Kathe Koja’s Dark Matter is the third book in her Dark Factory series and like the first two, reading it feels like stepping into a dream you’re not sure you agreed to have, but suddenly you’re wide awake and completely hooked. This whole series pushes the boundary between what’s real and what’s manufactured with the website DARKFACTORY.CLUB and an ongoing conversation with the characters via social media posts. She blurs the line until it practically vibrates. Koja’s prose is kinetic and weirdly intimate—every scene pulses like a beat you can feel in your teeth. It’s the kind of story that doesn’t wait for you to catch up; it expects you to move, think, and feel at its pace. And you want to do just that, especially in this 3rd book where Ari’s energy is not just matched but almost outpaced by a new addition to the story, Bunny Graves. With Ari & Felix’s love story hitting some of the complexities of real world influences, and Max meeting Charmskool in the Birds of Paradise game, someone who matches his intelligence and search for answers to … life? The book is a much needed addition to the story.
What hits hardest is how much the book gets at that feeling of trying to build something true in a world made of curated illusions and glitchy desires. The characters aren’t just players in a scene—they’re architects of their own chaos, chasing connection, creativity, and escape in equal measure. Dark Matter is messy, electric, disorienting, and absolutely alive. By the end, you don’t just understand the world of Dark Factory—you feel like you’ve lived in it, danced in it, maybe even gotten lost in it… and honestly, you kind of want to go back. Highly recommended for anyone who ever loved clubbing, nightlife, the arts, technology, love stories, and chasing dreams and answers.
DARK MATTER by Kathe Koja
RELEASE DATE: December 2, 2025
GENRE: Speculative Fiction | LGBTQ
BOOK PAGE: Dark Matter – Meerkat Press
SUMMARY:
When the world ends, chaos begins–
–for feral Bunny Graves, playing life like a high-stakes game, where the only way to win is to smash the board to bits–
–for Max Caspar and Charmskool the scholar, chasing ancient myth all the way to the real world–
–and for Ari Regon, caught between dangerous jealousy and passionate love, corporate war and ambition so intense that failure is death, making the party to end all parties, a party that never ends.
Dark times.
Dark dreams.
DARK MATTER
The third and final book in the DARK FACTORY series.
BUY LINKS: Meerkat Press | Bookshop.org | Amazon
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kathe Koja’s books include The Cipher, Skin, straydog, Buddha Boy, Velocities: Stories, Under the Poppy, and the Dark Factory trilogy, Dark Factory, Dark Park, and Dark Matter. Her work has won awards, including the Stoker, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the ASPCA’s Henry Bergh Award. She also creates and produces live and online experiences that bring the story directly to you. Find her at kathekoja.com and on IG, FB and Bluesky.
GIVEAWAY: $25 Meerkat Press Giftcard
EXCERPT from DARK MATTER by Kathe Koja
ONE
The bed is king-size, the sheets are midnight blue, and all at once Ari wakes—the dream of an empty hallway, miles of scrawled white walls and he runs, chasing laughter, a man’s irresistible laughter—his body wakes him, with a jolt like falling.
Too early to be up but he rises anyway, naked, stretching, heading for the balcony as he shrugs on a robe, takes up his clip and a Babel cigar, pulls that door wide on hot spring sunshine and the tang of sewage, the buzz of delivery trikes in the street below. He yawns, still a little fuzzy from last night—a graduation party for Felix’s latest trio of Beat Shack student DJs, Nia and Hector and Antwan, the pop-up bartender was serving champagne and bitters and everybody wanted to buy him one, everybody wanted to dance and he danced with everybody, with Antwan, he used to run with a boy called Antoine . . . Last night Felix told those students The music comes first, not racking up linkis or gets, or booking fests, who knows how long fests will even last? Do what you need to do to get heard, but remember the music always comes first—and they listened, three nodding heads, his students are in awe of him, worldwide DJ in their own neighborhood; little Hector even dresses like him, simple t-shirts and aviator shades.
Squinting now in the treeless sun, he lights up and draws, the smoke mellow as whiskey in his mouth: these pricey cigars arrived yesterday in a lacquered black humidor with a little note signed by Tom Hae, business partner, would-be wise man, May our every vice enrich us. Right now there are two, no, three unanswered pings from Tom Hae on the clip that shivers and purrs in the slash pocket of his robe—Felix gave him this robe, rough plum silk so dark it looks black, tailored cuffs and sash, he held it up, bemused, Am I the kind of guy who wears something like this? and Well, Felix said, what kind of guy are you? You’re my guy.
This morning Felix was up and out early, filling the steam kettle, zipping the gym bag, while he rolled over into the warmth Felix left behind in bed, the smells of vetiver lotion and eucalyptus cold spray, the special scent of Felix’s skin, then fell back to sleep, to dream—he dreams a lot these days, nights, threshold dreams of that unseen man and those long hallways, of empty dandelion fields under black sky dazzle, of bones and bricks and shit and buildings half-built or half-destroyed where parties rage under slippery silk banners and branches sing in the wind, sing till they snap—waking again and again to this apartment, this building that reminds him of the building he grew up in, the same low-rise street trees and slow commuter trains, though way more lux and with new window shields and red smart fences, last week the grid shivered and those fences went down, the weed boutique across the street got instantly robbed, the gourmet deli tagged with rubber spray paint, FUKKIN EAT ME!!! in angry pink.
