Caveat- I rarely read fiction these days, my bookshelves are mostly full of history, anthropology, science, ands psychology so maybe I’m a bit off base.
When it first came out I read Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and enjoyed it greatly. It is one of the very few books able to make me laugh out loud at certain points. It was a very intelligent, very human book that I think was 10/10.
A few weeks ago I picked up Artemis and Project Hail Mary for something to read before bed.
Artemis was very, to put it succinctly, ‘meh.’ It wasn’t terrible but I also failed to care one whit about anything or anyone in the story. The main character felt 2 dimensional at best and that might be a stretch. There were some great small bits of science but they were the only highlights of the book.
PHM was really good, right up to the ending. I was engaged, the characterizations felt fairly real if a bit idealized, and the plot was intriguing and unique. >!I found his construction of the Eridian biology and homeworld fascinating and somehow believable. Loved the bit about them not knowing about relativity. But the very end just felt completely inauthentic. !<
>!It made zero sense to me that Grace would go off after Rocky. Even from the standpoint of his perhaps feeling regret for his ‘cowardice’ when he was told he was going to go on the mission, his choice to try to save Rocky abandoned the fate of the earth to the failsafe drones with no guarantee the the information or the samples would get back in usable form. His subsequent decision to stay in a habitation bubble without direct physical contact with another being for 16 years when he had every opportunity to go home also made no sense psychologically.!<
In the end, I feel like Weir dropped the ball at the very last moment on PHM. It was a great story and then fell apart, literally in the last few pages, into a random mess. It was a disappointment after a great ride up to that point.
by needzbeerz
5 Comments
I liked The Martian a lot but didn’t like Artemis or PHM. Artemis felt like it wasn’t fleshed out, and PHM seemed like it was written without a plan for how it would end. I know a lot of people liked PHM (which is awesome), but it wasn’t the book for me. I do think Artemis was objectively bad.
Personally, project hail mary came off as sort of the big bang theory (tv show) as a book. It’s sciencey smart content for people who aren’t into science and smart. The martian was a home run.
PHM isn’t really a great story from the macro scale to be honest. It’s mostly about encountering a series of sciencey crisis events and one guy coming up with brilliant nerdy solutions to save the day. It’s a fun ride and people love it for those moments, but the bigger picture of narrative is a bit weak.
I think the author took the easy ending of >!not returning home.!< I can’t really thing of anything satisfying that would happen if he did. We never really got much writing to make us care about what happens to anyone after the mission.
Well, he was betrayed and sent on this mission against his will. It’s not completely illogical to imagine the bond he created with Rocky was stronger than his will to go home then.
I think the whole book is fantastic. I liked *The Martian* but was by no means a superfan until *Project Hail Mary* which is way more my thing. *Artemis* is okay, but mediocre compared to his other two.
I disagree. Grace’s decision to save Rocky and live on his world teaching little rockies makes perfect sense. His choices are those of a scientist, explorer and teacher. Returning to earth would be a step backward and not in character for Grace at all.