{"id":35429,"date":"2025-06-25T10:16:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T16:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=35429"},"modified":"2025-06-25T13:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T19:59:11","slug":"dark-matter-by-robert-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=35429","title":{"rendered":"Dark Matter by Robert Plant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Visceral, lyrical, and deeply unsettling; an unforgettable collection.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Technology is the monster lurking just beneath the surface in Plant&#8217;s collection of seven eerie, quietly devastating stories. When an introverted man turns to a new dating app, he discovers some matches are too perfect, and some prices too high in \u201cThe Perfect Match.\u201d When justice becomes a spectacle, a brutal game show show host finds himself at the center of the show in \u201c<em>The Chair<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 A dying woman seeking eternal life in a digital afterlife confronts a chilling reality in \u201cHaven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even the brighter stories carry a chill. In \u201cDemi,\u201d a game developer creates beautiful virtual worlds but can\u2019t quite stay away from reality. A writer escapes to the woods to overcome his creative paralysis, but the darkness he&#8217;s trying to write begins to close in on him for real in \u201cThe Rental.\u201d&nbsp; An AI assistant upends a man&#8217;s life, only to lead him to a new beginning in \u201cAre You Happy, Joe?\u201d What ties these stories together isn\u2019t just theme, but atmosphere: a near-constant low hum of dread that builds with each page. Plant favors slow reveals over twists, moral ambiguity over clean resolutions. His horror is relational and systemic; it\u2019s in the way we trust devices more than people, in the way our screens know us better than our families do. The book doesn&#8217;t ask, \u201cWhat if?\u201d It asks, \u201cHow long have you known?\u201d Intimate, clinical, and terrifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Coming soon<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.robertplantwrites.com\/writing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Author website<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Visceral, lyrical, and deeply unsettling; an unforgettable collection. Technology is the monster lurking just beneath the surface in Plant&#8217;s collection of seven eerie, quietly devastating stories. When an introverted man turns to a new dating app, he discovers some matches are too perfect, and some prices too high in \u201cThe Perfect Match.\u201d When justice becomes a spectacle, a brutal game show show host finds himself at the center of the show in \u201cThe Chair.\u201d\u00a0 A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":35439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[7223,91,3328,178,723770980,1747,1136176,91586,1473,1008073,856121,309,723770979,546,349],"class_list":["post-35429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-author","tag-blogging","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-dark-matter","tag-fiction","tag-indie-books","tag-literary-fiction","tag-reading","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-robert-plant","tag-short-stories","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-9dr","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Screenshot-2025-06-25-1.58.12-PM.png?fit=262%2C420&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35429"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35437,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35429\/revisions\/35437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}