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