I started this book just after having finished Michelle Paver's 
 Thin Air 
 and initially thought that this one, Dark Matter, wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable for me- this I based upon my strong and immediate dislike for the main character, Jack Miller. 
 This notion lasted roughly halfway through. 
 As with Thin Air the story starts off slowly, and I think this is even more true of Dark Matter than it was of the aforementioned Thin Air. I liked the preparation part of Thin Air, less so that of Jack Miller's road to the Arctic. This could very well be because of his, to me, utterly disagreeable personality - while I, to the last page, find him at best tolerable, I do appreciate his character development. 
 I already mentioned that I, while comparing Dark Matter to Thin Air, initially didn't think that I would replicate my five star rating of the latter, but as the story progressed, I actually started wondering if this would warrant a subtraction of a star for Thin Air (I decided that, while comparing the two, Dark Matter would probably rank a bit higher, I did think that as I read Thin Air, it was an excellent story and in its own right deservant of its five stars.). 
 Michelle Paver is brilliant at inducing heart palpitations; I could feel what being all alone in a cabin, in almost complete darkness 24/7, did to Jack. The way she describes events without flat out stating what has happened helps in creating and maintaining the suspense of both the story and the story within the story, and oh what a story it turned out to be!