That Which We Are Reading
Shiri Is reading:
The Martian by Andy Weir (self-published in 2011 as an e-book, 2nd ed. released as e-book and book-book by Crown Publishing).
The blurb caught my attention because it reminded me a bit of my favorite ever Twilight Zone episode. The one in which the crew headed for Mars crashes, all killed but a single man. He wanders through the desert alone, knowing there is no hope of salvation, runs out of oxygen and, well, dies. Only after his demise do we get a wide angle camera shot revealing civilization just over the next dune; the capsule didn’t crash on a distant planet but rather, the the California (or Nevada, can’t remember exactly which) desert. If the astronaut had only taken his helmet off, he would have survived.
(that’s a red planet, alright)
The Martian, as it turns out, is absolutely nothing like that Twilight Zone beyond the inclusion of a man being stranded. It is, however, the first hard sci-fi I’ve read in ages that I’m enjoying rather than plowing through on a recommendation or for podcasting purposes. Mark Watley, the stranded astronaut, is a great combination of humor and insanely brilliant, an engineer/botanist who can figure out how to seed Martian soil to grow Earth crops one minute and contemplate the poor logic of Aquaman being able to talk to whales the next. The book is well paced and it moves quickly. Wish I’d had more this week to sit down and spend a couple hours at time on it. Look out, three day weekend. You’ve been designated for assignment.
The second volume of Gotham Central awaits me in the library TBR stack. Along with many, many other books. Plan to spend some time with those folks this weekend as well.
Luke is reading:
Working on The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. This one is starting off a bit slooow, but hoping it gets rolling.
On the comics side I am revisiting the Abnett and Lanning Guardians of the Galaxy which is just as good the second time through as it was the first time.
<Note to Luke: Hate to break it to you, pod-partner, but at no point does The Strange Case… roll. In fact, with the exception of a few sentences, it does nothing other than attempt, and fail, to crawl. Enjoy 😛 — Shiri>
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