I have slogged through 285 pages of this cringefest but the conversation between the two scientists regarding their sex life is the nail in the coffin for me.
Truly amazed by how often this book is recommended.
For those who have completed it – is there some crazy twist at the end that means I should keep reading it?
Or does he simply grumble some more – save the world – everything works out fine – maybe Rocky dies a hero’s death.
by just-tea-thank-you
18 Comments
It’s worth finishing.
I listened to the audiobook and it very enjoyable. I’m not sure I would have had the same experience in book form.
I did find it a shade cringe, same as writing from the Martian.
Don’t know what to tell you. It’s pretty classic sci-fi. An interesting hypothetical problem with a good coherent problem space, a sense of wonder at space exploration, touching on the ethics of a plausible real world type of emergency situation. It even has the bonus that a lot of harder sci-fi doesn’t spend as much work to do well of having a character with an interesting path and put in interesting places emotionally.
You’ve made it further than I did. I couldn’t stand the main character’s personality. I loved The Martian, but I was too annoyed to continue this one.
I loved the Martian, I didn’t like this book at all, was a DNF for me.
I am not a science fiction reader but I pushed myself to read this one. I thought it was a lot of science and space garble and at times I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep going. I’m ultimately glad I did. It was a three star read for me, but a lot of people told me the audio book was the way to go and I can see how that could have changed the experience. For what it’s worth, I do think it will make a great movie.
This isn’t a thriller where a twist could reframe your thoughts on it. This is a sci-fi book about a man and his pal fixing problems in space. Most people who raved about it are either loving the man, the pal, the fixing things in space, or all of those things in some combination. If none of those appeal to you 285 pages in I don’t think this book is for you and that’s okay.
If you don’t like it at 285, you’re not going to like the ending much more. At that point I’d personally probably finish it out of pure stubbornness, but most people who like this book very much liked it from early on.
For what it’s worth, I found it interesting but also annoying, so it ended up being an okay book overall. And I didn’t like the ending at all.
The first half is best in my opinion, loved the whole thing though
If you don’t like it, don’t torture yourself 😅
Funny how divisive this book is. As a science nerd, I love it. Also the light hearted humorous aspects, and overall positivity, in stark contrast to a lot of scifi out there.
Then sure, there are some overly Hollywood parts in there, but I don’t mind that much.
The plot and the alien character are interesting.
The “science” is somewhat clever in a “this isnt real but could be” kind of way.
The writing is juvenile and plot holes huge.
I too dont know why it is so popular.
We definitely should not tell them how it ends.
If you don’t like the writing it’s not worth finishing tbh. I loved it but it’s not for everyone and the vibe/writing doesn’t change later on so
I haven’t read Project Hal Mary yet, but had this problem with Artemis. In that one, the writing just did not work for me at all. I heard this one was really good, so planning to read it soon. Good to know this going in though.
Seems we have different definition/tolerance of cringe, but to be fair, to volunteer on a one way mission with 100% expectation you are going to die, you aren’t exactly “normal”, and thus should be expected to act abnormally, I just find them going full blunt about their sex life quite hillarious.
I had your same feeling.
I finished it, but I can tell you: if you are feeling like that 250 pgs in, it’s not worth your time.
A lot of things happen, but nothing that changes the style it’s written in.
Sounds like it’s just not for you and that’s ok. That’s the twist.
I’d DNF if I were you. Sounds like you don’t like it. I think by the time I was getting frustrated I was almost done. I agree the sex talk scene is absolutely fucking bizarre. And when the book is already decently long you’re wondering why some of this stuff wasn’t cut. I felt the book became pretty repetitive by the end and the poorly written internal monologue did not help. It’s become clear to me that the most popular sci fi and fantasy books that get recommended (especially on reddit) are often pretty poor in terms of prose.