McIgglyTuffMuffin t1_ja8ojti wrote
I recently read and finished this book and in the beginning I hated it.
Hated it.
Hated it.
Hated it.
It was actually the same spot as you that I realized "hold on, I'm interested..." But then other things became evident as I read through.
As I went on I realized I didn't hate the book, I just absolutely hated the main character. (Rocky is a bro though.) At some point I was enjoying the story but what was getting me through was how I wanted Grace to fail and to die. So I guess in a way there is part of me that is very happy he never made it back to Earth, but still very happy to see that Earth was saved.
The one thing I found interesting about this novel though, and caused me to dislike it, was the lack of explicit language. I kept thinking that something was off in this adult novel and I couldn't figure out what it was.
Until one page somewhere in the 300s, I think, where it says "Darn it." and the next line is someone over a comm saying "Language!" I just couldn't believe it. I know Mark Watney and Ryland Grace aren't the same people, but Watney cursing up a storm made his predicament feel real, where this felt very safe and sanitized, and I think that really went a long way towards my dislike of the man character.
Nice_Sun_7018 t1_ja91e89 wrote
I don’t hate that he ended up on Erid. I absolutely hate that apparently the Eridians took him in and then made zero plans to visit or even contact Earth. Such an intelligent, curious species who had the ability through astrophage to travel to entirely different solar systems and interact with other species, to share information and learn things that each cannot learn on their own due to biological limitations. They even have an ambassador to serve as a link between Eridians and humans! And they just…don’t. I don’t get it.
[deleted] t1_ja98lr1 wrote
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Nice_Sun_7018 t1_ja9heb7 wrote
I think his growth came from him being too cowardly to go on the mission at all because he didn’t want to die, to willingly giving up his life (so he thought) to save Rocky. That’s cool I guess, but it would have been pretty awesome for the Eridians to build him a one-way ship as soon as he got there so he could go back to Earth and meet up with everyone he’d once known. His coworkers would all be old or maybe even passed away. The kids he was so invested in that he couldn’t even cuss would be adults now (the ones who lived anyway). Let’s have him meet that smart asshole student and see what became of her! But nope. Instead we’ll just fuck off to Erid forever. Good luck Earth, nice knowing you!
Tennemar OP t1_ja8rbph wrote
Interesting that you had the same ah-ha moment although it was from disliking the protagonist instead of the plot to that point.
I liked Grace as a character well enough. Having reread The Martian a month ago, I noticed the same thing you did with cleaning up the explicit language. I can only imagine it is to appeal to a wider audience - even if it swings the believability of the world a bit too far to the other end.
thx1138a t1_ja8tk1p wrote
It’s characterisation. He’s a teacher, remember.
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