So, I actually really enjoyed this! I thought the movie was ok. If anything I wanted more science. And the book definitely delivered on that front.
I liked how each chapter had at least one flashback and how it often focused on some of the technology that went into the Hail Mary. Because pretty much every component is futuristic, but in the movie it’s kinda just accepted as current technology. It was pretty sobering how when humanity is at stake, money is not an issue or environmental protection or even ethics haha… But it makes it feel realistic that they managed to develop so many new things in such a short time.
I really liked how many extra scientists were featured in the book. And how science transcends politics and even fear? Like a lot of the scientists were essentially like ‘yeah it sucks that humanity might get wiped out, but damn isn’t Astrophage cool?’ lol. I appreciated how excited Grace got about all the different ideas people were having and the amazement at the scale of the things that were happening (which mirrored how I felt).
Some of the other things that differed from the movie that I enjoyed were:
- Grace remembering Ilyukihina and Yao and then thinking about how they would have reacted to certain things and also occasionally getting emotional remembering them.
- The detailed descriptions of Rocky’s speech, I especially like how Rocky can ‘speak’ up to 5 notes at a time and how that ties into the other ‘five’ based aspects of the way his species evolved.
- How Stratt even planned in the memory loss
- The realism about Grace living on another planet, as compared to the happy clean Hollywood ending
My favourite moments:
- Dmitri gleefully proclaiming “Time for science!”
- Rocky telling Grace “I am scary space monster. You are leaky space blob”
- Rocky frustratedly yelling at Grace “Get in space ship unless you want look at tunnel from outside!!!” (for some reason I found this really hilarious. Maybe because the vibe was so different to the same scene in the movie)
Funnily the things I liked about the movie weren’t really part of the book. The first was the insinuation that eventually Grace fully learns Rocky’s language without the need for tool assistance. But in the book it makes sense that he learns it quicker, otherwise all the collaboration would have been a lot slower. The other may still be relevant, but the fact that having the coma resistant gene was a thing in the book means that maybe Grace survived the coma just because his resistance was stronger, rather than the insinuation (that I took) that Grace survived because he was put into the coma earlier. I mean that could still have been a factor.
I will definitely read Andy Weir’s other books. Thinking of going with Artemis next though because it didn’t get a movie so therefore I’m assuming it’s the weakest of the three books haha.
Categories: Book Reviews
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