I’ve read plenty of Sci-fi in my time ranging from – Enders Game, The forever War, Dune, Foundation (part 1), Philip K Dick works, Solaris, and the novels set in the Alien, Star Wars and Terminator universes and many more.
I’ve found them all interesting and entertaining. Some better than others and some which didn’t quite work.
But the Martian … it’s a novel I find excruciating to read and I’ve given up before page 40 both times. It’s the excessive technical detail which kills it for me. Pages of pages of excessive description just describing what the main guy is interacting with. Nothing moves forward.
I just find it unbearable. Project Hail Mary I’ve heard great things about but it fills me with fear knowing what it might turn out to be.
by AtomicWeight
37 Comments
I’d say just don’t read it.
Sure, it’s possible you might change your mind if you keep reading it but ya know, is it worth it if you aren’t having a good time?
🥲I love the Martian 👽
It sounds like you don’t read hard sci-fi.
You either love that kind of stuff or you don’t.
I loved it. You don’t, so i’d read something else.
The science is more speculative in Project Hail Mary, and so there was less of it, so you might find it less overwhelming.
But probably not.
I loved both books.
It’s not really sci-fi in my opinion, maybe science-projection? The point is that he’s using plausible science that we have available right now to solve his problems. The technical description is a necessary part of that, because if he does something and “it just works” it doesn’t go with the premise.
But if it’s not for you, ok.
The Martian movie is good and an acceptable replacement of the book. It’s not like they totally changed the story in the movie.
Also, I find audiobooks easier to read with technical stuff like this. For some reason it’s less dry when I’m hearing it told to me.
I will say that the Project Hail Mary audiobook is fantastic and I couldn’t listen to it fast enough, I was absolutely sucked in and hooked. It’s a great book.
I liked the nitty gritty science stuff in Project Hail Mary but really struggled with the annoying humor. Not sure if The Martian is the same.
Don’t waist your time with Project hail mary.
Juvenile writing and flat humor.
I liked it just fine, but prefer the movie even though I read the book first. (Ditto Cloud Atlas.)
I actually admire that you can give up on books when you don’t enjoy them. I still assume, esp if others like them, that there might be some payoff at some point, and so I rarely ever not finish them.
Or maybe there’s a different, deeper psychological reason I might need professional help me figure out, who knows.
I liked the story of course – I’ve been reading hard Sci-fi since I was about 14 and now I’m 55 – but like you, I found the detail excruciating. Not just the quantity but the *type* of detail.
Sure, give me technicalities, tell me *how* and *why* things work (or don’t). Show me the inner workings of machines, or ideas, or anything, really. But the details he focuses on are all the mundane shit. “I turned a screw. The screwdriver slipped. I dropped it. I bent over to pick it up” and then proceeds that way for another three pages before he finally gets the fucking screw unscrewed.
He needed a much more aggressive editor.
Sounds like a situation where I would just avoid reading the author’s work at all in the future, if I felt such a way.
That’s how you feel, which is fine.
I found the book to be quite a fun read and enjoyed it quite a lot.
Yeah that’s just his style. I read another of his books, Artemis, and it’s very similar. I love it but you don’t and that’s ok
The Martian isn’t sci fi. It’s a book about an engineer using real science to survive in a very hostile environment. There are no flux capacitors or dark mater reactors or space bending drug addicts. Every problem presented in the book is solved using realistic science, which Watney describes because that is what is happening in the story. The descriptions are the meat and gravy of the book. I honestly don’t know what it would even be without them.
But yeah, if you don’t like them, then it’s not a book for you.
Project Hail Mary also goes into a lot of detail, but that one is definitely sci-fi.
If you dont like The Martian absolutely dont read Project Hail Mary. Hail Mary is much much worse
It’s just not for you, and that’s okay. I haven’t read The Martian, but I did Project Hail Mary (Audible) and that is one of the major things that made me love it. I’m a very analytical person so it sang to me.
Fairs. I’m the opposite, I’m not too thrilled by books like Ender’s Game. The ‘hard sci-fi’ aspect of the martian is part of the reason I love it so much (it’s my favourite book). Speculative stuff doesn’t tend to do it for me. It’s just a matter of different tastes, and if you’re not enjoying it, why read it?
If it’s not for you, it’s not for you. My husband really liked it and my 10 year old read the classroom edition (no cursing) and LOVED it.
I read it, but I hated it. I read another book by him, Project Hail Mary. I hated that too. I won’t be reading anymore books by Andy Weir.
