Some people have this weird belief that they have to finish a book even if they don't like it. Simply because they started it. I don't believe that. I usually stop reading after becoming certain that this is not a good book.
But I made an exception recently, with the book "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir. And the reason for this was that I love his first book, "The Martian". To give credit where credit's due, it did improve near the end, although it was too late.
I've learned about it from![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dastapov, who gave it five stars out of five. My own rating is two stars — not a terrible book, but a somewhat unpleasant experience.
Let me briefly discuss the problems I see with "PHM", and compare it (unfavorably) to "The Martian".
1) Stakes
Stakes are much higher in "PHM", which, on a surface, seems like a good thing. In reality, however, it's not. Stakes are high, but they are also impersonal. Saving the world is not as engaging as saving one human being. Mark Watney was trying to save himself — and later the whole Earth joined in. Dr. Grace in "PHM" tries to save the world, while accepting that he himself is not going to make it. It's specifically mentioned that he has no family, no loved ones; the only more or less personal connection he has to the world is his students — he works as a school teacher — and even they aren't really developed. Watney's story in "The Martian" was a desperate fight; Grace's story in "PHM" is a dry report.
2) Suspension of disbelief
Both "PHM" and "The Martian" present themselves as hard sci-fi. But in "The Martian" the only thing that disagreed with the real world was, basically, money. Pretty much everything was possible in the real world, if only NASA had much more money than they actually do.
I'm not saying that hard sci-fi should be like that; it's perfectly fine to invent something that doesn't — and probably can't — really exist. But "PHM" has loads of things like that. There is Astrophage — which drives the plot, and is, therefore, fine. There is the solution to Astrophage problem, discovered at the end — OK, well, it is in the same ballpark, so, I'll let it slide. But there is also xenonite, which is something impossible that isn't related to Astrophage at all. There is all the stuff surrounding Eridan. There is a long sleep, and also the rare genes that make it possible. There are just too many things that we are supposed to just accept. Neither of those things is breaking the suspension of disbelief, but, bit by bit, they erode it. And then there are some assumptions that I found impossible to accept. I mean, I can believe (with effort) that the fate of the whole world would depend on Roskosmos not messing up; but I can't believe, no matter how much I try, that in the end it would work out fine.
Another weird side-effect is that "science-ing it out" doesn't really work, since there are too many deviations from the reality. In "The Martian" that was the crux of the story; here it feels forced.
3) Flashbacks
Flashbacks are certainly a useful storytelling device, but in "PHM" it's overused to a ridiculous degree. What's more, they actually hurt the story. We are introduced to a bunch of characters, but, since Grace is alone in the story proper, we know they won't matter. We get a bunch of events, but we know what the end result is going to be. And the framing device for those flashbacks is pathetic — they are presented as the main character's memories that come back to him after a partial amnesia he suffered. Problem is, they don't affect the main character's actions; in essense, they are infodumps. And having half of your story being infodumps is not a great idea.
In "The Martian" there is really just one flashback, but it doesn't just fill the blanks; it introduces us to a bunch of characters who then show up in the main story, and play a big part in it. We learn of their respective characters, and they stay true to those characters. In "PHM" the only link between the main story and the flashbacks is Dr.Grace himself. And we don't really learn anything. There is a half-hearted attempt near the end to reveal something about Grace we didn't know before, but it doesn't really fit, and his modus operandi doesn't change after that reveal.
4) Mistakes
Normally, scientific mistakes are not a big deal. There are a few in "The Martian" as well. However, when a book is not really enaging, it's hard not to notice those mistakes, and they make the reader feel like the author didn't do his homework. One is especially jarring, since it is so fundamental: in one of the flashbacks the protagonist learns that Astrophages, after consuming 1.5 megajoules of energy, becomes 17 nanograms heavier, agreeing with E=mc2 equation. He concludes from that that Astrophages convert energy to matter. But in reality anything that consumes that much energy would become that much heavier. Car battery becomes a little bit heavier when charged. A kettle becomes a little bit heavier when boiling (and loses much more matter through evaporation, but that's another story). The proper reaction to that measurement should be "of course, what's your point?"
As for non-scientific mistakes, well, at some point there is a lawsuit brought against the world-saving agency, since they are planning to send a lot of information with the astronauts, basically every bit of knowledge available, and much of it is copyrighted. The agency boss mentions that she has a preemptive pardon from the President. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that's how it works. I don't think presidential pardon has anything to do with a civil lawsuit.
5) Point of view
In "The Martian" most of the story is told by Mark Watney. But, when necessary, the story becomes third-person, and tells us about things that Mark could not know. Those transitions are handled pretty well, with Mark not becoming suddenly aware of the things that happen elsewhere, but just continuing from where we left him. But in "PHM" Weir kinda wrote himself into a corner. Because of the chosen framing device, Grace has to be present at every event mentioned in the book. As a result, he is dragged around to various meetings and even into a courtroom for no good reason. His boss frequently mentions her desire to do everything as efficiently as possible — for a good reason — but it becomes extremely obvious that those just disrupt Grace's own work, and have no reason to exist other than to tell us what was going on before the story started. And some of them exist for no reason at all, like the aforementioned courtroom scene — it adds absolutely nothing to the story.
Sometimes the limitations of the framing device just don't allow Weir to explain things properly. Like, who is that woman in charge of the international world-saving effort? We get a throwaway line about her being put in charge by the UN, and that's it. We get no explanation about why she was chosen. It doesn't seem like she is an important politician, or a high-ranking military leader. She is just there. Explaining all of it through Grace's eyes is possible, but probably difficult, and so we are left with no explanation at all.
Bottom line. It seems to me that Andy Weir is a type of guy who works best when he works for fun. His Casey and Andy webcomic is really entertaining, and, as I mentioned once or twice, "The Martian" is a great book that was originally written for fun. "Project Hail Mary" is a book written for a paycheck, and it kinda shows.
But I made an exception recently, with the book "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir. And the reason for this was that I love his first book, "The Martian". To give credit where credit's due, it did improve near the end, although it was too late.
I've learned about it from
dastapov, who gave it five stars out of five. My own rating is two stars — not a terrible book, but a somewhat unpleasant experience.Let me briefly discuss the problems I see with "PHM", and compare it (unfavorably) to "The Martian".
1) Stakes
Stakes are much higher in "PHM", which, on a surface, seems like a good thing. In reality, however, it's not. Stakes are high, but they are also impersonal. Saving the world is not as engaging as saving one human being. Mark Watney was trying to save himself — and later the whole Earth joined in. Dr. Grace in "PHM" tries to save the world, while accepting that he himself is not going to make it. It's specifically mentioned that he has no family, no loved ones; the only more or less personal connection he has to the world is his students — he works as a school teacher — and even they aren't really developed. Watney's story in "The Martian" was a desperate fight; Grace's story in "PHM" is a dry report.
2) Suspension of disbelief
Both "PHM" and "The Martian" present themselves as hard sci-fi. But in "The Martian" the only thing that disagreed with the real world was, basically, money. Pretty much everything was possible in the real world, if only NASA had much more money than they actually do.
I'm not saying that hard sci-fi should be like that; it's perfectly fine to invent something that doesn't — and probably can't — really exist. But "PHM" has loads of things like that. There is Astrophage — which drives the plot, and is, therefore, fine. There is the solution to Astrophage problem, discovered at the end — OK, well, it is in the same ballpark, so, I'll let it slide. But there is also xenonite, which is something impossible that isn't related to Astrophage at all. There is all the stuff surrounding Eridan. There is a long sleep, and also the rare genes that make it possible. There are just too many things that we are supposed to just accept. Neither of those things is breaking the suspension of disbelief, but, bit by bit, they erode it. And then there are some assumptions that I found impossible to accept. I mean, I can believe (with effort) that the fate of the whole world would depend on Roskosmos not messing up; but I can't believe, no matter how much I try, that in the end it would work out fine.
