The Martian by Andy Weir narrated by R.C. Bray

Book Cover

When I was looking for what to spend some of my first Audible credits on, The Martian by Andy Weir stood out. This still ranks at the top of roughly 15 audiobooks I’ve listened to for two reasons. First, the story and writing was engaging. This was “hardest” sci-fi I’ve read so far. There is a lot of math, chemistry, physics, and botany (yes botany). I’m sure that many people would be put off by such dry and detailed descriptions, but that leads me to my second point. The performance of the narrator, R.C. Bray, was superb. He made the “hard science” interesting and entertaining. His voice strikes me as a perfect fit for the main character, Mark Watney. Do yourself a favor and listen to the 5 minute sample on Audible and judge for yourself. While the book focuses on his Watney’s mission log, R.C. Bray does voices for other characters in NASA back on Earth. The voices are OK, nothing but nothing spectacular. I can’t say there is anything wrong, but there are other narrators with a stronger skill for differing character voices.

The book starts off with Watney starting the mission log. He basically got left for dead on Mars during an evacuation of the Ares 3 mission. He doesn’t really have much hope of surviving long term, but hopes someone will find the log after he dies to uncover his story. As the book progresses, the log entries pile up and eventually we start to see some plot progression from NASA back on Earth. I ended up really liking the log entry format because it fit in with my relatively short commute. I generally was able to get through a couple entries in just about 15 minutes or so. I really can’t go into the plot much without revealing a bunch of spoilers. All I can say is if you like Science Fiction, this is a must read/listen. This actually won the Audie Award (think Oscars for audiobooks) for the Science Fiction category. R.C. Bray also got the award for best Solo Narration – Male. Do yourself a favor and try to get this on audio. I managed to twist a friend’s arm to get this on audio back when the sale (long gone) was for the $1.99 Kindle Edition with $2.99 audio upgrade.

I thought really hard after finishing this book whether or not I’d want to actually read it sometime in the future. I eventually decided that I just couldn’t, because I would miss R.C. Bray’s voice. If you’ve never listened to an audiobook, give it a try. Groupon has a current deal for new Audible.com members: $1.95 a month for the first 3 months. Three audiobooks for $6 is a major bargain in my opinion. If you’d like to support my site, click through my link, which I may or may not get referral credit for: Audible deals at Groupon

I can’t wait to see the movie adaptation that is due out on Friday. I’m sure just about everyone has heard about it, especially since the recent announcement from the real NASA that they have evidence of actual surface water on Mars. I’m hoping that that publicity and this book / movie will help get enough attention so we can actually make things like the Ares mission actually happen. Sometimes I wish we could easily erase our memories of books before seeing the movie, then restore it later to compare. After I see the movie, I’ll review that as well. Andy Weir really deserves all he’s going to get from the book, audiobook, and movie rights. He really did find a winning formula for great Science Fiction.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please prove you are a human * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Post

I, Robot – BBC Radio 4 dramatization (2017)I, Robot – BBC Radio 4 dramatization (2017)

There is a 5 episode series based on Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot available to stream for free via BBC Radio’s iPlayer. I’ve only listened to the first episode “Robbie” and enjoyed it. The overall story is the same, but delivered in a slightly different way. I think it’s worth it to check out at least the first episode to see if you like it. I figured I’d post here right away when I saw it as the availability is time limited. The Omnibus has a bit longer shelf life than the oldest episode. I may go back and compare this version to the Audible version to see which I like better. If you’re into special effects, be sure to check out this one before it is too late.

Omnibus link: Expires March 14th – 1hr 10 min

Individual Episodes 1-5 link: ~15 minute episodes, begin to expire on March 8th.

 

via The Guardian

Impossible Dreams by Tim PrattImpossible Dreams by Tim Pratt

Tim Pratt recently won the 2007 Hugo Award for best short story with Impossible Dreams. The story’s main character, Pete, is a huge movie buff that stumbles across a new video store in his neighborhood. He doesn’t seem to understand how he missed the store before, but ventures in and finds an odd selection of movies which he though had been canceled, or made by different directors with different actors. What follows is an interesting commentary on movies which either were never made, were lost, or simply done differently. This is a truly awesome story with an excellently planned ending. It was a pleasure to read from start to finish. From the writing it either the author is a huge movie buff or his writing is so good that you’d never even suggest he wasn’t passionate about movies. Visit the link above and read the full story at Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Isaac Asimov’s Robots and Aliens Book 1: Changeling by Stephen LeighIsaac Asimov’s Robots and Aliens Book 1: Changeling by Stephen Leigh

Robots and Aliens Volume 1 book cover

One thing I like about this book is there is a nice eight page synopsis of the whole Robot City series. Even after just reading the series, it was a nice refresher for the events leading up to Robots and Aliens. This new series involves Asimov’s challenge to the authors to describe what might happen if robots encountered an alien species. How would they treat them? How would the Three Laws apply?

I particularly enjoyed this first book because it addresses one of the main questions I had regarding the Three Laws of Robotics. What does the key phrase “human being” actually mean? Throughout Asimov’s books and it is explained that the laws aren’t as simple as the English translation. They are complicated sets of positronic potentials that govern every action of a robot.

In Changeling, Stephen Leigh describes a robot model that is given a very simple definition of “intelligent life form” as an equivalent. This idea seems to work very well in this book and after several chapters we see how this experiment intersects with the Robot City plotlines. Also, we get to see Derec use the powers he was given to control Robot City. One thing that did bug me a little bit was how little of the main plotlines was advanced.