I'd never heard of Andy Weir before that I knew of and this is marketed as his first novel - but the way you said "characteristically Andy Weir-esque" made me think he must have preexisting work, so I did some googling - and he turns out (as you know, but for the benefit of anyone else reading this) to be the Casey and Andy guy! Man, I do not remember much about that webcomic at all, but I certainly recall reading it back in the day. HUH. I wonder if leaving that out of his author bio was his call, or if Random House figured it wouldn't help them market this as a serious novel.
Also apparently he self-published this as an e-book before Random House acquired it, which a) makes me doubt that it is Hugo-eligible after all, and b) makes me wonder whether the Random House version is in fact identical to the earlier edition, or if it's been professionally edited since then. Did you (or anyone else reading this) read it when he self-pubbed it? A few word choices threw me even for the voice of the character - would a professional at least thirty years in the future say something was "gay" because it was named for the goddess of rainbows, or refer to his modifications of the ascent vehicle as "all kinds of rape"? The self-pubbed thing makes me wonder if there were more questionable lines and this is the cleaned up version, or what.
As far as whether I'm being unfair - the "if you had balls" line is literally the "last word" of its scene. And you're right that someone does ask about the cost at a press conference, but it's a pretty abstract, gentle question compared with a phrasing like "is this how we should spend a hundred million dollars of *food aid to the starving*". Maybe the questions exist but they're also dismissed.
But I did like it! I mean, I read the hell out of it, and there are some brilliant moments (when he's rolling the airlock, hahaha). Two thumbs up to the wacky engineering adventures of Mark the survival-bot. But it was just weird to get to the end of the book and realize that I had *no idea* whether Mark had, like, met the goals that made him become a Mars astronaut in the first place, because we just have no idea about that.
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Date: 2014-05-08 01:33 am (UTC)Also apparently he self-published this as an e-book before Random House acquired it, which a) makes me doubt that it is Hugo-eligible after all, and b) makes me wonder whether the Random House version is in fact identical to the earlier edition, or if it's been professionally edited since then. Did you (or anyone else reading this) read it when he self-pubbed it? A few word choices threw me even for the voice of the character - would a professional at least thirty years in the future say something was "gay" because it was named for the goddess of rainbows, or refer to his modifications of the ascent vehicle as "all kinds of rape"? The self-pubbed thing makes me wonder if there were more questionable lines and this is the cleaned up version, or what.
As far as whether I'm being unfair - the "if you had balls" line is literally the "last word" of its scene. And you're right that someone does ask about the cost at a press conference, but it's a pretty abstract, gentle question compared with a phrasing like "is this how we should spend a hundred million dollars of *food aid to the starving*". Maybe the questions exist but they're also dismissed.
But I did like it! I mean, I read the hell out of it, and there are some brilliant moments (when he's rolling the airlock, hahaha). Two thumbs up to the wacky engineering adventures of Mark the survival-bot. But it was just weird to get to the end of the book and realize that I had *no idea* whether Mark had, like, met the goals that made him become a Mars astronaut in the first place, because we just have no idea about that.