The shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice, is tomorrow. That makes it the perfect time to review a horror novel I read recently. The story climaxes at the dark of the year, when the forces of darkness overwhelm any trace of light in the arctic night.
Michelle Paver’s Dark Matter: A Ghost Story is an old-fashioned horror story, in the tradition of M.R. James, who in my book was the most frightening of all the British 19th-century horror writers.
I don’t want to give any spoilers away, but I found the twists and turns that built up the suspense quite satisfying.
An amateur arctic expedition journeys to the arctic circle to take scientific readings and right away we feel the echoes of failed expeditions looming over this one. But there’s another threat hinted at from the beginning. It won’t be just amateur planning, overconfidence or the hidden demons of the members of the expedition that will doom it to fail.
Hardened sailors fear the place the expedition will be based, and one finally comes out and explains that the place is haunted by something that happened there years ago. Of course stalwart British upper-class adventurers, intent on doing science, laugh at such notions.
The narrator, who is not upper class and has something to prove to the others, is left there alone by a series of accidents. We suspect that something terrible must happen to him, but the actual day by day accretion of fear, and the growing dark, maintain the suspense. Paver’s use of a sled dog as a pivotal character who adds to the terror, is wonderful, and in keeping with her other works that featured a knowledgeable depiction of wolf behavior.
That would be the younger YA series Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. They’re fast-paced and suspenseful, and I highly recommend them too, especially for reluctant readers.
Scare yourself with this winter’s tale of ghosts, solitude, and darkness.
