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From the (Library) Bookshelf: The Martian
Jun. 21st, 2016 05:23 pmAfter seeing The Martian at the movies last year, I did contemplate reading the novel it had been adapted from. Whenever I saw it at the bookstore, though, I never quite got around to buying a copy. It took seeing it at the library before I resolved to sign it out.
I have to mention the bad news first, though, that there's a moment in the book where a minor character throws in the gratuitous comment that he only wants "Star Wars original trilogy" memorabilia in exchange for a feat of programming. That events have already cast an ever so slightly different light on that didn't help much, and it gets harder every time I see something like that to respect that other people may have been less willing to enforce positivity than I was and am, and easier to just suspect a lazy bundle of reactions to pop culture taking over; somehow, it even casts a shadow over the story-long joke that Mark Watney is stranded with nothing but 1970s TV shows and disco music to occupy himself in between having to stay alive.
However, the book didn't get around to editorializing how it was only possible to send people to Mars by rejecting the official plans from around the time it was being written, which might have been the larger part of what had kept me leery about reading it even after the movie hadn't concluded with genius private inventors rescuing incompetent government employees. As well, I'd already known the novel contained a number of crises to be overcome later on in the story that the movie hadn't included. At one point, Watney accidentally burns out the replacement radio he had re-established contact with Earth with; I got to remembering that part of the movie and wondering if it still ought to be interpreted that way. A somewhat later scene where he's driving his rover into a dust storm everyone but him knows about did set up an interesting and somehow different challenge. In all, though, it does have me remembering the movie is now available for streaming on Netflix and wondering if I'll be able to find or make the time to watch it again.
I have to mention the bad news first, though, that there's a moment in the book where a minor character throws in the gratuitous comment that he only wants "Star Wars original trilogy" memorabilia in exchange for a feat of programming. That events have already cast an ever so slightly different light on that didn't help much, and it gets harder every time I see something like that to respect that other people may have been less willing to enforce positivity than I was and am, and easier to just suspect a lazy bundle of reactions to pop culture taking over; somehow, it even casts a shadow over the story-long joke that Mark Watney is stranded with nothing but 1970s TV shows and disco music to occupy himself in between having to stay alive.
However, the book didn't get around to editorializing how it was only possible to send people to Mars by rejecting the official plans from around the time it was being written, which might have been the larger part of what had kept me leery about reading it even after the movie hadn't concluded with genius private inventors rescuing incompetent government employees. As well, I'd already known the novel contained a number of crises to be overcome later on in the story that the movie hadn't included. At one point, Watney accidentally burns out the replacement radio he had re-established contact with Earth with; I got to remembering that part of the movie and wondering if it still ought to be interpreted that way. A somewhat later scene where he's driving his rover into a dust storm everyone but him knows about did set up an interesting and somehow different challenge. In all, though, it does have me remembering the movie is now available for streaming on Netflix and wondering if I'll be able to find or make the time to watch it again.