Micro Mention "Project Hail Mary"

"Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir absolutely scratches that same itch as "The Martian." If that book was about how the world showed up to save one man, then this novel is the inverse and is the story of how one man shows up to save the world.

Even though there are many differences between this novel and "The Martian," Weir maintains the same sort of atmosphere. It's a mix of danger and excitement combined with exploration and intelligence. Plus, his writing is often unexpectedly funny, which is a quality I never fail to appreciate.

If you'd like to read my full review of this novel, you can find it here.

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Author's Website: https://www.andyweirauthor.com/

"Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir--Fiction Review

Today’s review is on one of my favorite author’s newest book. Get your space suits on obscurists because we’re talking about Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary.”

***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***

   

What I love about this book:

This book does exactly what I love about “The Martian,” but more so, and you can tell how Weir has evolved for the better as a writer. What I mean by this, it takes a hard science fiction plot, sticks with it throughout the novel—with only minor flights of fancy such as astrophage itself—and wraps it around a character-driven story.

I was happy that Weir’s humor is also preserved in this novel. The density of this book’s technical details would be dry if it weren’t for the numerous chuckles throughout this book. The protagonist’s battle with the robotic arms of the Hail Mary at the beginning of the novel was especially funny to me.

Storywise, for all its similarities to “The Martian,” “Project Hail Mary” is a darker story than that novel. That book was all about the incredible survival of one man, but this book is about the survival of Earth itself—so, to put this as delicately as possible, death is never far in this story. I know I often get accused of enjoying bleak fiction, but it isn’t all that grim of a story—trust me.

The protagonist of this novel isn’t Mark Watney, and that’s a good thing. Don’t misunderstand, I love Mark Watney, but he’s such a strong character that it would be easy for a writer to fall back and create lesser versions of him. This protagonist shares certain qualities with Watney, to be sure, but still, I feel that his individual character is distinct from his predecessor’s—for one, he’s not nearly as technically handy. Also, I can’t bring it up here due to spoilers, but there are revelations about him in the latter half of the book that really demonstrates his not Watney-like qualities.

As a great lover of audiobooks, I was practically giddy—ok, there wasn’t anything “practically” about it—I was absolutely giddy when I heard that my favorite narrator Ray Porter read this book. Porter’s performance was terrific—as always—and I genuinely feel this novel is an entirely different experience without him, and the musical sound effect touches added to the audiobook edition.

What I don’t love about this book:

So this book features a case of amnesia, and it’s why I’m referring to the main character as the protagonist, even though the publisher’s summary just comes out and says his name. But anyway, amnesia is a bit of an overused cliched plot device, and that warrants mentioning. It’s used to set up the novel’s B plot, which tells the story of how the protagonist got involved with project hail mary and how the ship was created. Having read the whole novel at this point, I can’t imagine it any other way, so this literary device does its job, which means I don’t hate it. I might not love it, but I can’t say it isn’t well done. There is undoubtedly an emotional gut-punch toward the end of the novel because of it. That story beat wouldn’t be so effective without the amnesia. 

This also happened in “The Martian” for me, but I never grew as invested in the other crew members of the mission as literally every other character in the book. That was a bit disappointing to me that the Hermes and the Hail Mary crews outside of the protagonists themselves weren’t as well developed as, say, the NASA engineers on Earth in “The Martian” or the project administrators in “Project Hail Mary.” The protagonist certainly thinks about his crewmates a bunch, and I assumed his memories would be supported in the B plot to make their fates more tragic, but no, not really.

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as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases

Author’s Website: https://www.andyweirauthor.com/

***The Spoiler part of this review***

***Ye be warned to turn back now***

The quick and dirty synopsis:

The story begins with our protagonist waking up with all kinds of tubes and medical instruments connected to him. In his weakened state, not only can’t he remember why he’s there, but he can’t even remember who he is or even his name. This is a problem since the computer that is taking care of him with two robotic arms that come out of the ceiling keeps asking him what his name is. Eventually, he regains his strength enough to get up and survey his surroundings, there are two other beds in his room with him, but both occupants are long dead.

Micro Mention "The Martian"

While I loved R.C. Bray’s narration of Andy Weir’s “The Martian,” I am also a big fan of Wil Wheaton—so now I own both versions, and if I’m honest, I think Bray did it a little better… sorry, Wil.

