no

anyways the mountain is cool as fuck and i really liked how all the maps were wrong and the altimeter was saying all kinds of shit. lovecraftian mountain for the win.

overall the book was quire good but nick's manuscript part was by far the best and would have made a good standalone novella in my opinion. not going to say i didn't enjoy it but i do feel that bringing in the choughs and the echos and nick attacking the townspeople was a bit excessive and overall detracted from the interesting bits of the story.

let me explain. The Martian is fine and Project Hail Mary is better but theyre not that good. as far as i can tell andy weir can only write one character and one type of story (the perfect jacked genius science nerd who knows everything for some fuckass reason and competence porn, respectively), which is fine but automatically makes his books kinda mid. both of the books have the same broad strokes of a plot and both of the main characters are essentially the same person. Project Hail Mary especially pisses me off because the beating heart of the story should be about saving the human race and forming connection with other beings, but it just doesnt come across that way. none of the books leave me convinced that the main character feels any deep connection with earth, humanity, or even specific humans. andy weir kinda just tells you that hes real torn up about the earth dying/being trapped on mars and maybe not being able to get back and then never circles back to it. and it never has any effect on the story.

like the science bits are fun (theyre not well researched and dont make much sense once you give them like ten minutes of thought) but there is no emotional weight to any of his stories and none of the characters experience any development or change (no the guy in Project Hail Mary realizing that he didnt go by choice and then basically shrugging it off with no concern and continuing as before is not change). which is fine; okay books can exist and thats not a crime.

what really grinds my gears is how much people love the books. i love people reading i think its great. however (for context i go to an engineering school; everyone there is a nerd and horny for science) when i was reading Project Hail Mary on campus i had no less than six people come up to me unprompted to tell me theyre so excited for me and that this was the best book they had ever read.

which makes me sad because its just ok. its not lifechanging. its better than The Martian. its better than a lot of books. but if thats the best book you have ever read i hope you find better ones.

it just makes me sad that this is the best people think it can be?? flat characters, empty stories, nonsensical science. science fiction can be so good and explore the frontiers of science and what it means to be human and do so many cool things but thats not what andy weir is doing.

i do think that in general love is a very powerful force and does change who you are (certainly has for me at least), so it makes a lot of sense to me that nikki changed so dramatically. i dont think that she is incapable of loving bear, but it would have taken a lot of time for that to grow so it happening so fast (and so unnaturally) is what made her basically develop a different personality (unbecome herself). anyhow everything is his fault in my humble opinion.

on to the things that bothered me because i love whining and complaining.

why does she move like that? whats going on here being in love does not make you an eldritch being.

also i do enjoy how the entire movie is bear just fucking nikki and all of his friends over it feels very correct. it makes sense and aligns with what i would expect of his brand of man. ill forgive the wish because he had no idea what was going to happen, but the rest of it feels right.

he makes decisions with the assumption that he can do no harm except they all cause harm. and by the time he realizes (or at least gets it through his skull) that his actions have consequences, it is too late. and nikki is left to deal with said consequences.