I gave up on The Martian because I hated the writing, especially the dialogue. So I wasn’t sure how I was going to get on with this. And once again I found the writing to be grating. I rolled my eyes a lot. I was pretty much about to give up when he noticed the other ship. That alone got me to finish the book.

All the first contact stuff was pretty great and by far my favourite part of the book. I enjoyed the vast majority of that. The slow reveal of what happened I thought was done quite well but I didn’t much care about it. Once Rocky (I hated the name though) came onto the scene I had little interest in the other stuff. Overall it seems I like Weir as a storyteller but hate him as a writer. The science stuff was weird as Grace seems to really love explaining the most basic of things that a scientist should just know. I get that he was a teacher but still. Also the fact that music was never mentioned was a strange omission.

Not sure I’d read another of his. Might just wait for the inevitable film. Not sad I read it though.