Saturday, September 10, 2016

The Martian by Andy Weir

I liked this novel well enough to finish it, even though I had seen (most of) the movie prior to picking it up. It has a lot of talk about measurements in it, which will be off-putting to some and reminded me too much of high school chemistry class and calculations of limiting factors. Still, if you skip some of the analysis of how much the hero needs of what, the story is  very entertaining and the characterization of Mark Watney is fun. Yes, I dare say fun in a scifi novel about a scientist likely to starve to death on Mars after being mistakenly abandoned there. His voice has enough humor and humanity in it to keep me reading through the end. I liked the ending better than the movie's ending, even though it is pretty outlandish, and that's all I'll say so as to not ruin it. Read the book before seeing the movie if you can.

Saturday, February 06, 2016

Three novels I haven't finished and four books I'm still working on

I haven't been able to finish many novels lately, and I promised myself I would only post on books I've actually finished. However, some rules need to be broken. The thing is, I enjoyed each of these novels up to a point, and I think they're well crafted, with good stories to tell. I just couldn't get through them, for the following reasons.


Station Eleven (Kindle book about 1/2 way through) -- I think I stopped because I couldn't picture the world as well as I would have liked. It's a sci fi novel about a Shakespearean acting troop wandering in a post-apocalyptic world taken over by a massive viral attack, but there's not much Shakespeare in this novel so far.

The Goldfinch (trade paperback about 1/5 of the way through) -- a sense of foreboding over the ending stopped me. It's a long literary novel that won some awards and had some people comparing it to Dickens, which intrigued me. The beginning is shocking, and the in-depth description of what happens is very well done, but I couldn't help feeling the novel was a little too artful.

City on Fire (hardcover about 1/5 of the way through) -- an intentional interlude in this murder mystery (a letter written by a main character's grandfather) threw me out of the main plot and provided a long backstory, so it was a slog to get back to the main plot -- once I got back, I wasn't as interested as I was at the beginning. Then new characters get introduced pretty far into the novel, so I wasn't sure where it was going. I may pick this one back up if I get time.

I also am still working on the following books in various genres:

Life on Mars, a poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith (almost finished) -- I liked this book for its honesty and clear imagery, not sure about the anger and where it's directed.

The Science of Interstellar, a science textbook by a theoretical physicist who consulted on the film (got through the first few chapters) -- I determined that the science had been stretched considerably to fit the film, and stopped reading

God is with you every day (read almost every other day through January) a devotional by Max Lucado that I discovered is random snippets of his books, with a little bit of scripture thrown in -- not as inspiring as I'd hoped

Glory Days (not started) by Max Lucado