I read this in a family book club with my 10 year old and then watched the movie. I have thoughts on both!
If you don’t know, here’s the short summary: Dr. Ryland Grace wakes up alone in a spaceship. As he figures out what is going on around him, using science and math skills that he hasn’t forgotten, he gradually recalls memories of who/what/when/why he got up there in the first place. Turns out that he’s there on a mission to save Earth from a sun-eating microbe. Only thing is, this microbe is also affecting other stars – and another life form is also on a mission to save their planet. Science hijinks ensue.
I really liked the first contact idea(s) – both the microbes and Rocky were clever and cute, in their own way. My favorite part of the whole book was the exploration of how Rocky’s civilization’s science and biology was different due to their different planetary environment. Very cool. Love the interplanetary friendship, loved the way they started their friendship by using mathematical language. I also liked the gradual reveal, throughout the novel, of How He Ended Up Here; I like that it turned out to be a very redemptive arc for Grace, with a nice solid ending that I enjoyed. Grace felt much more fleshed out than the dude from The Martian, who I frankly found a little boring (sorry not sorry) but kept all the science nerd stuff – I like this part especially because my 10 year old and all his friends have read this book and I love a good science-y role model; let’s all practice problem solving skills! I didn’t mind the first-person aspect, it worked for me, but I suspect that Weir can only really write in first person…
…which leads me to my next paragraph, Things That I Didn’t Love. My biggest complaint about the whole book was the Earthbound characters. Paper-thin and apparently sketched on the back of a napkin (as Grace would say), they were nearly unreadable for me. Why even include the whole thing about the Sahara solar blah blah blah? Did Grace need to be present at every single meeting…really? The paragraphs establishing and reinforcing Stratt’s position were just beyond my suspension of disbelief. The world’s governments just…give this lady authority to do whatever she wants? lol not in a million years my friend. Overall I had the impression that Weir wanted to write Ryland Grace, and is in fact Ryland Grace, but knew that he needed other characters to make the narrative happen, so he put them in the backstory and then promptly forgot about them. (Maybe for his next book he could get a co-author to handle the non-author-insert characters– this actually might be super interesting, for real.)
Overall, I would give this a 4/5 for Family Friendly Science Role Models – my 10 year old loved it and I am happy about that. I would give it a 3/5 for An Editor Needed to Review This One More Time especially re: the supporting characters.
The movie handled the supporting characters much better, imo. Stratt in particular was great, I think because the actor was amazing and they ditched the rest of the ham-handed Earth story-line (no Sahara dude, no Beetles dude, no court scene…) However, I wish they had portrayed Grace as slightly more methodical in the movie, as he is in the book. Finally, and importantly, Gosling beats Damon any day of the week for me, so all in all, I was a fan.