At first this apartment felt like a haven: Where’s that, our place? Felix asked him that before, Felix is constantly annoyed by New York but at ease here in a way he will never be, never was in that long-ago family apartment, or even his own industrial loft in the Factory days, the only place that ever felt like home to him was the Factory itself. Now the lease is coming due, and Felix wants, has been wanting, to settle somewhere, settle down, yet still he stalls, balks, why? Felix is his home, but his own center is something apart, Ari’s a maker, give him anything, anything at all—
—like the aftertaste of last night’s cocktails, and his own face glimpsed bluish and distorted on a doorside security screen, Sergey’s footage of their wedding and the gold-trimmed saint cards Ava tucks into his bag, Angel Rafael and Holy Mother Mary, bodyguard Alonzo’s waistband pistol and the empty bottle of Vismalux rolling on the Jump car’s floor, the ice storms that killed Meghan’s orchids and the mud that buries Indigo Studio, the walled-off professionals on Argot and the art strays and true believers on Kerosene and the ruthless gossip mobs on Dive, the false calm of News Immediate and the doom screamers on Dayly, all telling him, showing him the same thing—that things end, change, break, amaze—everything operating in the spin that he no longer hunts or rides but lives inside, alert, aware, surviving—
—and he draws again, blows a pair of wavering smoke rings, then checks a new ping, a man’s bare and gleaming ass, a flirty line of eyes, DJ Boyz Boyz @ Tuesday Club wsg Valhalla!! and 2nitez research let u know how it goez, from Antwan, Antwan with the purple hair and thigh-slashed jeans, last night Antwan asked him a million business questions, leaning in close to ask them—
—as “Hey,” from the balcony door, Felix in a cut-off NEVERDAYS t-shirt and workout pants, tossing down his bag, “I waved at you, didn’t you see me?” stepping out as Ari drops the clip back into his pocket, Felix’s hand sliding past the robe’s deep shawl collar to stroke his chest, his nipples and “You’re too hot,” Felix says. “Come on inside—”
—to lean against the cluttered kitchen island and kiss, breath of smoke, fresh sweat and sharp chlorine and “You smell like the gym,” Ari says.
“You smell like bed,” Felix says, tugging open the sash as Ari slides down Felix’s shades, vintage and gold, Felix is smiling—
—then the door chime goes, three beats and the recognition tone, a voice, a woman’s—“Bunny—” and “It’s your girlfriend,” Ari says; he slides the shades back up. “Did she follow you home?”
“I don’t know why you do this—”
“I’m going to grab a shower.”
“Ari, come on. She’s only going to be here a minute, she’s dropping something off—She already thinks you don’t like her—”
“Why does she think of me at all,” closing the bathroom door, clicking on the whirring filter fan but still he hears her enter, Bunny, Bunny Graves, her sharp bootheels, her seemingly friendly chat—“Alonzo said you had a great session this morning, Thomas is glad you can use his Sportshalle pass. Did Ari get the cigars Thomas sent?”—but he knows who really sent those cigars, and he knows she knows that, he dials the shower higher, he pictures her red relentless smile.
TWO
She could get a Jump or take the train, but she prefers to keep her feet under her, boots on the ground. People always ask How can you walk in those things? but she can run in heels and has, in the rain, on ice, up metal stairs, she can crack bottle glass or stomp a hole through chipboard. Thomas paid for these boots, his first purchase for her, not counting the Eiskaffee and the Zurich hotel room, when they got to Berlin he took her to a fetish bootmaker who measured her feet then asked what sort of heel she wanted, and smiled when she said Railroad spikes; these boots are the second-best thing Thomas ever gave her.
Ari Regon is the first.
Her trek today cuts through this humid, restless borough, rowhouses with potted plants looped to stoops with heavy wire, members-only cafés and smoke shops with doorway taser guards, charging kiosks ringed by skittish tourists, Green Circle health stations and vitamin smoothie stands, AV!TA !MMUN!TY! where a balding counter guy calls out as she passes, “Hey goddess, you feeling good?” dividing with her stride the other pedestrians as she heads for her noodle bar meeting with Ari’s PA, Oona Dean. Oona’s work handle is Unicorn16, and Unicorn16 is not easy to lure away from their protective workspace, but they believe this in-person meeting was specifically requested by Thomas on Ari’s behalf; in fact Thomas knows nothing about it, Thomas is in another marathon session with Bergeron, working on their platform for “Mr. Perez,” as Thomas insists on calling Felix in his acolytic way.
Felix is also working on that platform, a waste of time since if she does what she knows she can, it will never happen, but it means she can plausibly engineer spending time with him. Felix accepts her as a combination of Insomnious minder—like Alonzo the executive protection agent, former military, armed and watchful—and insider friend, always ready to chat, the way friends do; Felix never talks about his music, though she appreciates his extraordinary talent far better than Thomas ever could, but they talk about other people’s music, other DJs he listens to—Elle Kay, Munkshood, 5 Mile Girl, Fuxury—along with everything else, how to sleep on planes, choose a good cabernet, Go for the taste, never the cost, art photographers and bare-knuckle boxing, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the function of the corticofugal system—thanks to Agni’s fucked-up upbringing she has been everywhere and has a headful of lore, whenever she pulls out some arcane fact Felix is amused and intrigued; sometimes their talks go long, Ari is so busy, Felix is so often alone.
