction with the AI on the page. There is a great deal of writers that talk about AI without having deep understanding or experience of what it is and how it works - at best they know it “stole something” and it “diminishes humanity”. What these writers tell, Bruno shows. Yes, AI doesn’t have any humanity - but in what sense exactly?

Read the book to discover that for yourself.