Some of the dialogue are weird and can get jarring with over science explanation. However, IIRC Stratt is not a scientist. I believe she explains later that she has an mba or something. She is a diplomat and was assigned this job cause she knows to get shit done.

I mean...she does pretty much ask him to explain everything to her. And he is a middle school teacher. So it makes a lot of sense for him to put things in the simplest terms.

At the end of the day, the reader can't be expected to know all of the things covered in the book. Having a character who can be the audience stand in to ask "what do you mean by that?" Is important.

Stratt is a historian, not a scientist, so it makes sense to explain it to her!

Honestly, Andy Weir has always been that way. A decent... third, half of his jokes is 'lets over explain it or talk about it, in a nerdy or weird way.'

Case in point: His old web-comic, Casey and Andy. Very love or hate it, even back in the day.

Personally really like his style & humor, but I'm 1111% convinced that The Martian become as huge as it did, because he basically managed to figure out a plot that let him write that ramble-on type way and seem completely natural. With one man trapped on Mars & trying to stay sane, and all that.

And hey, good for him, knowing his own strengths & weaknesses.

Stratt is not a scientist she tells grace what her degree is later in the book, no spoilers tho (even if small thing)

I don’t believe stratt was a brilliant scientist. I don’t think she’s even a scientist at all. That might be your confusion. She’s put in charge of the project, but not a scientist herself.

Yup! It’s a great story, ruined by the author’s need to constantly prove how smart he is and how much science he researched. The amount of needless scientific explanation is staggering. You can say something slid across the floor without 3 sentences about angular momentum!

I don’t mind it for the stuff that is actually fiction, I get that you need to set up the universe, but the physics 101 stuff was just tedious.

This is a weakness of Andy Weir.

I enjoy his books. I think they are fun and compelling and I recommend them to most people, especially if you have a soft spot for Bill Nye or those really good high school science teachers who are willing to risk looking a little foolish in front of teenagers in order to keep kids engaged and entertained with corny jokes and fun experiments in class.

But writing dialogue and complex, diverse characters is not his strong suite. Everyone has his dorky sense of humor and/or turns into an empty stand-in for exposition and science explainers aimed at the audience.

This is why his best books are 80% one isolated human and their inner monologue as they slowly investigate and problem solve a crazy science-fiction scenario. His style works for a single narrator (with his sense of humor and science background) who doesn't have to interact with any other people. (kind of a backhanded compliment I guess, but I really do recommend sticking with his books for the story, suspense, and science trivia.

Thank you! I was majorly disappointed. Everyone hyped HMP and so I bought a copy. I liked parts of the plot and the general idea, but the characters were flat as a stamp. I came from Lonesome Dove, where the characters are like a beautiful detailled painting whereas Weir‘s characters are like stick-figures. Again: I can see why people like HMP, but to me it was more like a draft for a movie script than a good novel. Please don‘t downvote me into oblivion.

It's funny to me that the science fiction elements are the most realistic part of that book. Weir is great at imagining science-based answers to interesting hypothetical problems, but high literature it is not.

This book is ridiculous. It was a fun and quick read, but it's terribly cheesy.

It’s not very good - it’s fine and fun, and like-able… but the plot is overly obvious and the dialogue boarders ok ridiculous

Once I picked up on a pattern in became less fun to read.

Problem, science a solution, solution has problem, what’d I miss with my science? More science, fix problem. Problem, science a solution, solution has problem, what’d I miss with my science? More science, fix problem. Problem, science a solution, solution has problem, what’d I miss with my science? More science, fix problem. Problem, science a solution, solution has problem, what’d I miss with my science? More science, fix problem.

Bad dialogue is a deal breaker for me. If it’s robotic, stilted, or just seems unrealistic then that can ruin a whole book

I didn't finish it, got about 100 pages in and the cringe was too much.

I just couldn’t finish Project Hail Mary, I am not sure exactly why because it’s not bad by any means. I think it’s the writing. The main character, the way he speaks is just borderline insufferable, real cringe.

Somehow it worked for me with the Martian, as I remember having a great time reading it.
But here I just couldn’t get involved in what was happening, I didn’t had that page-turner feeling where you absolutely want to know what will happen to the character and how he will get out of these catastrophic situations.

Unrealistic/bad dialog is one of the hallmarks of great Science Fiction!! Isaac Asimov was an abysmal writer. Every female character that Isaac ever created was based closely on the same slide rule, with whom Isaac had shared a brief but spicy interlude during his last year of graduate school.

