I had so much fun reading The Martian by Andy Weir! In fact, my whole family read it so we could talk about how much we enjoyed it. I had heard this one wasn’t as good, so I put off reading it. It wasn’t until I saw the audiobook on Audible when I had some credits to burn that I decided to go ahead and buy it. It took me even longer to actually listen to it, but I’m so glad I did!
The concept is that the main character/narrator wakes up from a coma on a space ship in another galaxy. He had two crew mates, but neither of them survived the coma. Not only is he all alone, but he doesn’t even remember who he is, much less what he’s doing there.
Slowly, his memories start coming back to him. As they do, the book jumps in time from the character (turns out his name is Ryland Grace) on the spaceship to him on Earth leading up to his launch into space.
Something he remembers fairly early on is that there’s a single-called alien species called astrophage that maintains a high internal temperature, and when the external temperature gets really hot, they reproduce. So they have found their way to the sun so they can reproduce near its surface. The problem with that is the process sucks a lot of energy from the sun. If they keep this up, the sun will die and life on Earth will end.
Ryland was sent to a star in another galaxy several light years away that has also been infected by astrophage to hopefully find a way to get rid of astrophage. All humanity depends on him, so, you know, no pressure.
Shortly after waking up and remembering all this, he encounters an alien spaceship. Turns out they had some unforeseen problems of their own and the ship also has just one survivor. Ryland calls him Rocky because he looks kind of like a rock with five legs, each with 3 claws.
Rocky uses sonar, rather than light, to make sense of his surroundings. He “sees” kind of the way bats do, but he doesn’t need to make a sound to hear how it bounces back to him. He just needs to hear the way air is moving around to know what’s going on. Somehow this means he can “see” through solid objects, which I don’t think is ever fully explained, at least not in a way that made sense to me. I think it was just a convenient way for Rocky to communicate with Ryland, even though they can’t inhabit the same atmosphere.
Rocky communicates using musical chords, and that’s when listening to the audiobook really paid off because we got to hear those chords, even if it was only when he and Ryland first met. Once they learn each other’s language, Rocky’s dialogue is always the same chord with a robotic-sounding voice over it translating what he’s saying into English.
Rocky is on the same mission Ryland is on, although his planet has more time before things get desperate. They bond as they work together to accomplish a shared goal.
Not only did I love watching their friendship blossom, but this book has every bit as much snark and humor as The Martian. There were several times when I laughed out loud while listening to this. My dog gave me funny looks when I’d be doing chores around the apartment and burst out laughing out of nowhere.
If you enjoyed The Martian, I highly recommend you ignore the naysayers and read (or listen to) this one as well. You won’t regret it.