And though fame has turned him wary, once he feels at ease Felix is very good company, thoughtful and funny and wry—and unassailably hot, wherever he goes people flirt, cruise, ask for linkis, every answer he gets is yes. At the couture vintage store the clerks kept bringing him shirts to try on, holding them close to his body, Felix did not ignore them so much as politely refuse to register their efforts, it made her laugh and That happens to you a lot, she said when they left the store, Alonzo a silent step behind. Doesn’t it.
What? oh yeah, it used to be worse. I just wanted to show you, that’s where Ari got me these shades. His wedding present to me—
Does Ari ever get tired of all that? Jealous?
He gave her a look she is still trying to configure, a rueful pride, a wistful roll of the eyes: Ari? Ari doesn’t get jealous.
Never?
No.
Do you? but he did not take that bait, did he know it was bait? because she already knows Felix gets jealous, she watches him watch Ari dance, and who he dances with, she sees that Felix needs Ari more than Ari needs Felix—
—and need and jealousy are tools, like self-doubt, and fear, and violence, she learned about those at the shrines, where the trucks stopped and turned off their lights; and from ZZ’s long string of client stories; and first and worst from Agni, Agni’s lies like the mirrors in her dressing room, this angle, that angle, Everything depends on where you stand, Agni said that, Agni said Wouldn’t it be safer to ask me for money than have sex with those turnpike men? then when she asked laughed in her face, Why would I give my money to a whore like you—
—and up ahead is the checkerboard RAMEN BABY sign and its smiling baby logo, she is four minutes early but Unicorn16 is already there and waiting at a stand-up table, wearing a long-billed ballcap that shades their face and a Touch the Sky t-shirt. They start right in with spreadsheet talk and she pretends to listen, pretends to take notes while the bowls come and go, the noodles here are really very good, until “Is there a reason,” says Unicorn16, carefully folding their napkin, “that Mr. Hae wanted us to talk live? and not on Crosschannel? That account’s fully secure—”
“‘I spread the whole earth out as a map before me. On no one spot of its surface could I put my finger and say, here is safety.’”
“What?”
“Thanks for taking the time,” stepping away to pay the tab, learning just what she needed to learn, that next weekend’s in-person meet will include Felix and Bergeron—Thomas is flying them to Wroclaw, to breathe each other’s air or share electrons or something—but Ari will not be on that plane, Ari will stay behind, alone. Thomas does not know that, maybe even Felix does not, but Unicorn16 did, though Unicorn16 has no idea they shared that information, they were professional but guarded, they kept Ari’s name out of the conversation. And that they could was the tell.
How to use that weekend, though, needs to be carefully planned. Ari makes a point of avoiding her, not out of dislike, as Felix thinks—for all his street instincts, Felix is an innocent—but because Ari sees her as completely as she sees him. At first she thought she had to meet him right away, she almost asked Thomas to make that happen, but by the time Felix played at House of Hello, and Thomas asked her Shall we go to New York? she said Not yet—Thomas watched that show through a link instead, with Bergeron—because by then she knew better, knew not to go at Ari full-bore but from the sides, all sides, carving away everyone and everything else, then put herself in that empty place and say Let’s go.
And that moment will be worth all the wait and the work, she saw that when they finally met, there in Insomnious’s satellite office: on her feet between the blue-frosted windows and the rubber plant, watching Ari walk in, bespoke pinstripe vest and black diamond earrings, he barely shook her hand but when they touched he felt her, she knows he did because she felt him, a warm shock, electric as sex but not sex. And when he did not speak, would not, I’m Bunny Graves, she said. And you’re a great dancer.
Is Bunny your real name?
Now she sees the Turkish takeaway café, right on her way like a nod from the universe if she believed in that shit. She asks the counter server twice “These are authentic?” and the server nods, “Oh yeah, my grandma, she loves our börek—” savory pastry, whiff of onion and potato packed in a red takeaway box, tucked carefully into her shoulderpack before she strides around one corner, then another, and at the third turn sees Felix heading up the street, Alonzo on his left. Neither of them see her—a failure on Alonzo’s part, but not one she will report to Thomas—then Alonzo keys and checks the building’s vestibule, Felix enters—
—as Ari stands above them all, in the sun, smoking, hair a mess, he does not see Felix, does not see her, will not acknowledge this box of pastries, the kind his mother might have made, the same way he did not acknowledge the cigars she carefully chose, or consent to meet her while Felix is gone; but they will meet all the same. The Rig Veda, Schopenhauer’s notebooks, Bitch Planet, the twinkle of those little black diamonds, when she took his hand it was like looking at the stars when the constellations snap suddenly into view, this is the archer, this is the scorpion, this is the Golden Fleece. This is me. This is you. This is our world.