Just for context i listened to the audio book of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and I loved it. It is one of the best books I have ever listened to.
I understand a lot of people hate the book because they thought it was flat, dull etc. And I respect your opinion even though I personally do not agree.
For my personal taste I loved the problem solving, the heavy science theme, the exploration and I just love a fun story.
My question is, if you didnt like this book, what would you suggest I read/ listen to instead?
by Beneficial_Big_4724
4 Comments
I think Becky Chambers does a great job with her science fiction. The Wayfarers series is wonderful.
Maybe Jeff Vandermeer (Annihilation).
The Hyperion series is great.
Also to be clear…My problem with Project Hail Mary wasn’t the science fiction or it feeling flat, it’s that I don’t think Andy Weir is very good at writing characters – especially protagonists. His main characters always feel like the most annoying software engineers I’ve had to work with.
If you like that, try some John Scalzi – I have similar feelings about his writing.
If you’re looking for sci-fi with problem solving, hard science and exploration, it’s hard to beat The Expanse.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t dislike Project Hail Mary because I thought it was flat or dull; the plot was pretty much the only thing I got any enjoyment out of. I disliked that novel because I thought it was bad on a technical level – the prose was bad, the dialogue was bad, the characters were poorly developed, and the attempts at humor fell very flat for me.
The Expanse has none of those flaws in my opinion. It’s not exactly a literary masterwork, but it is an extremely competent and enjoyable hard sci-fi series.
My issue was how quickly he learnt the language.
Just read Piranasi by Suzanne Chambers. Utterly recommend but not science fi really.
I thought PHM was ok, if not a little childish. I did however read it directly after The Martian, which I thought was fantastic.
They’re incredibly similar books, but it felt like The Martian didn’t try too hard to dumb things down for its audience which is what I disliked about PHM.