The last book I finished might've been The Bitcoin Standard or Popper's "Digital Gold". Focusing on nonfiction and narrowing to mostly just bitcoin books is likely a huge part of my nonexistent reading pace.
Aside from being fiction, I wonder if "Hail Mary" being told in the first person also helped combat my bad attention span. Third person: you're being told what's happening. First person, you're inside someone's thoughts and part of your brain receives it as if it was happening to you ("Ouch, that hurt!" vs "he burned his finger").
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Quick review:
"Hail Mary" is pretty engaging (good job starting *in medias res*) with chapter length tailored to short attention spans (🙋♂️). Never gets to "omg I can't put this down" intensity but obv kept me hooked enough to enjoy coming back to it each day.
As is usual with Andy Weir, real-world science is baked into the story's bones. Though as it gets more speculative, it can seem a bit disappointingly simplistic. Something like the movie "Arrival" spends all of its focus on solving ONE really complex problem, but Weir's protagonist too easily overcomes what should be a number of near-impossible barriers.
I forgot that Weir is just never as funny as he thinks he is, or perhaps more favorably: his characters have a pretty lame, predictable 4-out-of-10 sense of humor. His protagonists also never talk or think like a normal person and the "it's 'cause I'm a super science nerd" excuse can only take him so far.
But the story is well told, pretty cool and interesting from a sci-fi perspective, moves fast, and never gets boring. The protagonist isn't as annoying as I'm making him sound and he gets a lot more accessible (and even funny!) after his disorienting beginning.
Critiquer gotta critique, but I really enjoyed it.
Recommended for sci-fi nerds who can ease up a bit and take in a nerdy-but-not-super-nerdy story.
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*(yes, that's Japanese text; huge Japanese community here)
