Andy Weir, you’ve done it again!

And by done it again I mean you’ve created a book where a snarky scientist in complete isolation (well, mostly, more on that later) must use math, physics and chemistry to save himself (and also the world in this case, although … only sort of, more on that later as well), all while keeping up a snarky internal monologue and occasionally making stupid mistakes that cause catastrophic problems that he still survives through grit, determination, and science!

Let’s start with the non-spoiler review stuff, which will be relatively short, and then we’ll get into spoilers.

Non spoiler review

Here’s the main points:

Andy Weir still sucks at writing dialog and characterization

This sounds mean, but I don’t think it’s actually that mean. For one thing, he’s part of a proud tradition of science fiction writers who have a hard time writing believable, unique people. In science fiction the focus is often on the ideas, and less on the interpersonal drama. I would guess Andy Weir really enjoys thinking about this stuff and figuring out the science and I cannot fault him for that. Let he who is without blame cast the first stone, and all that.

And he makes a compelling story out of it. What he doesn’t make are compelling characters who speak in a natural and distinctive way. These two interactions stood out to me so I had to look them up, here’s the first (I’m only including dialog here):

“There’s a very good chance the sample in that cylinder is an alien life-form. We’re not taking any chances.”
“Wait … you’re not taking any chances. But I am!”
“It’s not like that.”
“How is it not like that?”
“Okay, it’s exactly like that.”

And now, just twelve pages later:

“Astrophage is an alien microbe. What if it can infect humans? What if it’s deadly? What if hazmat suits and neoprene gloves aren’t enough protection?”
“Wait a minute! Am I a guinea pig? I’m a guinea pig!”
“No, it’s not like that.”
…
“Okay, it’s exactly like that.”

This stood out to me for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s basically the exact same conversation. Same revelation. Same realization. Even the same joke(?) at the end. I say “joke(?)” because I’m not sure if it’s meant to be funny, for one. But I’m also not sure if this is an intentional callback, or if he just … had the characters say the same thing twice in a dozen pages.

Again, this is coming off mean, but I don’t intend it to be. When I submitted my first screenplay to a reviewer the first piece of feedback I got was “everyone sounds the same” — and the reviewer was right! This is especially egregious in a screenplay, where all there IS is dialog. But I realized that has always been an issue for me, so I pay special attention to it now, and I’m still not great at it.

I think Andy Weir also recognizes that this isn’t one of his strengths. I’m pretty sure that’s why he likes plots where one character is off on their own for the majority of it — he knows it’s a weakness, and he’s writing around it.

Ryland Grace sounds a LOT like Mark Watney because that’s just how Andy Weir writes characters. And honestly? It’s fine. People don’t come to an Andy Weir joint for the sizzling dialog. They come for cool science.

(Although he does set up some REALLY interesting potential character interactions and just ignores them in favor of having someone by themself, which is understandable but … I’ll talk more about it in spoilertown)

The science parts mostly deliver

Andy Weir explains things really well, and he tackles interesting questions. It’s not too much of a spoiler to point out that the plot hinges around an interesting thought experiment — could a life form exist that consumes a star?

He tackles a bunch of other questions too that I WON’T talk about here because they’re spoilery. I was genuinely surprised by one of the plot twists, which is good because the plot of this, as well as the Martian, have a somewhat annoying predictability to them. Basically, if things are going well it’s time for something to blow up. If things are looking fantastic it means it’s time for the main character to do something really dumb (but dumb in an understandable way) and cause a major setback. You could set your watch to it.

Anyway, if you enjoy physics, biology, and rocket science in any way, you’ll probably like this book. It’s pretty fun!

Andy Weir: science ambassador

I appreciate that Mr. Weir takes the time to explain complicated science topics, as well as discussing the basics of the scientific method — and how science typically works, you know, in our world.

I imagine he’s been bothered by the eroding trust in science in the US (and the scientific method, and facts and, well, basically everything related to academics), and he’s writing books that help people understand that, even though science isn’t perfect, it’s the best we’ve got, and we can do some pretty amazing things.

I don’t know how much that factors into his thinking, but I’m glad he does it. I hope kids read these books and get excited about science. That part I think he does pretty well.

Spoiler Time!

OK, I’m done talking around spoilers. Let’s get to the good stuff.

