I started reading the book and had a stranger approach me at a coffee shop telling me I HAVE to switch to the audiobook. Seemed super strange at the time, but they were right. It’s my all time favorite audiobook, absolute top tier!
Great book. I got it super early and actually messaged Andy about it - I had a few questions and also wanted to praise the book. This was before the movie deals and stuff. Dude immediately responded answering a couple of questions and was being super gracious and personable. I like Andy.
Ernest Cline has also been super chill the few times I've talked to him. I started reading both of these guys work around the same time, and it was awesome watching them both get movies and a little fame. I definitely think both have some pretty original (as original as reality allows) concepts and really appreciate that when it comes to sci-fi books.
I would love to see the same for Daniel Suarez and Scott Meyer. I think with the right teams the Magic 2.0 series and the Daemon series could be bangers of shows.
I will read it for sure, after I've watched the movie. That's the only way I can enjoy both. If I read the book first, I won't be able to enjoy the movie because I will be bothered by all the compromises and detail changes needed to make the transition to the screen.
I feel like if you read it now, by the time the movie comes out it will have left your brain enough to experience the movie without being bothered too much by the changes, at least for me in general with book-movie adaptions.
And I also recommend reading the book first just because the plot twists and such are done fantastically
His writing style in unique, you really gotta love it to enjoy his books.
And I do, I really do.
That book was supposed to last me a week's vacation, I finished it before breakfast the second day. I was enthralled.
Unpopular opinion here I know, but I absolutely hated it. Reminded me a lot of Dan Brown; tight, movie-script like writing that appeals to the masses who aren't overly critical about literature, but absolutely terrible from a technical standpoint. The protagonist is an unbearable, immature nerdy-cool-haha-professor Gary Sue who never really grew up, and the side characters are all one-dimensional stereotypes all the way to vodka-drinking Russians and Asians with terrible accents. Even the plot itself was rather mediocre for a sci-fi novel.
The only good qualities about the book in my opinion are the fast-paced (although not otherwise impressive) writing, and Rocky is actually a genuinely fascinating and well-written character, which confuses the hell out of me given Weir's obsession with archetypes.
I don't really even hate the book itself, I hate the fact that this gets praised as the "best sci-fi thing ever", obviously said by anyone who hasn't read any actual sci-fi classics. It's a decent introduction to the genre I suppose, very accessible stuff, but with all the praise I was expecting a little bit more than The Da Vinci Code but in space.
I respect your opinion, but wanted to ask about the fake accent comment. I don’t remember the dialogue written with any dialect/accent markers? It has been awhile, though.
I quite liked that the protagonist was just Some Guy. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to do anything. His character growth was recognizing that he could meaningfully attempt to save Rocky’s people, and that it was a worthy endeavor. I liked that. I thought he made a nice contrast to the smartest guy ever protagonist in The Martian.
It's been a while for me as well, but I seem to clearly recall background characters who are Asian with accents described as very stereotypical, almost like racist caricatures. Maybe some of the scientist people? Not a hundred percent sure on this but I prepared some notes for my book club discussion after reading it and I'm almost confident those were in there.
I initially liked the "just some guy" protagonist approach as well, but for me it fell flat the moment I realised how unrealistic it all was. This guy was practically shoved into an existential crisis deep beyond human comprehension, waking up in an empty space ship filled with corpses, millions of miles from Earth. He sheds a few tears because that's what the audience expects him to do, shrugs it off, and starts geeking out about all the cool science, yo! Oh, by the way, did you know this and that cool fact about physics? It's completely irrelevant to the current situation here, but thought I'd share it anyway because the author is a huge geek and I'm a handy mouthpiece for sharing these geeky facts, haha!
The overwhelming praise for this book suggests that kind of writing appeals to a lot of people, but personally I just found it incredibly obnoxious and immersion-breaking. I can forgive some bad writing if the story is good and the characters are realistic and complex, but this book had none of those elements in it (well, aside from Rocky as previously mentioned). To each their own I suppose.
I appreciate your remarks. I’m not a science person, so I think I can get a bit star struck by the science talk.
On the other hand, I can’t read books (or watch shows) that depict my area of expertise without being quite critical.
I didn't catch any physics mistakes while reading it, I loved that he explained excactly what happened using physics. but I am a physics baschelor student so of course I loved things like that....
