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jodean's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Vomit, Death, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, Excrement, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Medical content, and Grief
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Suicide attempt, Animal death, Alcohol, Body horror, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, War, Sexual content, and Gun violence
acopytopy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Minor: Suicide attempt
bomenvernietiger's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
There's a really interesting and well thought out plot, but it's massively dampened by the many little mistakes and plot-holes, prose that sounds like it came from a drunk text message, an overly light-hearted and casual tone that doesn't fit the story, a boring main character, events that are often way too plot-convenient, annoying humour, cheesy dialogue, and Andy Weir's stubborn unwillingness to explain or do research into anything that doesn't adhere to his highly specific personal interests. This last flaw is clear from his refusal to get into any substantial world politics even though a third of his book is supposed to be about international cooperation, and his _extremely_ half-assed attempt to conceptualise a pitch&harmony-based alien language, which contained mistakes which could only be possible if Weir did not consult a single semi-professional musician or musicologist before publishing.
This could have been an amazing hard scifi that teaches people about physics and astronomy, but it's written in such a way that the science never really matters; whenever there's a plot issue Weir's science can't solve, it's either glossed over or splattered with plot convenience sauce (aka 'xenonite'). It could have also been a nice, silly, emotionally deep, feel-good soft scifi, but the characters and the prose are way too dull for that, and anything heartfelt about the book is drowned in constant scientific explanations. Both of these ideas would have been great stories, but they were smashed together and the result is a mess.
This is extra sad considering Andy Weir can write something as good as The Martian. But looking back, the Martian already contained the cracks in Weir's storytelling which became full-on rifts
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Medical trauma, Alcohol, Blood, Cursing, Death, War, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Violence
Minor: Cancer, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Pedophilia
alrauna's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
- Ryland thinking of his kids and being a cool teacher (if I had a teacher like him I would probably understand the science speak he uses lmao)
-Rocky, I would die for him
-"You are friend"
-"Amaze Amaze Amaze"
-Ryland and Rocky saving each other
-the two scientist starting to bone, I can't explain but it made me laugh so much
-the guy who had to tell the army to nuke the North (South?) pole and broke down from the choice he had to make, I will stop using plastic for you, Mr. French climatologist
- Rocky naming the planet after his partner
-the aliens watching each other sleep to protect each other in this vulnerable state and Ryland missing it when he is gone
-the audiobook is really good and added to my enjoyment and my feeling of things
- *sniffs* humanity
Graphic: Death, Confinement, and Medical content
Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Alcohol, Cannibalism, Cancer, Vomit, Drug use, and War
prakriti_archit's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Medical content, Blood, and Cursing
Moderate: Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts
evanmcomer's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Moderate: Death, Excrement, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt
ceilidhwilliams's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
- he doesnt rememeber anything at all, yet he has strong opinions on colloquisism right from the start?
- Weirs writing seems to be regressing with every book he writes, what started as a non-chalant, more natural style has progressed into cringy and juvenile, once you take away the science jargon from the work, whats left reads like it was writed by a 13yr old for a creative writing assignment, which is such a shame because the ideas of this book are brilliant
- Just because hes a teacher doesnt mean he wouldnt swear
- He calls the astrophages an invasive species, when theres no indication at that point that they are, he and everyone else has no idea where they came from, if they evolved on the sun or venus or any other planet in the solar system they wouldnt be invasive, the solar system would be their native habitat
- Weir has clearly done a lot of research for this book but it seems he skipped over some very basic biology
- Astrophages are single-celled so they cant be warm bloodied, you could describe them as Homeothermic, but no single-celled organism is able to do thermoregulation, obviously this is an alien so maybe it could but it still wouldn't be described as warm-blooded
- “People always assumed our first contact with alien life would be little green men in UFOs. We never considered the idea of a simple, unintelligent species” - only hollywood thinks aliens are little green men. No scientist worth any merit does, numerous agenies including NASA have been searching for single celled life on mars for years
- How the hell is he the only person in the entire world who thinking water isnt essential for life?? Astrobiologist have been saying our concept of life in regards to searching for alien life, is too narrow for years. From the BBC ScienceFocus: “some scientists suspect alien life may have evolved to exploit alternative chemicals like hydrocarbons capable of performing the same roles [as water].”
- 96.415*C “For anything living on earth it would be deadly” he has a doctorate in biology, yet is unaware of the existence of extremophiles? A thermophile is an organism—a type of extremophile—that thrives at relatively high temperatures, between 41 and 122 °C - Thermophiles are found in various geothermally heated regions of the Earth, such as hot springs like those in Yellowstone National Park and deep sea hydrothermal vents. A 30 second google search shows hes wrong.
- “Theres just no way it can infect humans. Besides its been a couple of days and im not dead.” Again hes a biologist yet has no understanding of incubation periods? Just because it hasnt been around humans before doesnt mean it cant infect/harm us, pathogens evolve constantly. Most of the pandemics and epidemics that happen are the result of diseases that previously were only seen in animals evolving to be able to infect humans - bird flu, swine flu anyone? The Stratt ends up having a better understanding of incubation periods than a man with a doctorate in microbiology
- Very convenient that his amnesic brain is able to pick precise memories to recall just as theyre needed. Hes able to force himself to remember things, how?
- It gets a LOT better around the 30% mark, Weir is taking a much deeper drive into speculative science fiction than he did in his previous two books
- How can come rocky needs the clock pushed up to the wall to be able to hear the ticking but he can hear Roland move his finger in the air?
- How is rocky able to determine that ryland breathes oxygen, yes he tested the atmosphere but that would have only been 21% oxygen so why would he assume that was the vital element, why doesnt he think humans breath nitrogen?
- Who is stratt and why was she appointed the head of the project when she has no knowledge of even basic science and is extremely undiplomatic
- “I dont like little dictators in their little kingdoms” does stratt understand irony?
- On page 236 ryland complains about there being no way to clean his clothes and he has to soak them in water, but earlier it shown the robot/computer doing the laundry...
- Why is the microbiologist teaching the physicist how space radiation works?
- Just because the vast majority of scientists are men doesnt mean you should exclude all women and homosexual men as possible candidates its extremely sexist and homophobic. Stratt says its to stop sexual tension but theres no issue of that in current space missions so why does it matter now. But at least ryland calls her out on it but why include it in the book at all?
Graphic: Death and Suicide attempt
Minor: Cannibalism, Drug use, Grief, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, and Homophobia