space travel – Hibernator's Library

The Rolling Stones, by Robert A Heinlein
Narrated by Tom Weiner

Teenaged twins Castor and Pollux Stone cajole their father into buying a space ship, and the entire family goes on a trip around the galaxy. But Castor and Pollux repeatedly end up in trouble with their schemes to make a fortune on distant planets.

This is a hard book for me to review, so I’ll keep it short. I’ve only read one other book by Heinlein, A Stranger in a Strange Land, and that was as a teenager, so I expected something a bit more serious and meaningful in this book. Is this what pulp is? I’ve only read one pulp-fiction book, A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, so I’m very inexperienced with the genre. It took me a while to get over the cheese. But I recognize that when you’re reading a book that was written in a style foreign to you, it’s better to view the book within its context rather than comparing it to your usual type. And after I approached the book from this perspective, I began to really enjoy the humor and even became emotionally invested in the characters. I wouldn’t say I highly recommend this book, but I enjoyed my second pulp experience.

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

When a team of Mars explorers runs into some problems while on Mars, they think that astronaut Mark Watney has died. The rest of the crew avoid the storm by immediately heading back home to Earth. Unknown to them, Watney is still alive and must survive on Mars alone with meager supplies left behind by the Mars expedition. With his extraordinary resourcefulness, he manages to survive while desperately hoping that Earth will realize that he’s still alive and come to rescue him.

This book was as fantastic as everyone says it is. Watney’s struggle to survive is fascinating, and the action moves forward at a steady pace. Yeah, there’s a lot of technical language, which made the book a little slower than I would have liked at times, but it was never so slow that I wanted to stop listening. It was more of an “ok, I get that you’re doing awesome technical stuff, let’s move on.” But those scenes were only paragraph-long. I was a little amused at how much money and time America was willing to put in to save Watney. After all, he was only one person and there are so many people on earth that could have benefited greatly from that money. They could have helped thousands of people instead of just one. I get it. He’s a hero. But he also made the choice to go on a dangerous adventure. The homeless and hungry in America and around the world did not make the choice to starve. Shouldn’t they be helped first?

The narration in the audiobook was also excellent. The humorous parts were so well executed that I had to laugh out loud on numerous occasions.

I can’t wait to see this movie. I plan on going with my boyfriend next Tuesday. 🙂

4.5 stars for interest level and superb execution