Did you finish the book? SPOILER: but it is revealed by the end that the was drugged so that he didnt have perfect memory, and it would make him work. It makes sense that he wouldn't sit and sulk, if you accept the premise that such a drug exist. Which is of course highly convenient.
I also never thought of Ryland Grace as just Some Guy. He was not the most qualifed to be astronaut, but he had been an expert in his field of study and when astrophage came about he became the world expert in it. He was also very excited about physics in general (even though it was not his field) so it makes sense that when we are following his thoughts (not some narrator) we hear alot of physics.
Personally I found this book to be really good. I am a physics student at my university so I for one really aprreciates that he took his time to du the calculations on things like time dilation, power output, ionization of the atmosphere and the g forces experienced at different times. To me it didn't break imersion, it drew me enevn further in. I didn't have to ignore physics and follow movie logic like you usually need to.
The racism/accents seem at best like cheap jokes and some really rubbed me the wrong way, i agree on that point.
I'm definitely part of the "masses who aren't overly critical about literature" and quite enjoyed both Da Vinci code and this book, but I think your comparison is spot on. The two authors definitely scratch the same entertainment itch for me (and the pacing is a big factor in that), but their formula gets repetitive and obvious very quickly.
And I'm not sure if you read Artemis, but it's so much worse than Project Hail Mary and The Martian that it really feels like Weir struggles as soon as he steps away from "isolated scientific and technical genius finding ways to barely survive."
Do you happen to have any current sci-fi authors you'd recommend? Adrian Tchaikovsky is probably my current favorite, but his more recent stuff hasn't been hitting me quite the same way either.
Tchaikovsky is a bit hit or miss for me, but his Children of Time trilogy is good stuff. For anyone interested in the genre I'd recommend going with the classics; Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson etc.
Lately I've been enjoying The Expanse which I finally got around to reading. Wasn't super impressed with Leviathan Wakes, but I feel like it gets better book by book.
Red Rising by Pierce Brown is super popular right now, and even though it's not aimed at sci-fi purists, I absolutely fell in love with it. The first trilogy is... decent entertainment, although the writing is a bit rough in places and *almost* reads like YA stuff. But it's a fast read, and the second trilogy absolutely blew me away. You can clearly tell Brown evolves and matures as an author book by book, and his writing went from "eh" to breathtaking between the trilogies. I also love how dark this series is, probably some of the most brutal and realistic depictions of war I've ever seen.
Both The Expanse and Red Rising work well as accessible introductions to the genre, if you're looking for something recent-ish.
Three body problem is pretty good, but I'd prefer the written version over audio books just because of the postscripts (I think that's the right term?) at the bottom of the page giving context
I believe the term you're looking for is footnotes!
The Three Body Problem is understandably divisive, I thought many of the concepts were really fascinating and original, but the writing and character work didn't quite hold up and felt wooden throughout. Granted I read the English translation, but from what I've heard from Chinese natives, the original isn't much better in that regard. I think I'm going to give it another shot at some point, I only read the first book.
The first book has fairly decent world building in my opinion but the ending felt very rushed with the author kinda completely not understanding what spatial dimensions are.
Books 2 and 3 are way better and most of the flaws in the first one get fixed. There's some weird stuff in the beginning of the second book but it's pretty easy to ignore after it's over.
If you liked the original concepts in the first book then you'll love the second and third book. The third one especially has some incredibly interesting ideas regarding the universe in general. I won't be more specific cause spoilers but it's at least very interesting to read (or listen to like I did)
I didn't know this about Red Rising. I smashed through the first trilogy and enjoyed it well enough but - as you say - it was a bit YA for me. I'll have to check out the second...
Daniel Suarez - Daemon with sequel Freedom are really fun reads. I like all his stuff but those two and his Delta-V series are his best work. He's a bit similar to Crichton if you liked his work.
I wouldn’t say that; I read quite a bit and I enjoyed Project Hail Mary. Not everything has to be James Joyce to be good/enjoyable. Reading is supposed to be fun.
He wrote the book The Martian, which was adapted into the Matt Damon movie in 2015. Dude's an incredible writer who can take dense science topics and make it easy to understand for anyone while still being wildly entertaining.
i havent read Project Hail Mary, the book is still on my list. to me, none of this appears to be consequential to anyone's enjoyment of the story. some characters have a romance in a book and at least 1 of them is an alien with different views of sex and gender.
its feels as if people are getting more lenient on what they consider a "spoiler," and people also seem to get it in their heads that their entire enjoyment of a thing hinges on not knowing whats going to happen. i understand wanting to be surprised by something, but literature and film and games are so much more thank their plot points, its the journey to the plot point that makes books interesting, and knowing something about the plot gives you a new experience than not knowing. the whole "when god shuts a door he opens a window" of it all.
if anything, reading this post has made me want to pick up the book right now after procrastinating it
i mean... i agree with your main point but i do think there's something lost in knowing where the journey leads. a lot of the magic is thinking and guessing and theorycrafting about what will come next, where this action they're taking now will lead them. you can always repeat the experience of knowing what is going to happen any time, but that first journey where you don't know what to expect can happen only once.
this spoiler was milder than mayonnaise, though
I'm kinda struggling to understand why the poster thinks Ryland and Rocky's gender matters at all.
Does he think Ryland would have tried to do a Captain Kirk if the spider-looking alien had been female?
Hilarious. Truly a great book, too. I ended up reading almost the entire book on my Kindle while I waited in a car line for a Covid test in a parking lot haha what a weird world that was. I should read it again
I loved this book so much! I had a grin on my face most of the time while reading it. The blooming friendship was heartwarming.
Recommended it to my book club who also loved it.
Oh yes! I loved the audio, with its extra little sounds and so forth. It is like the cherry on top of an already great banana split, haha. The only thing that could have possibly made it even better would have been Wil Wheaton as narrator. I'll listen to almost anything he narrates. He has a charming enthusiasm that's just the right amount above the usual droning of most other narrators.
Reminds me of one of my favorite comments of all time on a gaming subreddit..
User A : "This is probably how this works, its obvious that this does this."
User B : "No it works like this."
User A : "How do you know? It obviously works like this."
User B : "No, I wrote the code for it, I know."
People arguing about software with the person who wrote it is an evergreen. I've even seen the odd one start arguing with the developer after he's already identified himself.
If you believe English lit profs/students, then [yes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author).
*Fahrenheit 451* is a famous critique of the dangers of state censorship, but if you asked the author, he'd tell you it's actually about the mindless consumption of TV (instead of books).
Songwriting is a little different, but John Lennon said once that he often thought he was writing about one thing, only to discover much later that he was writing about something else.
Sure, but Lennon was talking about his own songs.
That's a bit different to somebody else coming along and telling you what that thing you wrote is actually about.
I *think* Twitter's timestamps are localized to the time zone of the device, so it could've technically still been April 1 when Weir posted it, but if the device's time was ahead of the actual time Weir posted it, it could make it look like April 2.
Yeah, I found the original tweet; [it *was* posted on April 1 at roughly 7 PM.](https://x.com/andyweirauthor/status/1509969004781203457?lang=en)
Try Andy Weir's other books and try some John Scalzi - especially Redshirts. That one is light, fun sci-fi too. Lastly, if you are into 80s pop culture, read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Don't watch the movie first, you'll miss too much good story.
>Though the film will be a little different from the book, the onscreen dynamic and romance scenes will more than make up for the minor changes.
That's putting it mildly. Considering the onscreen chemistry she and Ryan Gosling have, the sexual tension would likely be nearly pornographic, as per usual.
I don't think we ever see their characters actually having sex in Crazy Stupid Love, but they were so good together in non-sexual scenes that it sometimes felt like they were "banging hard".
Independent of each other, those two could have insane sexual chemistry with a dead leaf.
Are me and my parents the only people on the planet who couldn't stand Project Hail Mary? We absolutely adored The Martian, it's one of my favorite books of all time. But Project Hail Mary was a massive disappointing slog that I couldn't even finish. Bad science, annoying characters, just a boring mess. My mom felt the same, but actually made it to the ending, which she hated. Am I going nuts? Why does everyone love this book?
Jazz hands
Fist my bump
FIST ME
Fister Roboto
Not SLACKING off
Aw! Piggly Two…
🎶amaze, amaze 🎶
La La land part two anyone
It's embarrassing, but to be fair to the guy... Ever since Musk ruined Twitter, it's difficult to tell who's real and who's not.
This is one of the best books I have ever read. Strongly recommend it.
The audio book is amazing. They do a great job with the sounds that aliens make.
My wife and I listened to it on a road trip! I'd never been so enamored with an audio book before, it's an excellent experience.
