Preface: I'm not much of a reader. I used to be, but I've gone off that "former-gifted-kid-to-overworked-burnout" pipeline a long time ago. But I love Andy Weir's stories. Gun to my head, Project Hail Mary is probably what I'd say is my favorite book. Most of my "reading" time is spent listening to audiobooks on road trips, which I've basically just been bouncing between The Martian, Artemis, and Project Hail Mary on loop for, but I want to broaden my horizons. I have another such trip coming up, and I wanted to try something else. I've got a bit of a list in order of what I particularly like from the Weir Trilogy and what I am looking for in something new, ranked roughly in order from most to least important:
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Audiobook Available
I'm gonna be driving, it'll be hard to balance a paperback on the steering wheel. -
Competence Porn
Smart people doing smart things. Bonus points if it's something I could personally learn from (I'm never going to ever be in a situation where I'd need to learn how to make crop soil out of Martian dirt but if I was I'd have a few ideas!) but that's not a requirement. Someone just absolutely owning the situation through cleverness and resourcefulness. Other non-Weir examples I've enjoyed are Sherlock Holmes stories, the Anime/Manga series Dr. Stone, and books like How to Invent Everything by Ryan North. -
Optimism
Another real highlight of Weir's books is that they are fundamentally about how good people are at doing things. A huge collaborative effort, humanity vs. problem. No big Evil McCorporate, C.E.O. to try to kill off the human race for 2% APY. Cyberpunk this is not. Having a de facto "villain" isn't a deal breaker, but if it's something that can make me feel generally better about society as a concept would be a big plus -
A real good narrator
The narrators for The Martian (R.C. Bray, not the Wheaton version) and Project Hail Mary (Ray Porter) lend a lot of gravitas and likeability to the protagonists while downplaying the sort of pretentious assholish nature of these super cool awesome science ninja hero guys. Something with a good voice behind it helps a lot.
by digikun
1 Comment
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is a fun audiobook, and it gets bonus points for also being narrated by Ray Porter. It’s not as hard sci-fi as The Martian, but the main character (the titular Bob) does have to do a lot of problem solving. I don’t know that I can recommend the whole Bobiverse series, as the story gets a little tired after a while, but the first book is good, fun sci-fi.
Also, I agree with you about RC Bray’s narration of The Martian. I liked the way Wil Wheaton narrated Ready Player One (which is also worth listening to, btw), but he’s no RC Bray.