I just noticed this today, so I’m a little late, but Rinn Reads and Oh The Books are hosting a “Science fiction month” this November. It caught my eye because I really read so much more fantasy these days than science fiction, which means I particularly appreciate pointers to SF works I might have missed.
Though I haven’t missed ANCILLARY JUSTICE! It’s on my actual physical shelves right this minute, but I don’t want to start it till I have time to enjoy it, so in a few weeks is better than right now.
So, anyway!
At Rinn Reads today, we find a review of THE MARTIAN by Andy Weir. It sounds like a thriller —
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first men to walk on the surface of Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first man to die there.
It started with the dust storm that holed his suit and nearly killed him, and that forced his crew to leave him behind, sure he was already dead. Now he’s stranded millions of miles from the nearest human being, with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive – and even if he could get word out, his food would be gone years before a rescue mission could arrive. Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to get him first.
This book didn’t entirely work for Rinn, I see, but it’s gotten a whole lot of good reviews on Goodreads, and it does sound like the kind of thing that would appeal to me when I want a nailbiter.
Meanwhile, at Oh The Books, we find a bingo card for SF readers — that’s a pretty cool idea. I like the “floating city” category, but is it quite far to have both “mad scientist” and “absent-minded professor”?
Actually, it might be fun to different bingo cards, one for hard SF and one for science fantasy. In most cases, along with superheros, I’d put time travel and telepathic animals in the latter category. And . . . I don’t know . . . any kind of psychic stuff.
I noticed this month because of Fantasy Book Cafe, by the way.
Here’s the master schedule — far from complete as yet, it’s an ongoing project — for Science Fiction Months. Lots of participating blogs. Should be fun to check in now and then this month and see what everyone’s talking about!
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I understand where the reviewer is coming from, but I’d be very surprised if you didn’t like THE MARTIAN. You know how you hate ineffectual protagonists? Mark is the complete opposite of ineffectual, while still being believable as an actual human being. Even though hard SF isn’t usually my thing, I absolutely couldn’t put the book down. I would definitely be nominating it for a Hugo this year, but as I understand it, the fact that he originally self-published it through Amazon in 2012 makes it ineligible.
“The complete opposite of ineffectual”? Sign me up!
I’m not as interested in hard tech problem solving as other kinds of problem solving . . . but I think I would like this. Especially with your recommendation!