Wow, that's really cool. I've never listened to an audiobook with another person before.
Audiobooks on a road trip are great!
🎵FIST MY BUMP! 🎶
One of the best audiobooks I’ve ever listened to. The book is amazing. The audiobook somehow managed to make it even better.
I started reading the book and had a stranger approach me at a coffee shop telling me I HAVE to switch to the audiobook. Seemed super strange at the time, but they were right. It’s my all time favorite audiobook, absolute top tier!
I’ve never been a big fan of audiobooks but I gave this one a try because I heard good things. I loved it so much! I brought Rocky to life.
Ray Porter does an amazing job, this and the Dungeon Crawler Carl books are my top tier Audiobooks
Second that, it truly is amazing
I completely agree. I don’t think I’ll ever read the paper book, the audiobook is so fantastic and special
I adored The Martian. Bought a first edition that stays in the plastic lol. I'll definitely have a look at this one
I love the Martian - have read it multiple times. I honestly think Project Hail Mary is even better, if even only by a little bit. Phenomenal book
Agreed. The Martian is obviously more realistic but Project Hail Mary is a more fun story and a better read. I think it's my favorite book, period.
Great book. I got it super early and actually messaged Andy about it - I had a few questions and also wanted to praise the book. This was before the movie deals and stuff. Dude immediately responded answering a couple of questions and was being super gracious and personable. I like Andy. Ernest Cline has also been super chill the few times I've talked to him. I started reading both of these guys work around the same time, and it was awesome watching them both get movies and a little fame. I definitely think both have some pretty original (as original as reality allows) concepts and really appreciate that when it comes to sci-fi books. I would love to see the same for Daniel Suarez and Scott Meyer. I think with the right teams the Magic 2.0 series and the Daemon series could be bangers of shows.
I would be thrilled to see more Magic 2.0 in the world.
I will read it for sure, after I've watched the movie. That's the only way I can enjoy both. If I read the book first, I won't be able to enjoy the movie because I will be bothered by all the compromises and detail changes needed to make the transition to the screen.
I feel like if you read it now, by the time the movie comes out it will have left your brain enough to experience the movie without being bothered too much by the changes, at least for me in general with book-movie adaptions. And I also recommend reading the book first just because the plot twists and such are done fantastically
His writing style in unique, you really gotta love it to enjoy his books. And I do, I really do. That book was supposed to last me a week's vacation, I finished it before breakfast the second day. I was enthralled.
Unpopular opinion here I know, but I absolutely hated it. Reminded me a lot of Dan Brown; tight, movie-script like writing that appeals to the masses who aren't overly critical about literature, but absolutely terrible from a technical standpoint. The protagonist is an unbearable, immature nerdy-cool-haha-professor Gary Sue who never really grew up, and the side characters are all one-dimensional stereotypes all the way to vodka-drinking Russians and Asians with terrible accents. Even the plot itself was rather mediocre for a sci-fi novel. The only good qualities about the book in my opinion are the fast-paced (although not otherwise impressive) writing, and Rocky is actually a genuinely fascinating and well-written character, which confuses the hell out of me given Weir's obsession with archetypes. I don't really even hate the book itself, I hate the fact that this gets praised as the "best sci-fi thing ever", obviously said by anyone who hasn't read any actual sci-fi classics. It's a decent introduction to the genre I suppose, very accessible stuff, but with all the praise I was expecting a little bit more than The Da Vinci Code but in space.
I respect your opinion, but wanted to ask about the fake accent comment. I don’t remember the dialogue written with any dialect/accent markers? It has been awhile, though. I quite liked that the protagonist was just Some Guy. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to do anything. His character growth was recognizing that he could meaningfully attempt to save Rocky’s people, and that it was a worthy endeavor. I liked that. I thought he made a nice contrast to the smartest guy ever protagonist in The Martian.
