Play Book Tag discussion

Ryland Grace wakes up with tubes and electrical leads attached to his body without any awareness of his identity, location, or the circumstances behind his current situation. He shortly discovers that he is on a space ship along with two desicated dead members of a three-person crew. After a bit he remembers who is is, a middle-school science teacher, who happens to be 12 lights years from Earth in the Tau Ceti system. As he regains his memory, the reader learns through his recollections that he is on a suicide mission to discover why Tau Ceti is not losing energy like many stars are in the Milky Way. If he can discover the reason, this information can be sent back to Earth to halt an extinction event. He is on a suicide mission because he only carries enough fuel for a one way trip. Like the author's The Martian, he is alone...until the metaphorical "knock on the door" occurs.

I realize that my review is a bit shorter than usual; however, I don't want to reveal is visitor. Essentially, this book is one of friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice. I found myself rooting for the primary characters in this book as successes were achieved and become despondent after failures. Although I'm a science geek, some may be turned off by the amount of science in this book. However, not being a scientist himself, Andy Weir take efforts to explain it in undertandable, often humerous ways. If you read and enjoyed The Martian you will find this book equally satisfying.

John wrote: "Ryland Grace wakes up with tubes and electrical leads attached to his body without any awareness of his identity, location, or the circumstances behind his current situation. He shortly discovers t..."

Yes, to keeping it short in this instance and for why you did!

I would like to note that this book has been up for discussion in at least one other group I am in and there are people who like this book who don't normally care for scifi, so the all of the science explained isn't as daunting as it might seem, but this is no space opera, either :)

This was 4 stars for me, and I am very happy to have read it :)

I have avoided this book because it is listed as science fiction. As I read your review, I thought about an older book that many avoided but which won numerous awards. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. She is a noted scientist, won many awards and then wrote this book and another. But this one is a 5+ stars for me. I enjoyed your review and will probably try the book now. Thanks a bunch. peace, janz

Again, this book contains themes of courage, sacrifice, and friendship.

I loved this book also, especially the surprise in the 2nd half. There is already a movie in the works with Ryan Gosling. As in The Martian, the science is interwoven into the story. Also, early on, the narrator says something about how he uses mild epithets, maybe because of being a teacher. So there won't be the same problem as with The Martian of the book being too full of swearing for younger readers.

Peacejanz wrote: "I have avoided this book because it is listed as science fiction. As I read your review, I thought about an older book that many avoided but which won numerous awards. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Rus..."

I disliked The Sparrow despite the brilliant writing, but really liked the sequel to it. Those are literary fiction scifi books. Scifi books have a large spectrum of styles. I think both these two books and two of the ones by Andy Weir are more likely to appeal to non-scifi readers than space operas and definitely more than hard core scifi. Andy Weir is not a literary fiction writer, but I find him best in his survival stories (The Martian and this one).