I think what's happened is I'm so biased by how much I enjoyed the initial audio version of "The Martian" with Bray as narrator that I was unconsciously prejudiced against Wheaton's performance before it even started. So, I've considered that there is a possibility that if I had heard the Wheaton version first, maybe it would be my preferred version of this audiobook. 

But! To play devil's advocate against that point, Wil Wheaton is an immensely talented guy who does many different things. Primarily, though, I'd say he's an actor, which certainly gave him a leg-up voice acting out this book, but RC Bray's whole bread and butter is his talents as a voice actor. To me, at least, there seems to be a whole depth of skills when just using your voice to act out a story that Wheaton hasn't quite sharpened yet to the same level. In short, Wheaton's acting skills are more generalized while Bray's are more specialized to this task.

If you'd like my full review of "The Martian" you can find it here.

This preview is an Amazon Affiliate link; 

as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Author's Website: https://www.andyweirauthor.com/

"The Martian" by Andy Weir--Fiction Review

Like with my “Red Rising” review, let’s return to Mars, obscurists! Today I’m talking about Andy Weir’s fantastic hard science fiction novel, “The Martian.” 

***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***

What I love about this book:

“The Martian” might be the greatest hard sci-fi I’ve ever read—sorry, Arthur C. Clarke—because Weir is excellent in a dimension that most authors within the subgenre struggle with, and that’s character development. His protagonist, Mark Watney, isn’t just a guy you’re rooting for but is also really funny along the way—kinda impressive considering the whole being stranded on Mars thing.

Weir goes above and beyond on the technical details of how everything works on a Mars mission, which is what you would expect for this subgenre. Watney has a way of explaining material that could have been presented incredibly dry and makes it interesting in his own mixture of serious yet goofy style.

Clearly, I’m partial to space stuff, and this book is so—so much fun as an interplanetary adventure/survival story. Think “Hatchet” but with an adult and on Mars, which I guess is kinda like saying think, “Robinson Crusoe,” but on Mars—and fun fact “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” is actually a Sci-Fi movie from the 1960s. Anyways, Robinson Crusoe, the literary character, always came off to me as a bit of a dickhead, so I prefer the “Hatchet” but on Mars comparison. In any case, the high concept is: an uncommonly self-reliant person has to use their wits to survive in a hostile environment for a long, long time with limited tools. It’s a story archetype I’ve always liked.  

What I don’t love about this book:

So I’m an audiobook fan—as I’ve mentioned ninety billion times—and I love this book so much I actually own two different audiobook editions of this book. The latest version, and the only one currently available in English on audible.com, is read by Wil Wheaton—who I love, yes even when he was Wesley Crusher—I’ve listened to many an audiobook narrated by him. He’s got talent, which makes this next part awkward for me, but R.C. Bray—who read the older edition—did a better job. I think that performance really adds an extra dimension to audiobooks, which is why I like them so much. The fact that unless you already own that version, you can’t buy it today, while it doesn’t impact me personally, still kinda irks me. But who am I to question almighty Amazon.

I have few complaints about the story’s narrative—the pirate-ninjas thing garners a chuckle the first few times you read it but quickly becomes tedious.

I noticed that while Weir’s character work with Mark Watney was excellent, and the NASA administrators/engineers back on Earth were compelling. Mark’s crewmates on the Hermes shined a little duller than the others. Martinez was great, but Dr. Beck and Commander Lewis were OK. Lewis’s big trait is she likes old music, and Dr. Beck is the guy who fell in love with his crewmate, and he’s also the professional other-guy on the team. I’m forgiving of this shortcoming, though, because it’s hard to hit home runs on every single character, especially when there are so many of them. 

This preview is an Amazon Affiliate link; 

as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Author's Website: https://www.andyweirauthor.com/

***The Spoiler part of this review***

***Ye be warned to turn back now***

The quick and dirty synopsis:

The book starts with us reading Mark Watney’s Mars log right after he’s stranded on Mars when the crew had to abort the mission because of a storm. Mark was thought killed in the storm when he was hit by an antenna and lost in the sand. His crew tried their best to find him, but the sensors said his vitals had ceased, and their assent vehicle, and the only way off Mars, was about to tip over in the wind at any moment.