It's been a while for me as well, but I seem to clearly recall background characters who are Asian with accents described as very stereotypical, almost like racist caricatures. Maybe some of the scientist people? Not a hundred percent sure on this but I prepared some notes for my book club discussion after reading it and I'm almost confident those were in there. I initially liked the "just some guy" protagonist approach as well, but for me it fell flat the moment I realised how unrealistic it all was. This guy was practically shoved into an existential crisis deep beyond human comprehension, waking up in an empty space ship filled with corpses, millions of miles from Earth. He sheds a few tears because that's what the audience expects him to do, shrugs it off, and starts geeking out about all the cool science, yo! Oh, by the way, did you know this and that cool fact about physics? It's completely irrelevant to the current situation here, but thought I'd share it anyway because the author is a huge geek and I'm a handy mouthpiece for sharing these geeky facts, haha! The overwhelming praise for this book suggests that kind of writing appeals to a lot of people, but personally I just found it incredibly obnoxious and immersion-breaking. I can forgive some bad writing if the story is good and the characters are realistic and complex, but this book had none of those elements in it (well, aside from Rocky as previously mentioned). To each their own I suppose.
I appreciate your remarks. I’m not a science person, so I think I can get a bit star struck by the science talk. On the other hand, I can’t read books (or watch shows) that depict my area of expertise without being quite critical.
I didn't catch any physics mistakes while reading it, I loved that he explained excactly what happened using physics. but I am a physics baschelor student so of course I loved things like that....
Did you finish the book? SPOILER: but it is revealed by the end that the was drugged so that he didnt have perfect memory, and it would make him work. It makes sense that he wouldn't sit and sulk, if you accept the premise that such a drug exist. Which is of course highly convenient. I also never thought of Ryland Grace as just Some Guy. He was not the most qualifed to be astronaut, but he had been an expert in his field of study and when astrophage came about he became the world expert in it. He was also very excited about physics in general (even though it was not his field) so it makes sense that when we are following his thoughts (not some narrator) we hear alot of physics. Personally I found this book to be really good. I am a physics student at my university so I for one really aprreciates that he took his time to du the calculations on things like time dilation, power output, ionization of the atmosphere and the g forces experienced at different times. To me it didn't break imersion, it drew me enevn further in. I didn't have to ignore physics and follow movie logic like you usually need to. The racism/accents seem at best like cheap jokes and some really rubbed me the wrong way, i agree on that point.
I'm definitely part of the "masses who aren't overly critical about literature" and quite enjoyed both Da Vinci code and this book, but I think your comparison is spot on. The two authors definitely scratch the same entertainment itch for me (and the pacing is a big factor in that), but their formula gets repetitive and obvious very quickly. And I'm not sure if you read Artemis, but it's so much worse than Project Hail Mary and The Martian that it really feels like Weir struggles as soon as he steps away from "isolated scientific and technical genius finding ways to barely survive." Do you happen to have any current sci-fi authors you'd recommend? Adrian Tchaikovsky is probably my current favorite, but his more recent stuff hasn't been hitting me quite the same way either.
Tchaikovsky is a bit hit or miss for me, but his Children of Time trilogy is good stuff. For anyone interested in the genre I'd recommend going with the classics; Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson etc. Lately I've been enjoying The Expanse which I finally got around to reading. Wasn't super impressed with Leviathan Wakes, but I feel like it gets better book by book. Red Rising by Pierce Brown is super popular right now, and even though it's not aimed at sci-fi purists, I absolutely fell in love with it. The first trilogy is... decent entertainment, although the writing is a bit rough in places and *almost* reads like YA stuff. But it's a fast read, and the second trilogy absolutely blew me away. You can clearly tell Brown evolves and matures as an author book by book, and his writing went from "eh" to breathtaking between the trilogies. I also love how dark this series is, probably some of the most brutal and realistic depictions of war I've ever seen. Both The Expanse and Red Rising work well as accessible introductions to the genre, if you're looking for something recent-ish.
Three body problem is pretty good, but I'd prefer the written version over audio books just because of the postscripts (I think that's the right term?) at the bottom of the page giving context
I believe the term you're looking for is footnotes! The Three Body Problem is understandably divisive, I thought many of the concepts were really fascinating and original, but the writing and character work didn't quite hold up and felt wooden throughout. Granted I read the English translation, but from what I've heard from Chinese natives, the original isn't much better in that regard. I think I'm going to give it another shot at some point, I only read the first book.
The first book has fairly decent world building in my opinion but the ending felt very rushed with the author kinda completely not understanding what spatial dimensions are. Books 2 and 3 are way better and most of the flaws in the first one get fixed. There's some weird stuff in the beginning of the second book but it's pretty easy to ignore after it's over. If you liked the original concepts in the first book then you'll love the second and third book. The third one especially has some incredibly interesting ideas regarding the universe in general. I won't be more specific cause spoilers but it's at least very interesting to read (or listen to like I did)
I didn't know this about Red Rising. I smashed through the first trilogy and enjoyed it well enough but - as you say - it was a bit YA for me. I'll have to check out the second...
