Sunday 15 November 2015

The Martian

20555443

Book Title: The Martian
Author: Andy Weir
Date Started: November 2nd 2015
Date Completed: November 15th 2015
Genres: Sci-Fi
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Star
Final Rating: Three stars
Review:

I'm sad to say that The Martian disappointed me, but through no fault of it's quality. I can see why so many people love it, but unfortunately I always seem to have a hard time getting into sci-fi and it usually means I don't really enjoy the genre in its book form. Weir's novel wasn't an exception to that and so I have to say I enjoyed the film more this time.

The writing depends a lot on dialogue and first-person narration, so when I didn't really get Watney's humour it made the book difficult to engage with. The strange thing is that when I watched the film I actually noticed how well written the speech was, and how it really brought the characters to life with the actors verbally enhancing it. But then when I picked up the book it just didn't work on page for me, even though a lot of the dialogue is lifted straight from the novel.
I also think the amount of science info-dumping was crazy. Admittedly, the book wouldn't have worked whatsoever without it, but it's pretty hard to follow if you haven't got a degree in a science. I didn't mind this that much, excluding all the times when Weir had clearly tried to simplify the science but then made it so vague you couldn't even try to work out what he was talking about. Another controversial point I've heard is that people disagree at how believable all this is - personally I gave up trying to judge if it was realistic very early on.

At times being stuck with huge portions with Watney trying to figure out science was like actually felt like being stranded alone on Mars trying not to die. Take that whatever way you will, but it's not a particularly positive comment in my mind. While the feeling of utter solitude added to the atmosphere, that atmosphere wasn't really a place I enjoyed being in when I was struggling to stay engaged in the first place. A lot of people say that the opening of this book is quite slow since it is literally Watney as the only inhabitant of a planet trying not to die, but once other things kick in it gets better. I agree with this to a point, however I still wasn't really that engaged when other people did turn up since we keep flicking back and forth so much. The parts that did include the rest of the crew and the people on earth were definitely more interesting for me since Weir creates such compelling characters, but I really do feel they're best when interacting with each other. And unfortunately this book is about someone who is alone for the whole book.
The climax was done really well; it fitted with the rest of the book when it came to rather confusing explanations of the science behind the reality, but it wasn't overdramatised to the point where this feeling of believability was completely thrown to the wind. Just a simple, well thought-out and delivered resolution that satisfying tied together the story.

Like I've mentioned, Weir definitely creates compelling characters who show depth even in their short appearances, though the sheer amount of them does become slightly hard to keep up with when you're trying to digest all the science as well.
Wantey was a brilliant protagonist, even if I didn't find his humour particularly amusing (don't get me wrong, he had a couple of good one-liners, but I kind of felt like Commander Lewis when my reaction was just to nod and go with it). The real strength with Mark was his personality: he was a really likeable person. Weir could've done a thousand things with him, whether it would be really dark or moany, but he chose to create a person that the audience really wants to root for. While I think the best characters are usually ones that aren't necessarily good people, you forget how rare it is to actually find a character you genuinely like as a person.

For a 300 page book this took me forever, and I read the biggest chunk of it in one go. As part of the story the pace is really slow to begin with because it's just Watney on his own, but when things start to happen it fluctuates for the rest of the book. There isn't really a consistent balance between Watney's logs and then the perspectives looking at everyone else (as well as other formats dotted through), so depending on how well you translate from each point of view it might take you longer.

The Martian is definitely a book for science-geeks or anyone interested in other planets and space. If you click with the characters you'll have a great time and find yourself rooting for a fictional astronaut like he was real. Personally I just didn't enjoy it as much as I was hoping, though I can't criticise Weir too harshly for his work.

Image Source https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20555443-the-martian

Sunday 1 November 2015

Six of Crows

23006119

Book Title: Six of Crows
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Series: Six of Crows #1
Date Started: October 21st 2015
Date Completed: October 30th 2015
Genres: Fantasy, Thriller, Romance, Action, Adventure
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star
Final Rating: Five stars
Review:

Six of Crows had a really solid story and delivery; it wasn't as dark and dangerous as the blurb claims, but it was loads of fun and really it's the characters that make this great. You can pick and choose your favourite to root for (Nina. Definitely Nina), but by the end you'll have fallen in love with them all regardless.

