Discover the best Blake Crouch books for your next great thriller from the master of science fiction, mystery, and suspense.
In this article, we explore Blake Crouch’s body of work and throw the spotlight on the best Blake Crouch books and novellas we highly recommend!
Blake Crouch is an incredibly popular author and screenwriter known for his edge-of-your-seat thrillers. His novels transcend the boundaries of genres like science fiction, mystery, and suspense.
Perhaps best known for his Wayward Pines trilogy, Crouch is also the author of the popular standalone novels Dark Matter and Recursion.
Frequently compared to Michael Crichton, Blake Crouch keeps readers gripped with clever plot twists and compelling narratives that resonate with our modern lifestyles.
“The hardest thing writers have to do is figure out for themselves who they are. What should they be writing about? What stories should they be telling? What does writing mean to them? I didn’t know the answers to those questions for a long, long time.”
Blake Crouch
If you fancy yourself a thriller writer check out our article on how to write a thriller novel.
Now, let’s explore Crouch’s work further.
Contents
Who is Blake Crouch?
Blake Crouch, born in 1978, studied English and creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Interestingly, although many of his novels incorporate principles of higher mathematics, Crouch himself was never drawn to the study of mathematics as a student. It’s only since the advancement of gene therapy and quantum mechanics that Crouch discovered an interest in this specialist field.
Still, he’s stated that he’s happiest leaving it to the mathematical experts and applying his own creativity and imagination to the tales he so expertly weaves.
Crouch has authored a dozen books, some of which have been televised. He is a personable character who clearly enjoys engaging with his fan base via email and social media.
Blake Crouch’s Writing Style
Just one of the features that has made Blake Crouch a fan favorite is his writing style. He tends to use a lot of single-sentence paragraphs, short sentences, and a ton of dialogue. It’s almost as if he is writing with a screenplay in mind, which is serendipitous since one of his most popular books has now been adapted into a screenplay.
While his characters have been described as simple, that’s not to say they are one-dimensional; they’re just down-to-earth and relatable. They’re the kinds of characters that a reader can imagine living next door or working with at the office. Crouch’s themes often involve alternate realities, artificial intelligence, and deep human emotions.
“I love taking a character and raining holy hell down on them and seeing how they respond, how they react. It’s one of the things I do in almost all my books – my protagonist is put through a very stressful situation that tests their strength and their psychological acuity. That’s one of the core components of who I am as a writer.”
Blake Crouch
Another important aspect of Blake Crouch’s books is the rich and realistic environments that his characters inhabit. His attention to detail and ability to bring fictional worlds to life not only help paint a vivid picture in readers’ minds but also lend credibility to the more science-fiction elements in his narratives.
Next on the long list of reasons to read Blake Crouch is the adeptness with which he weaves his complex storylines. The pace is fast, but he handles the work deftly. Crouch’s books typically have multiple plot twists, cliffhangers, and surprises, unveiling a story that few readers are able to discern in advance.
For fans of thrillers, sci-fi, and suspense, Crouch never disappoints. For those new to the genre, his novels are a welcome introduction to what is proving to be a long and illustrious career in the novel and screenwriting business.
Best Known Blake Crouch Series
Blake Crouch wrote and published the Wayward Pines Trilogy between 2012 and 2014. The popular series put Crouch on the map as a writer to be reckoned with.
The deep themes in the series involve modern yet evergreen battles of man against nature, where human evolution and cryonics are interspersed with time displacement and dystopian worlds. Never one to balk at the truth, Crouch admits that the series was partially inspired by one of his favorite TV series, Twin Peaks.
Wayward Pines was so popular that it caught the interest of famed writer and director M. Night Shyamalan, who brought Signs, The Village, Lady in the Water, The Last Airbender, and numerous other hit movies and stories to the big screen.
The trilogy begins with Pines, where the main protagonist, Ethan Burke, is introduced. Burke is a Secret Service Agent who mysteriously finds himself in Wayward Pines following a car accident. The small town seems idyllic on the surface, but being a naturally curious person, Burke soon begins to uncover dark secrets.
In Wayward, the second book of the trilogy, Burke learns even more about Wayward Pines, including that it is being monitored by outside entities. In the final installment, The Last Town, Crouch unveils the mysteries behind the mysterious town and its inhabitants.
Wayward Pines is a fine example of how Crouch controls the narrative with subtly placed clues, suspense, and a gripping plot line that winds itself through all three books in the series.
The Best Blake Crouch Books
Blake Crouch has also written several standalone novels, many of which have hit the New York Times Bestseller list.