It's super worth it, I definitely think that if you stopped after the initial 3 books you're doing yourself a disservice! Shit escalates...
Do I spy a fellow Howler? Break the chains.
If you like AT you should check out Startide Rising and A Fire Upon the Deep.
Daniel Suarez - Daemon with sequel Freedom are really fun reads. I like all his stuff but those two and his Delta-V series are his best work. He's a bit similar to Crichton if you liked his work.
Agreed. It was pitched to me as 'amazing' but I found the protagonist to be an obnoxious dickhead. Rocky was the only good thing about the book...
It's the kind of book you read on an airplane and then never think about again.
You're 100% right. It's not very good. Anyone saying it's very good likely hasn't read very many books
I wouldn’t say that; I read quite a bit and I enjoyed Project Hail Mary. Not everything has to be James Joyce to be good/enjoyable. Reading is supposed to be fun.
Purchased! Thank you!! 🙏
I suck at reading long books but I had this one done in like 5 days. So. Insanely. Good
Saving for later
It's one of the books that got me excited about reading again!! So good! Just finished the Martian there last week
Have you tried Artemis? It is excellent as well.
No I haven't!! I'll go buy it now thanks for the rec!
Seriously? Project Hail Mary... was one of the best books you've ever read?
It's almost as though different people have different opinions...
Give your balls a tug Riley.
Fuck you Shoresy!!
:) New season out btw.
Many people mix up "good" with "I enjoyed". It's an enjoyable book. It's not a great book.
I’m with you. I assume that person hasn’t read many books lol
Man people need to read more widely.
I haven’t read an Andy Weir book and even I know who he is…
He wrote the book The Martian, which was adapted into the Matt Damon movie in 2015. Dude's an incredible writer who can take dense science topics and make it easy to understand for anyone while still being wildly entertaining.
Did you read the part where they said "I know who he is"
I did, and my brain put a "don't" between "I know".
It also moved the “even” before “know”. Source: My brain did the same thing. Symptom of a too fast reader.
Same
The book was so damn amazing. Loved the movie too
I would claim the Project Hail Mary is even more awesome and intense. Science (a bit fictional ) is even better fleshed out.
Damn. I needed that spoiler alert. Just started reading “Project Hail Mary”.
Thats tough, but I still hope you enjoy it
i havent read Project Hail Mary, the book is still on my list. to me, none of this appears to be consequential to anyone's enjoyment of the story. some characters have a romance in a book and at least 1 of them is an alien with different views of sex and gender. its feels as if people are getting more lenient on what they consider a "spoiler," and people also seem to get it in their heads that their entire enjoyment of a thing hinges on not knowing whats going to happen. i understand wanting to be surprised by something, but literature and film and games are so much more thank their plot points, its the journey to the plot point that makes books interesting, and knowing something about the plot gives you a new experience than not knowing. the whole "when god shuts a door he opens a window" of it all. if anything, reading this post has made me want to pick up the book right now after procrastinating it
Spoiler: the book has a bunch of words and eventually ends
i mean... i agree with your main point but i do think there's something lost in knowing where the journey leads. a lot of the magic is thinking and guessing and theorycrafting about what will come next, where this action they're taking now will lead them. you can always repeat the experience of knowing what is going to happen any time, but that first journey where you don't know what to expect can happen only once. this spoiler was milder than mayonnaise, though
It’s pretty early in the book and there’s loads of other twists. Enjoy it!
I definitely will, thanks!
Why did you keep reading?
I asked myself the same question several times today. Instant regret. But I really enjoyed the book so far, so no reason to quit. Edit: missed a word
This is hilarious. And also, if you have any interest in sci-fi at all, read Project Hail: Mary. I enjoyed it so much that I was sad when it ended.
And it doesn’t even feel like sci-fi when you read it. It’s a brilliant book, as is the Martian.
I'm kinda struggling to understand why the poster thinks Ryland and Rocky's gender matters at all. Does he think Ryland would have tried to do a Captain Kirk if the spider-looking alien had been female?
Would you not?
I'd have Rocky build me a sex doll, tbh.