Something a lot of people have been saying about this book is that you don't really need to have read The Grisha Trilogy beforehand - most people are saying this is a better series (and I probably agree, even though I loved Shadow and Bone). But I'm not sure how far I agree that you can go straight into this book: while you don't need to know the story of Bardugo's other trilogy, you definitely need to have background knowledge on the Grisha and how the society of the world works, and I don't think we really get this world building well enough to make that clear in Six of Crows. And even past the point of understanding, Bardugo's universe is amazingly vibrant and detailed, and I think it'd be a shame to miss out on the magic of it because you were trying to work out the lore and politics.
However, the little references to The Grisha Trilogy itself were done well: I'm not a huge fan of intertextuality because it sometimes just feels like pushed advertisement (characters talk about people from other books that they have no reason to know of; a highly convenient link between people or events appear etc). But the little nods to the trilogy were subtle and a lot of the time the culture itself was used instead of direct examples of characters etc. Having said that, there is definitely enough variation from Shadow and Bone and its sequels for it to be worth reading both (the main thing I liked was exploring a poorer and arguably less influential part of the world).

The plot line of Six of Crows primarily focuses on one thing: the heist. The obviously dangerous thing about this is that it could get boring; it could get unnecessarily dragged out; we could focus too much on one character and not enough on everyone else - these were all things I was quietly concerned about, but I was pleasantly surprised when they didn't happen. The structure was thought-through enough so that we got a really good diversity of plot throughout the whole book, and enough variation on the narration characters to make sure we could go back and forth between stories we may have been more interested in.
I was really happy with where the story left off. Six of Crows is its own story with a resolution, but there's room for things to carry on in the sequels. I personally want to know what happens to the characters, and I think Bardugo knew to have faith in her characters so didn't force a cliffhanger or loads of loose ends at the end of the book to make people come back for more next time.

I was impressed that every character had their own personality, since usually there's somewhat of a blur between characters when there's several protagonists. But everyone had their own distinguishable qualities, and everyone had their own time in the narration too.
Kaz was the closest to being the dark, ruthless antihero we're sold and he was brutal at times, admittedly, but there was still a sort of familiarity between everyone else around him - and an unspoken trust. You got the feeling that though they all might be a little wary of him, they trusted him to know what he was doing, and had almost familial ties with him.
I wasn't sure about Inej when she first turned up, but actually she grew on me quite a bit. I think Bardugo had a soft spot for her too, since she seems to be at the center of most big events, but even so her character was interesting. I would've liked it to rely a little less on her backstory, but even so she was a good protagonist to be pushing the plot forward a lot of the time.
Nina was my favourite character, and she definitely felt like the big sister of the group, as well as perhaps the moral compass even when she was conflicted on what was right herself. She was also one of the characters that didn't rely so much on her past to push her present goals: she had history, especially with Matthias, but she was acting in the story because of her beliefs and who she was as a person.
Matthias, Jesper and Wylan were also all interesting characters, but they didn't jump out to me as the most important - nevertheless I still really like their personalities and enjoyed they contribution to the story (I just don't have anything extensive to say about them right now).

Six of Crows takes its sweet time getting started. I have to say I really was getting quite bored for the first hundred odd pages, regardless of how interesting the characters was; there was just a really strong feeling that we were waiting for something to actually happen and start the plot. I would then argue that approaching the climax there was too much exposition 'flashbacks' that could have been put in the early stages to get it moving a little quicker. However, once the story actually started I was really happy with the pacing throughout. It was really nice to have a book focusing really on only one event, but it being naturally long and complex enough to take three hundred pages.

I really enjoyed Six of Crows, and I feel like anyone who enjoyed The Grisha Trilogy but wanted it to step up a little towards the end would love this. Perhaps it isn't the dark heist its marketed as, but it has a diverse range of characters whose objectives all conflict each other and create a genuine uncertainty on whether they will achieve their goal. Great world building, fantasy elements, exciting action, and interesting characters.

Image Sourcehttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23006119-six-of-crows