1. Dark Matter
Dark Matter is pending to be released as a movie on Apple TV+, but there’s no reason you have to wait until May of 2024 to enjoy this mind-bending science fiction novel.
The story revolves around Jason Dessen, an ordinary protagonist who wakens to an alternate reality. The book has been called “mind-blowing” and the excellent characterization and tension are featured as selling points. As Dessen fights to get back to his old world, he must face an antagonist that is otherworldly.
“We’re more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.”
Blake Crouch, Dark Matter
2. Recursion
Recursion is yet another Blake Crouch novel that may be destined for the big screen. Reportedly, Netflix acquired the rights to Recursion, and it may be in development right now. However, avid readers shouldn’t wait for the film version of this spellbinding science fiction adventure story. In it, Crouch explores one of humankind’s most cherished attributes: memory. The novel follows a scientist who creates a device to recover lost memories, resulting in unintended consequences that disrupt the fabric of the space-time continuum.
If you’re already starting to see a pattern with Crouch’s novels, it may be because—as Crouch readily admits in interviews—his own fears and issues tend to bubble up as he writes and “somehow” find their way onto the page.
“Time is an illusion, a construct made out of human memory. There’s no such thing as the past, the present, or the future. It’s all happening now.”
Blake Crouch, Recursion
3. Run
As the title suggests, Run is about a protagonist and his family running for their lives. The world has gone mad, and everyone is raging against one another. The worst crime of murder is rampant, and now the killers are mobilized and threatening the very underpinnings of society.
Run is a story of survival, but it’s also a tale of a hero who will do whatever is necessary to protect the family values—and his own family—from the forces that threaten to destroy them all. Like all other Blake Crouch novels, this one is a page-turner that is unsettling close to our own real life.
“You can’t change the past, but you can change the future. It’s never too late to start over.”
Blake Crouch, Run
4. Snowbound
If you’re a fan of dark thrillers, you’ll love Snowbound. The story takes place in the remote wilderness, where an innocent couple must overcome unforgiving elements to save their daughter, who has been kidnapped. The kidnapper is known to be murderous, and time is of the essence if her life is to be saved.
This is a story where Crouch’s everyday characters must reach deep inside themselves to find the hero within. The telling of the narrative is so descriptive that your mind will easily visualize the snowy environment in which the story takes place.
“If you let fear take hold, if you let it own you, your life ceases to be your own.”
Blake Crouch, Snowbound
5. Abandon
Abandon is a little bit different than other Blake Crouch novels, in that it moves between two timelines. Some readers may welcome this interesting writing technique, while others may find it tedious. However, Crouch is adept at clarifying the two timelines as they march harmoniously forward, only to intersect cleverly at the end of this satisfying novel.
The story covers a group of intrepid explorers who discover an age-old mystery during their adventure in a deserted mountain town, but the meanings of their findings run much deeper than the surface.
“Wish we could live twice, take a different path each time. That at the end of all this, when I finished serving God in the West, I could go back to that day on the beach, put a ring on Eleanor’s finger instead.”
Blake Crouch, Abandon
Blake Crouch’s Short Stories
Blake Crouch doesn’t always write lengthy novels and screenplays. He’s also the author of several riveting short stories, and it’s there that his talents really shine since it’s much harder to build suspense within the confines of a short story. Crouch’s short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, among others.
6. *69
Of course, *69 is a call feature that allows you to call the number of the last incoming call. It’s useful for many reasons, but in Blake Crouch’s short story, it’s a tool that gets his protagonists in over their heads. Believing that they’ve heard of a murder, they realize that their own lives are now in danger. Readers will feel the characters’ fear as they follow along in the story.
7. Fully Loaded
Imagine waking up in a car with no memory of how you got there and then finding out that the car is rigged with explosives. This is exactly what happens to the protagonist in Crouch’s Fully Loaded, a short story that will have readers sitting on the edge of their seats.
8. Summer Frost
Summer Frost takes place in the now-familiar world of virtual gaming. Only this time, the stakes are higher because the game developer has built an increasingly self-aware AI. In this short story, Crouch challenges the reader to consider the limits of humankind’s understanding of what it means to be human and how far we should let technology bring us.
9. Sunset Key
In one of his most traditional thrillers, Crouch uses a tropical environment and juxtaposes it against a man who needs to escape his past. Dogged by dangerous criminals and pushed to his limits, the protagonist must outsmart those who would trap him into becoming the man he used to be.
Crouch’s short stories are out of print at present. The author plans to publish an omnibus of short stories and novellas in the next two years however, in the meantime, some of them are available as an audiobook.
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