Another weird side-effect is that "science-ing it out" doesn't really work, since there are too many deviations from the reality. In "The Martian" that was the crux of the story; here it feels forced.
3) Flashbacks
Flashbacks are certainly a useful storytelling device, but in "PHM" it's overused to a ridiculous degree. What's more, they actually hurt the story. We are introduced to a bunch of characters, but, since Grace is alone in the story proper, we know they won't matter. We get a bunch of events, but we know what the end result is going to be. And the framing device for those flashbacks is pathetic — they are presented as the main character's memories that come back to him after a partial amnesia he suffered. Problem is, they don't affect the main character's actions; in essense, they are infodumps. And having half of your story being infodumps is not a great idea.
In "The Martian" there is really just one flashback, but it doesn't just fill the blanks; it introduces us to a bunch of characters who then show up in the main story, and play a big part in it. We learn of their respective characters, and they stay true to those characters. In "PHM" the only link between the main story and the flashbacks is Dr.Grace himself. And we don't really learn anything. There is a half-hearted attempt near the end to reveal something about Grace we didn't know before, but it doesn't really fit, and his modus operandi doesn't change after that reveal.
4) Mistakes
Normally, scientific mistakes are not a big deal. There are a few in "The Martian" as well. However, when a book is not really enaging, it's hard not to notice those mistakes, and they make the reader feel like the author didn't do his homework. One is especially jarring, since it is so fundamental: in one of the flashbacks the protagonist learns that Astrophages, after consuming 1.5 megajoules of energy, becomes 17 nanograms heavier, agreeing with E=mc2 equation. He concludes from that that Astrophages convert energy to matter. But in reality anything that consumes that much energy would become that much heavier. Car battery becomes a little bit heavier when charged. A kettle becomes a little bit heavier when boiling (and loses much more matter through evaporation, but that's another story). The proper reaction to that measurement should be "of course, what's your point?"
As for non-scientific mistakes, well, at some point there is a lawsuit brought against the world-saving agency, since they are planning to send a lot of information with the astronauts, basically every bit of knowledge available, and much of it is copyrighted. The agency boss mentions that she has a preemptive pardon from the President. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that's how it works. I don't think presidential pardon has anything to do with a civil lawsuit.
5) Point of view
In "The Martian" most of the story is told by Mark Watney. But, when necessary, the story becomes third-person, and tells us about things that Mark could not know. Those transitions are handled pretty well, with Mark not becoming suddenly aware of the things that happen elsewhere, but just continuing from where we left him. But in "PHM" Weir kinda wrote himself into a corner. Because of the chosen framing device, Grace has to be present at every event mentioned in the book. As a result, he is dragged around to various meetings and even into a courtroom for no good reason. His boss frequently mentions her desire to do everything as efficiently as possible — for a good reason — but it becomes extremely obvious that those just disrupt Grace's own work, and have no reason to exist other than to tell us what was going on before the story started. And some of them exist for no reason at all, like the aforementioned courtroom scene — it adds absolutely nothing to the story.
Sometimes the limitations of the framing device just don't allow Weir to explain things properly. Like, who is that woman in charge of the international world-saving effort? We get a throwaway line about her being put in charge by the UN, and that's it. We get no explanation about why she was chosen. It doesn't seem like she is an important politician, or a high-ranking military leader. She is just there. Explaining all of it through Grace's eyes is possible, but probably difficult, and so we are left with no explanation at all.
Bottom line. It seems to me that Andy Weir is a type of guy who works best when he works for fun. His Casey and Andy webcomic is really entertaining, and, as I mentioned once or twice, "The Martian" is a great book that was originally written for fun. "Project Hail Mary" is a book written for a paycheck, and it kinda shows.