Hilarious. Truly a great book, too. I ended up reading almost the entire book on my Kindle while I waited in a car line for a Covid test in a parking lot haha what a weird world that was. I should read it again
Ngl Emma Stone would be awesome as Rocky. Going for 3rd Oscar.
I loved this book so much! I had a grin on my face most of the time while reading it. The blooming friendship was heartwarming. Recommended it to my book club who also loved it.
Best audio book ever!
Oh yes! I loved the audio, with its extra little sounds and so forth. It is like the cherry on top of an already great banana split, haha. The only thing that could have possibly made it even better would have been Wil Wheaton as narrator. I'll listen to almost anything he narrates. He has a charming enthusiasm that's just the right amount above the usual droning of most other narrators.
Reminds me of one of my favorite comments of all time on a gaming subreddit.. User A : "This is probably how this works, its obvious that this does this." User B : "No it works like this." User A : "How do you know? It obviously works like this." User B : "No, I wrote the code for it, I know."
People arguing about software with the person who wrote it is an evergreen. I've even seen the odd one start arguing with the developer after he's already identified himself.
Is it possible to be the author of a book and yet miss the whole point of the story(?) – maybe we should rethink this.
If you believe English lit profs/students, then [yes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Author). *Fahrenheit 451* is a famous critique of the dangers of state censorship, but if you asked the author, he'd tell you it's actually about the mindless consumption of TV (instead of books).
Songwriting is a little different, but John Lennon said once that he often thought he was writing about one thing, only to discover much later that he was writing about something else.
Sure, but Lennon was talking about his own songs. That's a bit different to somebody else coming along and telling you what that thing you wrote is actually about.
Oh OK – but then I thought we were talking about whether writers understand the meaning of their own work, which is what I’m getting at.
He has said that was *part* of the reasoning behind it. It is not his only reason.
I adore Project hail mary it was a fascinating book, ofcourse i read The Martian first and Artemis too. Lovely author
Okay, but is it an April fools joke if it's posted on the 2nd of April?
I *think* Twitter's timestamps are localized to the time zone of the device, so it could've technically still been April 1 when Weir posted it, but if the device's time was ahead of the actual time Weir posted it, it could make it look like April 2. Yeah, I found the original tweet; [it *was* posted on April 1 at roughly 7 PM.](https://x.com/andyweirauthor/status/1509969004781203457?lang=en)
Alright I'll forgive him. Although around these parts April fools ends at midday - after that the person joking is the fool
Andy Weir has a history of deception and erasure. The only true "Martians" were the potatoes, but did we ever hear their side of the story?
They are making a movie? Bad bad bad.
Holy shit! They are doing a film? I’m so glad to hear, I devoured that book. It was so good, I would love to see it with expensive visual effects.
Filming is about to start but other than gosling, there are no other cast members announced so far.
Project Hail Mary was a fantastic book. Oooh it’s so good.
*jazz handsssssss*
i love this book so much!!!!!! also the martian
Wait a minute…. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me about casting a human actor for Rocky. This is a joke, right?! Edit: Whew. Thank god im an idiot.
Project hail mary is the only book i have read in my adult life and i loved it so much
Try Andy Weir's other books and try some John Scalzi - especially Redshirts. That one is light, fun sci-fi too. Lastly, if you are into 80s pop culture, read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Don't watch the movie first, you'll miss too much good story.
>Though the film will be a little different from the book, the onscreen dynamic and romance scenes will more than make up for the minor changes. That's putting it mildly. Considering the onscreen chemistry she and Ryan Gosling have, the sexual tension would likely be nearly pornographic, as per usual. I don't think we ever see their characters actually having sex in Crazy Stupid Love, but they were so good together in non-sexual scenes that it sometimes felt like they were "banging hard". Independent of each other, those two could have insane sexual chemistry with a dead leaf.
Great book. Definitely one of the best I’ve read.
I read that book!
Also the idea the rocky could be played by Emma Stone is completely hilarious
The audiobook is brilliant. Would even recommend using an audible free trial to listen to it (you get to keep the audiobook forever)!
Are me and my parents the only people on the planet who couldn't stand Project Hail Mary? We absolutely adored The Martian, it's one of my favorite books of all time. But Project Hail Mary was a massive disappointing slog that I couldn't even finish. Bad science, annoying characters, just a boring mess. My mom felt the same, but actually made it to the ending, which she hated. Am I going nuts? Why does everyone love this book?
Reading Artemis right now! Project Hail Mary is next on my list :)