All I can say is, Wow. This has everything I look for in fiction: intelligent ideas, surprising twists, mystery, and all delivered within a steady matrix of confident, evocative prose. Smart writing that tells a ripping tale? Yes please.’ —ImmerseOrDie REVIEWS
Rasputin “Monk” Lowdermilk wanted to end it all. But when he is run down by a car on the way to his suicide, he finds that life is just beginning.
While recovering he begins to discover strange new abilities. He can draw portraits so precise they look like photographs. He can remember with flawless clarity everything he’s ever seen or heard, no matter how trivial. He can read strangers so well it verges on telepathy.
But with these gifts come strange visions tinged with menace. And the one thing Rasputin doesn’t know is that his new abilities have been noticed, by ancient and evil forces who recognise what the gifts mean and what they will become. Unfortunately, his new life is only of benefit to them if he’s dead.
Dark Matter is a cerebral mystery that plays fair — and dares you to solve it.
Excerpt
A beautiful suicide.
It wasn’t a phrase Rasputin had ever heard. He supposed it wasn’t a deed attempted much either.
But tonight he would pull it off.
The idea had been simmering at the back of his mind for years, and now it had come to the boil. One minute he’d been eating sweet-and-sour pork in the foodhall of the cinema complex, his head a bucket catching every stray sound. The next he’d been treading the asphalt of the undercover car park, his body burning with the idea captured in those three simple words. He couldn’t remember how one had turned into the other. It didn’t matter anymore.
He would commit a beautiful suicide.
Everything necessary lay in his beat-up Datsun. The car would be his troubadour’s wagon, holding both stage and props. In its backseat was a woollen blanket he’d bought from the Salvation Army for five dollars. In the car’s centre console was a bottle of water, and in the glove compartment a small jar of opaque white plastic. The mail-order chemist’s label wrapped round the jar said: Amitriptyline (150mg), take orally once a day at bedtime. And on his driver’s license was stamped in indelible ink the all-important instruction.
He would wind the driver’s chair back to sixty degrees, spread the blanket over his body, take the top off the jar, and with the bottle of water begin washing down the dusty pink tablets.
After as few as ten tablets (so he’d read) his eyelids would grow heavy and close. His mind would sink into unconsciousness. His pulse and breathing would slow. Then stop altogether. He would not so much shuffle off this mortal coil as sublimate from it. His being would evanesce like dry ice.
Above all, he would do this without violence. The mere thought of slicing open the flesh of his wrist sent a thrill of panic through him. No, he would close his eyes and float away with the clouds.
He hoped he wouldn’t dribble, or fit and spasm out from under the blanket. That would disturb the tableau. But he could bear that. How he looked wasn’t the beautiful part.
He’d considered overdosing on Heroin, even tested it, but that ran the risk of throwing a red flag at organ appraisal. If you were sticking Heroin into your veins, what else was flowing in them? But Amitriptyline, an antidepressant, was the housewife’s remedy. A nice, normal death. A work-a-day death that left all of your vital, and vitally needed, lumps of flesh in saleable condition.
Here was the beauty. Rasputin would cast his soul to the wind, but leave his body for who knows how many still-breathing folk.
And when it was parcelled out, what new sights would be seen through his corneas? What new aromas sucked into his lungs? What new toxins filtered by his kidneys? (A fleeting doubt: would Amitriptyline damage them beyond use?) He imagined a beneficiary of his largesse gazing at the Eiffel Tower, smelling the bouquet of a Château d’Yquem, and pissing it down one of those funny open-air urinals, a pissoir, found on the streets of Paris. And all of this courtesy of his hardware.
Perhaps portions of him would go all over the world, an inverse Frankenstein’s monster. Today he was Rasputin T. Lowdermilk of 34b Bell Court, Riverton, Perth, Western Australia. Tomorrow he would be many people. Legion. It was modern-day magic.
That was the plan. Until he stumbled on a fly in his ointment.
The fly stood about six feet tall. It wore dirty Converse sneakers, black jeans, and a hood top that had a price tag dangling from its hem. The fly was bent at the waist, side-on to Rasputin. Its right hand was gripped around a screwdriver, and with that it was jimmying a car door lock.
The fly was attempting to steal his car.
Professional Reviews
Immerse Or Die
When a young man sets out to give himself a "beautiful suicide" and instead gives himself superpowers, I'm curious. Throw in a resurrected Nazi with similar powers trying to hunt him down and I'm full-on fascinated. But Dark Matteris more than just an intriguing premise. It has everything I look for in fiction: intelligent ideas, surprising twists, and a dollop of mystery, all delivered within a steady matrix of confident, evocative prose. Smart writing that tells a ripping tale? Yes please.
— Jefferson, ImmerseOrDie Review
Best Self-pub I've read to date!
This is probably the best self-published book I have ever read. I came across it on Creativity Hacker - The Immerse or Die Challenge. It survived the 40 minutes and that is rare. I immediately searched it out. I could barely put it down and I am more than just a picky reader, I'm a total writing snob! I think I noticed 3 errors in the whole book which is about the same as professionally published books, and that is very impressive. Brett Adams has just been added to my list of must reads and I already have his next book queued up (to be honest, when I finished this one, I started reading Strawman Made Steel within two minutes).
The writing was top notch in many ways but I think the expert use of creative and original metaphors was probably the strongest pillar of the entire literary building. Well done!
The only bit of advice I have for Mr. Adams is to get a cover artist. The covers of both books, though suited in essence, are not eye-grabbers. I never would have picked this up for the cover and the same goes for Strawman Made Steel. And I would have missed out! So, hopefully you've earned a bit from these books (I know I'll be recommending you!) and you can hire a professional to put some covers together for you. I'd bet you see an immediate increase in sales, not to mention that the release of a new cover can bump you to the front line here on Amazon.
Great work and please keep writing!
-- Trick, Amazon Review
Gripping
It's been a long long time since I've been addicted to a book like this one. I couldn't put it down. Adams' writing style is intelligent and brilliantly descriptive, yet the story moved at a pace that had me on the edge of my seat. Can't wait for Adams' next book!
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