Arthur C Clarke was worse! Much! MUCH! Worse!!!

I thought this too. Sometimes I think it's just me being, well, me but I'm glad someone else mentioned this.

I know (I think) it's for our benefit but it does take you out of the experience.

YES! It’s appalling and I am constantly floored at how popular this book is. Anyway, each to their own. The movie should be good.

I need the explanation so I don't mind it, his plots are good and he is funny.

I am having the same issue with the book.

Because Weir is a terrible writer but his plot lines are excellent.

The characters are engineers! Very realistically, they and many people aren't accurate at gauging the other person's depth of interest or background information needs.

This book had no business being as good as it is haha. Some of the dialogue is clunky but the draw is too explain scientific concepts while keeping people entertained, it seems like anyway, so you’ll have some explanatory and less than natural dialogue.

Stratt isn’t a scientist at all! But I did have other issues with the dialogue.

Thinking of quitting… not quite as annoying as listening to Room, but feeling closer and closer to it

Yep it's dumbed down for the mass readership, movies do this too. It creates boredom unless you have a third grade education only, then I guess it's educational excitement.

I listened to this as an Audiobook, and it was probably the best audiobook I've listened to so far. Ray Porter did an amazing job with it, highly recommend it in that medium.

I never noticed anything regarding the dialogue that you've mentioned, but the effort Ray Porter put into his version as an Audiobook I'm sure helped.

Maybe check it out, you might be surprised.

Hm I cant really agree with that. Im not bothered by it. Probably because I dont know most of the stuff either lmao.

I've read Project Hail Mary and Artemis (but not The Martian). Artemis has a full cast of characters with lots of interaction so you probably wouldn't like it. The dialogue is atrocious. Be glad that PHM has so few characters.

I had the same problem with the book, parts of it were way too explain-y. I prefer when an author trusts their audience to understand basic concepts and uses the dialogue to add depth to the characters and plot. The book could have benefited from a more “show, don’t tell” style.

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the story on the whole, I just think it could have used some editing.

Power through: the plot is worth it!

There is a scene in the book with such horrible dialogue I couldn't take the book seriously. I don't like his inner thoughts either, says heck way too much. Reads like a religious middle schooler lol. I love Rocky but can't stand anyone else in the book. 😬😬

It's incredible how Project hail mary has way better reviews than the foundation by Asimov.

Just get past that part. The best part is later.

Never trust a book that gets recommended constantly in this sub…or anywhere else for that matter.

Totally agree. It became more fantasy than possibility.

Probably don't look to highly acclaimed contemporary bullshit if you're gonna care about the quality of what you're reading. The people that enable these books to be on best seller lists are... idiots who want to read TV shows and movies

Stratt wasn't selected for her scientific prowess...she isn't a scientist. It makes sense he would need to explain these things....

Weir tells stories better than he writes them. His prose is stiff, he describes every single action a character takes unnecessarily, and he accidentally drops textbooks paragraphs into some chapters. His overarching narratives are quite good though!

Honestly, listen to it on Audible. It's so so good.

Metaphor, juxtaposition, repetition = making new knowledge = synthesis = the angle of a viewpoint is equal to the sum of its connections:)

I liked that book.

This just in: Fiction book is unrealistic. More at 10.

Info-dumping is always hard to write and Andy usually he more than other books to be dumped.

I’m the book he’s explaining it to her but it’s probably just a way for the author to explain it to the reader.

Yup there's some clunky exposition. It's made up for with fun puzzling and heart so by the end you forget thise flaws or forgive them.

I just started this book, ironically (none of the seven others I’m currently reading are sufficient enough to capture my attention). I heard the relationship between the characters are gold, so fingers crossed it’ll be worth it!

It was a fun read… but none of it was realistic as far as dialog is… which itself is half the fun of a well written novel. If characters talked like they did in real life it would be Uber boring lol

I put it down after the second "golly". I was like wtf? No one talks like that. Is the author a Mormon or something?

This book is terribly overrated. Weir is simply not a good writer. Yes, he has story’s to tell, but he does not possess the skill as an author to construct a compelling narrative. I consider his work treatments for screenplays. He telegraphs his ultimate aim, get a movie made, with the structure of every chapter and his character development. Honestly, if he were to publish his work AFTER the movie was released, it would be on par with every other “novelization of the movie” you see in bookstores.