This was great.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll begin by saying the main strength of the book is probably its sentiment balance. On one hand, it\u2019s sensational and sentimental; as the climax approaches, the whole world is watching Mark on TV, so the ending is destined to be either heartbreaking or enormously crowd-pleasing.\u00a0On the other hand, none of Mark\u2019s log entries are particularly sappy. We don\u2019t get any musing about the meaning of life. We don\u2019t get any sections where Mark is seriously distraught or on the verge of suicide. He\u2019s calm, methodical, and good-humored, which makes it fun to spend time with him.<\/p>\n
It really proves that (in my opinion) when it comes to getting your reader to root for a character, building a personality for the character is more important than simply creating a backstory for them. We learn next to nothing about Mark\u2019s family or friends back on Earth; the book is fairly minimalist, and we don\u2019t even get physical descriptions of anyone. It\u2019s a corrective to stories like\u00a0Gravity<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0The Shallows<\/em>\u00a0that, while good, resort to unnecessary tragic backstories to get us to like the character. We don\u2019t need that! They just need to be believable people!<\/p>\n For the first half of the book, I preferred the sections focused on Mark Watney alone on Mars. I don\u2019t think dialogue is Andy Weir\u2019s strongest suit, and some of the conversations back on Earth between the supporting characters \u2013 Venkat, Teddy, Mindy, Annie, etc. \u2013 were a little predictable. I didn\u2019t think the humor came across as well in those sections; Mark was by far the funniest character, and sometimes when other characters tried to be snarky, it didn\u2019t land as well for me. There\u2019s something particularly funny about Mark\u2019s brand of sarcasm, something about the way he\u2019s primarily just joking around with himself, and with an imaginary reader. Hearing Mitch and Teddy exchange Sorkin-esque, half-inspirational, half-snarky dialogue wasn\u2019t as amusing for me. Besides, the Mars sections don\u2019t feel quite as isolated and dangerous when the NASA perspective is introduced; part of me longed for a\u00a0Gravity<\/em>– or\u00a0All is Lost<\/em>-esque story limited to one guy alone trying to survive in a foreign environment.<\/p>\n As the book went on, though, it became clear that those sections back on Earth were very necessary, both to build the stakes \u2013 wow, everyone on Earth is watching, and if anyone screws up, this will be a colossal waste of time, money, and human life \u2013 and to offer a break from the dense scientific material of Mark\u2019s survival tactics. Weir is careful to keep the book fairly accessible, and based on the audience reaction, he certainly succeeded at appealing to the public. But at times it did become slightly difficult to visualize everything that was happening, and that made some chapters from Mark’s perspective a little slower. I wouldn\u2019t classify the book as a \u2018slog\u2019 at all; that\u2019s too far. But there were a couple times when I was ready for a break from the science.<\/p>\n That said, most of the science worked great. I have no idea if anything in this book is accurate \u2013 I imagine it\u2019s at least partly based in truth based on Weir\u2019s background and the way he made sure to meticulously acknowledge potential plot holes at every turn \u2013 but the point is that it\u2019s convincing enough that you completely believe everything in the story could really happen. There\u2019s something that\u2019s just so fun about watching Mark try to finagle his way out of certain issues; there\u2019s something irresistible to me about survival stories focused on a character who takes a breath, concentrates really hard, and figures out an ingenious way to get out of a seemingly unsolvable problem. There\u2019s enough complex science in the story that you can\u2019t really\u00a0guess<\/em>\u00a0what the solution is going to be, but it\u2019s based enough in fact and makes enough sense that the solutions never really feel like deus ex machina.<\/p>\n All in all, just a fun hard sci-fi thriller that manages to avoid cliches by staying focused and minimalist, and not resorting to cheesy sentiment until it\u2019s absolutely necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This was great. I\u2019ll begin by saying the main strength of the book is probably its sentiment balance. On one hand, it\u2019s sensational and sentimental; as the climax approaches, the whole world is watching Mark on TV, so the ending is destined to be either heartbreaking or enormously crowd-pleasing.\u00a0On the other hand, none of Mark\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8271"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8273,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8271\/revisions\/8273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}