Out of the Box Blogs

The Martian by Andy Weir

This book is amazing! There is so much I feel like I want to talk about, but I figure I should just give it to you straight. Why did I love The Martian? Because it did what great SicFi books do, it combined that little bit of reality in science with fiction to create a blockbuster story. I could see Mark (the main character that is stuck on Mars) as a real person, this is how the people in my life actually talk, and I loved the interaction between him and NASA and his fellow characters. I’ll even give you an example, when Mark is emailing one of his fellow astronauts he says: Frankly, I suspect you’re a super-villain. You’re a chemist, you have a German accent, you had a base on Mars…what more can there be?  Great stuff! I also enjoyed some of the secondary characters, like Venkat, Mindy, Teddy, Mitch, Martinez, Johanssen, the list could go on and on. I found them to be interesting “full” characters that I looked forward to reading about. I also loved that the book was about a Mars mission, which is what the space program is about right now, and had a lot of solid technical facts, yet still held true to the futuristic scifi genre that I love. I laughed, worried, fought, and was generally consumed by this book. It’s a worthy read.

As a side note, I don’t know anything about Andy Weir, I believe that authors books should speak for them not their background or schooling or how old they are, so I don’t like to read bio’s. It’s their business not mine. But from this book I gather that Andy has some scientific background so when I noticed that the second highest rating on goodreads for this book is a 5 star rating from Wil Wheaton, the actual Wil Wheaton (you know who I’m talking about) I fangirled a little for him. That’s awesome for a scifi writer. And if he’s a nerd? Even better! Good for you Andy Weir!!

As with most of life’s problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation. I can’t help myself, I’m going to be quoting this book for weeks! I loved this book!!!!

Books, Out of the Box Blogs

So Many Books….

It all started out so innocently, netgalley actually gave me a book that I requested Bear Meets Girl by Shelly Laurenston. I always found her to be a fun read, not scientific debate winning, but fun. This is the weird part, somehow I snowballed and ended up with a list of books. Not just one or two but five all at the same time. You see I like to have a goal, take The Martian by Andy Weir, haven’t read it yet but promised myself it will happen before October. So it must. These kind of crazy goals is how one ends up spending all night awake reading. Here is my current list of books that I am “involved with” right now.

  1. The Martian by Andy Weir
  2. Queen of Shadows by Sarah Maas
  3. Sins of the Father by Anthony Vicino
  4. Lightness by C.A. Higgins
  5. Bear Meets Girl by Shelly Laurenston

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Books, Out of the Box Blogs, Reviews

Parallel by Anthony Vicino

I love when I find a new indie author. It is a wild wild world out there for these guys and as a reader I must confess I can count on my hand how many I loyally follow. And I loyally follow quite a few published authors. So most of the time I don’t even review them, unless I consider it a blockbuster. But this book, we need words. You see I really liked it, well 95% of it, and that is making me crazy! In fact there were parts I want to quote, like in Chapter 5 when we are in Hari’s POV and you read Consequently, years later, if anybody were to ask what Hari had been thinking the precise moment he fired the Key, and ripped a hole in the fabric of space and time, they would likely be surprised to find him making resolutions to spend more time in the gym. Are you thinking what I’m thinking!?! I know, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy brilliance people! But I didn’t feel in any way the writer was trying to copy this story, just understood my twisted humor and fed into it. So why am I writing on my blog and my scifi chat rooms about what I didn’t like? A character did something that I think is fundamentally wrong for her. UGH!!! I. JUST. CAN’T. LET. IT GO. Get the novella, it’s $0.99 and read it! If you do and get that feeling as well, let’s talk about it. If you don’t maybe it’s just me…Somebody give me some feedback!