I didn’t feel like I needed to understand the technical details. I read those parts but I didn’t really try to understand them. I still had a great time reading that book.
Sounds like you prefer science fantasy over science fiction if we’re being technical. Science fantasy takes ideas of science and does whatever it wants with it, regardless of implications to real science and generally doesn’t take the approach of explaining it’s tech. Science fiction generally is a fictional book with scientific parameters that are plausible in the real world of science. At least that’s always been my understanding of it. The Martian (and Project Hail Mary) both go to extensive lengths to explain how their “science” works. The Martian being more plausible than PHM but still there’s a need by the author to explain the why. The Martian is definitely still sci-fi as while it’s all technically plausible it doesn’t exist yet and hasn’t been proven to be factual, so thus it’s fictional.
Science fantasy gets thrown in with sci-fi for organizational purposes but yeah based off of what you read I recommend the Red Rising series. First 3 are amazing books, didn’t like the start to the 2nd trilogy so I haven’t read 5 or 6 but heard good things about them still
You’d *hate* Three Body Problem then.
Project Hail Mary is worse. I enjoyed The Martian for what it was. But good God Hail Mary is just nerd porn for young adults. All ridiculously streamlined, endless solutions, miraculous ideas, one man being every man, formula after formula. It was choking how bad it was for me.
Project Hail Mary is 10x the cringe of Martian.
The movie is a great substitute for the book in this case, only one chapter is really missing. I will say the first 40 pages were the most technically detailed. The rest of the book has detailed sections but not in as long of a stretch as the beginning
I read Project Hail Mary and it was a really good story, but I did find the technical parts unnecessary to the story. Don’t get me wrong, I like science. I appreciate someone who is good at math, etc. But I felt like it was less for the benefit of the story and more for the author to be like, “Look at me! Look how smart I am!” I feel like there were less monotonous ways to go about illustrating that someone was working through complex problems.
In any case, what I mostly did was just skimmed those parts and moved on. They add nothing to the storyline really, so just skimming over them doesn’t detract from anything IMHO.
Not every book is for every one and that’s okay. The excessive details which turned you away were the most enjoyable part for me. You don’t have to like every book that has a good rating.
It took me forever to finish the Martian. I appreciate all of the science that went into it, but I think the ratio of science to story progress was leaning too much in the science direction.
Maybe it’s a controversial opinion, but I preferred Artemis and Project Hail Mary. Those ones I couldn’t stop reading. I thought they balanced the science with story better, although if you’re averse to the technical detail maybe Andy Weir’s just not your style of writer in general.
He’s a bad writer; Artemis is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. Project Hail Mary is stupid and the Martian is just ok but it talks about potatoes more than Samwise Gamgee
If you didn’t like The Martian, you probably won’t like Project Hail Mary. Similarly paced, similar in tone and content. I happened to enjoy both, but you shouldn’t force yourself to read a book you don’t like just because it gets good reviews.
You know, OP. I feel there’s a lot of science fiction that is arguably fantasy, but with the cadence and subject matters important to science rather than gripping with actual science or theory. Like Star Wars, Dune, etc.. Most often they call that soft sci-fi, if you’re interested in finding more like what you already enjoy. The Martian is trying to be hard sci-fi, which means it really grips with science. Fantasy also has its own soft and hard subgenres.
Probably don’t read anymore Weir then. I thought the Martian was great. I guess I’m in the minority here, but I enjoyed Artemis as well; at least he tried something a bit different. Hail Project Mary is fine, but it’s basically just The Martian on steroids.
Given the backlash against his second book and trying to write a different character/do new things creatively – and how similar his third book is to his first – there’s probably a good chance Weir will just be writing the same book over and over from now on. I’ll read the next one if it’s about anything other than “science nerd trapped in an impossible situation” but if not, love you Andy, but you might have become a victim of your own success.
It feels very different in audiobook
I think the technical details is a huge part of what makes the book fun, its cool seeing this guy realistically problem solve his way out of a horrible situation. But if you aren’t interested in science or space in a technical sense it definitely isn’t for you imo
I dnf it. Felt like reading a damn textbook. No thanks
Project Hail Mary is even worse. Waaayyy too young adult for me. It’s written like an 8th grade science teacher talking to a captive audience classroom.
Then don’t read it. Jesus christ how fucking hard is it for you chucklefucks to figure out, if you aren’t enjoying reading something just don’t read it.