This is a book that gets a ton of hype on Reddit so I decided to check it out. I’ve never read The Martian by I did watch the movie and enjoyed it.
So PHM definitely has a neat premise (even though fundamentally it’s pretty similar to The Martian) and throughout the book, some of the ideas and concepts explored are definitely pretty interesting. Clearly Andy Weir has done a lot of research.
But my god…he is a downright atrocious writer from a technical level. I can’t remember the last time I saw prose this damn awful in a high-profile bestseller. Maybe in a Dan Brown book? PHM reads like a high-school redditor wrote it, with the terrible prose, juvenile dialogue and cringey attempts at humour. There’s zero character development to speak of, and the protagonist is annoying, unlikable and not the least bit interesting.
There’s like zero skill and artistry in this book, just a bunch of contrived science problems. Admittedly, some of those are interesting but not enough to overcome the terrible writing.
by thebiggesthater420