Three Books- The Martian, Seveneves, When Worlds Colide
Posted: Sat May 23, 2015 5:29 pm
Three books about the same thing.
Long ago, When Worlds Collide was 1933's story about a planet slightly smaller than earth knocks earth out of orbit or destroys ift and several rockets filled with humans escape to colonize the new world. IT was made into a movie in 1951. IT was a typical Sci-Fi of the early half of the twentieth Century.
All of that was later reproduced in two films at the same time -- "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact. I have watched those two movies but found them fun but uninspired. I cringe at anything Tea Leoni now and I shudder at the thoughts of Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in space as joking fools makes me ill. The worst scenes in both of those two movies was the truly hemorrhoidal-inducing death of John Favreau reciting "Now I lay me down to sleep" which haunts my dreams and causes night . . . sell, let's not go there, please.
THE MARTIAN is a novel by Andy Weir, published a year or two ago that was made into a movie that will be out this summer - - look for THE MARTIAN in a theater near you - - and it is a survival film about an astronaut who is stranded at one of the first mars bases. The books wasn't bad but even me, that little boy with the erector set who became a chemical engineer, got tired of all the science.
I expect the movie to be very good because Matt Damon is going to the stranded astronaut becomes the very first inhabitant of Mars . Hence the name - THE MARTIAN. It is a story of survival against the thin, pink and red background of Mars with its lack of air.
First rumors were that Tom Cruise was going to be the Astronaut and I would have cheered for his death if that were the case. Sorry, I digress.
SEVENEVES - - what a name and 900 pages. I'm 225 pages into it and it's quite good. Not hard to read. Not like reading a technical manual. However, like all movies where mankind is threatened with extinction, it has its science.
THE STORY is that one day the moon fractures into seven large pieces and lots of tiny pieces. SO all the debris has the same center of gravity as the moon and the bits are quite spectacular to look at BUT BUT BUT BUT one astronomer realizes that all those pieces will eventually shatter each other and the subsequent meteors will rain down on the earth and burn everything. The sky will grow white with meteors and so hot, everything burns. All that in roughly two years and seven days. Quite explicitly twenty-four or twenty-five months. It's all over. SO rather than two or three rockets like WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, the countries of Earth send several hundred arklets into space to rendevous with the International Space Station and create and ARK.
Neal Stephenson deals with just how simpleminded that idea is and how much more work and effort it takes to create a livable colony in space that can survive and flourish until the Earth renews and the surface can be rebuilt.
SEVENEVES extends nearly 5,000 and then 10,000 years into the future to tell the story of the saving of mankind. I haven't got to the White Cloud of Death yet but the story is satisfying and a reasonably fast read. I did 200 pages just today.
In a week or so I will come back and update my feelings on SEVENEVES.
Long ago, When Worlds Collide was 1933's story about a planet slightly smaller than earth knocks earth out of orbit or destroys ift and several rockets filled with humans escape to colonize the new world. IT was made into a movie in 1951. IT was a typical Sci-Fi of the early half of the twentieth Century.
All of that was later reproduced in two films at the same time -- "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact. I have watched those two movies but found them fun but uninspired. I cringe at anything Tea Leoni now and I shudder at the thoughts of Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck in space as joking fools makes me ill. The worst scenes in both of those two movies was the truly hemorrhoidal-inducing death of John Favreau reciting "Now I lay me down to sleep" which haunts my dreams and causes night . . . sell, let's not go there, please.
THE MARTIAN is a novel by Andy Weir, published a year or two ago that was made into a movie that will be out this summer - - look for THE MARTIAN in a theater near you - - and it is a survival film about an astronaut who is stranded at one of the first mars bases. The books wasn't bad but even me, that little boy with the erector set who became a chemical engineer, got tired of all the science.
I expect the movie to be very good because Matt Damon is going to the stranded astronaut becomes the very first inhabitant of Mars . Hence the name - THE MARTIAN. It is a story of survival against the thin, pink and red background of Mars with its lack of air.
First rumors were that Tom Cruise was going to be the Astronaut and I would have cheered for his death if that were the case. Sorry, I digress.
SEVENEVES - - what a name and 900 pages. I'm 225 pages into it and it's quite good. Not hard to read. Not like reading a technical manual. However, like all movies where mankind is threatened with extinction, it has its science.
THE STORY is that one day the moon fractures into seven large pieces and lots of tiny pieces. SO all the debris has the same center of gravity as the moon and the bits are quite spectacular to look at BUT BUT BUT BUT one astronomer realizes that all those pieces will eventually shatter each other and the subsequent meteors will rain down on the earth and burn everything. The sky will grow white with meteors and so hot, everything burns. All that in roughly two years and seven days. Quite explicitly twenty-four or twenty-five months. It's all over. SO rather than two or three rockets like WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, the countries of Earth send several hundred arklets into space to rendevous with the International Space Station and create and ARK.
Neal Stephenson deals with just how simpleminded that idea is and how much more work and effort it takes to create a livable colony in space that can survive and flourish until the Earth renews and the surface can be rebuilt.
SEVENEVES extends nearly 5,000 and then 10,000 years into the future to tell the story of the saving of mankind. I haven't got to the White Cloud of Death yet but the story is satisfying and a reasonably fast read. I did 200 pages just today.
In a week or so I will come back and update my feelings on SEVENEVES.