To summarize the setup really quickly: scientists notice that the sun is dimming and that there’s a line between the sun and Venus. They eventually figure out that it’s a micro-organism that consumes energy from the sun, and then migrates to Venus to reproduce (it requires carbon dioxide to do so, and Venus has plenty of that).

They notice that basically every star around us is going through the same thing. Except one. So they put together a ship, using some discoveries from this new life form, and blast three people off to this star to figure out why it’s doing OK when everything else isn’t. It takes several years to get there, so they put everyone in a coma, and two of the three pass away during the coma.

About a quarter of the way into the book Ryland arrives at the new star and, surprisingly, runs into another ship there — an alien ship from another planet whose sun is ALSO dying, and they’re trying to figure out a solution as well. This other alien ship ALSO has just one passenger (although he started out with over 20 and everyone but him died). So the two decide to work together to figure it out so they can both save their respective planets.

There’s two really, REALLY big logical flaws in this, and to his credit Andy Weir addresses one of them and the other one I think he intentionally doesn’t address — in fact, I think not addressing it contributed to some of his plot decisions.

First Flaw: Why in the world would we be able to talk to aliens? Weir has them sharing basic information within hours, and just having entire conversations within days.

In the world of Star Trek it seems natural to assume that would be the case, but in reality it’s much more complicated. For example: how well do we communicate with Octopodes?

I mean, they’re highly intelligent. They have social organizations. They communicate with each other. We share a planet. And yet, we haven’t been able to figure out how to talk to them.

How about monkeys? I mean, we share like … 98% of our DNA, we share a planet, we’re actually both on land, we kind of even look alike. And yet dozens of people working decades have been able to communicate only the most rudimentary of messages.

What about dolphins? Or dogs? Or parrots? They even “speak” english!

The point is, we can’t communicate with anything else on this planet, and we’ve shared it for thousands of years and we all grew up together. Assuming we’d be able to find any common ground whatsoever with an alien race is pretty insane.

Weir proposes two solutions. The first is “panspermia” — the idea that all life in our region was seeded by a common ancestor, and thus we have some stuff in common. Related to this, Weir implies that life might be super common, and Ryland encounters this life because we have very similar needs (enough technology to travel to a star, but not enough to just solve the sun dimming problem on our own), and that means we have similar levels of technological and/or social development and, thus, would be able to find common ground.

The second solution is basically science. Laws of physics and math are universal, so to travel between stars a species would have to discover them, and we could use those to find common ground.

I don’t know! This is a very earth-centric view of the universe, but I can’t really debate him. We don’t have a lot of data.

So this flaw is there, but I think Weir provides enough rationale to give us a good story.

The second flaw is that Ryland and the alien immediately trust each other completely. There’s no misunderstanding. Nothing they do is threatening to the other. They both start chatting and become fast friends, and no one thinks about betraying the other to benefit their own planet.

When I mentioned that some potentially interesting character dynamics were put in place, and then avoided, this is part of what I’m talking about. The crew also had a Russian and Chinese member, and the Chinese one was military. It would make sense for a military mind to not immediately trust a new species. That might’ve made for some interesting dynamics as Ryland and his crew mates interact with an alien that they’re not sure they can trust.

I mean, that’s also just the plot of The Abyss, though, so maybe it’s better to avoid it.

Honestly, I think this might, again, be Andy Weir: Science Ambassador, showing the world “Hey, if we’re all scientists we have nothing to fear! The free exchange of ideas is good!” But then at the end the alien asked Ryland for a laptop with a copy of all human knowledge and he was just like “Oh yeah, sounds great” without a second thought.

Maybe I’ve been reading to much Cixin Liu, but I don’t think I would hand over all of our collected knowledge without meeting a single additional member of an alien species. Or going on board their ship. Or visiting their home planet. Or anything!

But, again, I think this was an intentional choice, not something he omitted because he didn’t think of it. Andy Weir: Science Ambassador strikes again! He wanted to make a fun story about people (and aliens) saving the world (or two) using science. Mission accomplished.

Should you read it?

If you liked the Martian, you should read it. If you like science and don’t mind the occasional bit of sub-par writing, go ahead! If you’re a literature snob, maybe skip — especially if you’re not a big sci-fi person. If that’s the case, why are you even reading this blog post?

I probably won’t read it again, but it was a fun read. Oh right! I have a four box model for this:

Where would I put Hail Mary? Right about here: