So many favorable recommendations from so many directions, I had to read this before the movie came out and made spoilers too difficult to avoid. It was good. More should be said, but doesn't need to be. So let me get started.
Its like when you finish Harry Potter and are surprised that this is a mega-hit, because it is so simple it feels like you could have written it. And then, over time, you begin to realize just how difficult it must be to make such a good story, let alone one that gets this much praise.
The writing starts out raw, like the author himself can't believe he's really writing this, buts gains confidence right through to the end. I like that it ends with a conclusion, especially one so life affirming, so non-cynical.
The pop culture references felt like a module that just happened to be plugged in, it could just as easily have been any other module.
Much like Harry Potter, if not more so, almost anyone could read this book and gain something from it. Instant classic is something obvious to add to the marketing copy, and only time gets the final say on that, but sometimes, you just know at the time when something is a classic.
2015.10.10
Saw the movie this weekend past, and it was unsatisfying. They got 80-90% of the letter and the spirit of it up on the screen, but what they missed was crucial to getting what makes the book special. There was way too much Hollywood in here, that sort of frenetic lack of subtlety that proves how much Hollywood culture has no confidence in itself.
My least favorite thing is putting the conclusion of the story, that humanity will go to great trouble to rescue one of its own even when it makes no sense, right at the beginning of the movie. The whole book builds towards this point, and when its finally made you have been taking the journey with it. To put it at the beginning undercuts the message.
Its even more insulting that they needed to Hollywood-ize the ending, and have a dramatic action sequence at the end. And even more insulting to add a coda showing life back on Earth. But these are the sort of things you expect when Hollywood gets its ugly ham hands on a property. I didn't expect them to just unceremoniously push the point of the story out the airlock right from the start.
