Mark Watney is a NASA astronaut currently on a mission to Mars. Whilst he and the rest of the crew are on the planet, a freak dust storm separates MarMark Watney is a NASA astronaut currently on a mission to Mars. Whilst he and the rest of the crew are on the planet, a freak dust storm separates Mark from the rest of the crew. A number of things combined lead the crew to believe that Mark has been killed and they escape the dangerous situation, leaving him behind.
But Mark didn’t die. And now he’s stranded alone on the red planet. There’s any number of things that could go wrong. The Oxygenator could break down, leaving him to suffocate. The Water Reclaimer could break down, leaving him to die of thirst. The Habitat could be breached in which case that’ll just make him explode. If none of those things happen�.well Mark only has enough food to last him a certain amount of time. The next mission to Mars won’t arrive for years, well past the time Mark’s food will have run out.
But then there’s the really fun part�..no one on Earth knows that he’s alive. And he has no way to tell them.
I’d been hearing a lot about this book lately. Science fiction isn’t usually my thing but this sounded really interesting and in a way, quite plausible. There was something about the horror of it that appealed to me. The idea of being the only person on another planet, unable to contact Earth and with everyone thinking that you were dead�..it was just going to make for a good story.
Mark is smart. There’s no way around that � he does work for NASA after all, so he has to be a brain. And luckily for Mark, he happens to be the perfect combination of things that lends him the best chance of surviving on Mars. In order to streamline the mission and the weight of the crafts that take them to the planet, each of the team members play multiple roles. Mark is the team’s engineer and also a botanist so…within days he’s figured out how to grow potatoes on Mars � a lot of potatoes. He knows that the meal packs he has left aren’t going to be anywhere near enough to last him until the next mission to Mars arrives in something like four years time. And so he grows potatoes to supplement his diet, adding carbs to the vitamins he’ll already have in the form of pills of which he has plenty. He has enough water, so long as the Water Reclaimer doesn’t break down and if he can keep the Habitat (the “Hab�) secure, he’ll be fine. The only problem is, no one knows that he’s alive, the Hab has no communication equipment and when the next mission to Mars lands on the planet it’ll be 3000kms away.
Originally the author had trouble selling this manuscript and so he posted it online for free, for people to read. By request, he also made a Kindle version and sold it for 0.99c, the minimum price you can set. It became a hit and publishers obviously realised what they had missed, snapping it up and it’s become a worldwide bestseller. The film rights have also been sold and the movie, with Matt Damon playing Mark Watney will be out in the later half of this year. You can tell reading it that it really does have the potential to make a great movie, if well done. A lot of it focuses on Mark being alone, figuring things out and the book seems to work in a bit of a pattern: Mark stuffs something up or something goes wrong and he needs to figure out how to fix it/get out of it/etc. The first thing that goes wrong obviously is Mark being left behind, for reasons that are really no one’s fault, just a bad combination of events. He begins to keep a diary, presumably in the beginning, for whoever is able to rescue his body, years in the future. But then he decides that he might as well make the best go of it, begins growing potatoes and trying to figure out other ways in which he might be able to survive. He’s incredibly good at problem solving and it helps that he has the skills to make things, fix things, alter things, etc. All of the things Mark has to do he usually accomplishes with almost ridiculous ease and even though there are often setbacks, I never really felt like there was a chance that Mark wouldn’t be able to fix it.
The science in this book is obviously heavily researched and it’s incredibly detailed. I don’t have a science brain so some of it went over my head (ok more than some) but I appreciated the effort that the author had obviously gone to in order to make his story as authentic as possible. For some people the pages about making water or calculating whatever might get a bit dry but they’re broken up and balanced by Mark’s humour, which is kind of teenage nerd boy.
As well as Mark’s point of view, we also get the points of view of various people who work at NASA as they realise what has unfolded via satellite photos. Weir does a great job of building the tension as he teases to the reader the various ways Mark could perhaps be rescued before smashing them to pieces and starting over again. This is a clever and enjoyable story and I’m looking forward to seeing the movie and how they adapt it to the big screen....more
It has been seven years since Marjan Aminpour fled Iran with her two younger sisters, just before the revolution broke out. They at first made their hIt has been seven years since Marjan Aminpour fled Iran with her two younger sisters, just before the revolution broke out. They at first made their home in London but now they’ve come to Ballinacroagh in County Mayo, Ireland to start all over again. They take over the lease of a long abandoned pastry shop and open a Persian restaurant. Soon the exotic smells are wafting through the tiny village. The Babylon Cafe is open for business.
But the three sisters are not immediately welcomed by everyone. They’re used to much plainer food and at first the new cafe is regarded with suspicion. Slowly however, the enticing smells invite people past the door to sample the wares. There’s a notable exception � Ballinacroagh’s property mogul Thomas McGuire. He already owns the pubs and isn’t too pleased about a new eating establishment opening up right next door to one of his businesses, especially as he’s had plans for that old pastry shop for years. He makes it no secret that he doesn’t want the Aminpour sisters in the town and wants to drive the foreigners out.
Despite the hostility that comes from Thomas McGuire, the sisters do find a band of support to welcome them and frequent their cafe, giving them hope for the future. However it isn’t long before one of them believes her dreadful past is catching up to her. They’ve already had to run twice. All they want is the chance to have a safe and happy home in Ireland.
A couple of months ago I came across an article that lamented the death of author Marsha Mehran. I hadn’t heard of her but I was intrigued so I clicked on it and read through about her life. Her family fled Iran and lived in several places including South America, the United States, Australia and later on Mehran herself lived in Ireland. Her books seemed well received and interesting so I checked my local library and this one, the first of two Babylon Cafe books, was available so I put in a request.
When I first started reading, I think I forgot when it was set and I found myself being surprised at the immediate hostility from a lot of the local residents, just upon smelling the food and the spices as Marjan began to set up her kitchen for the first day of service. Then I remembered � this is probably in the mid 80s (the sisters fled Iran just prior to the revolution so 1978 or 79) and it’s seven years before they come to Ireland. Ireland is a predominantly Catholic country and Mayo is on the west coast, far removed from Dublin. It’s probably likely that there wasn’t a lot of diversity that had made it’s way to the tiny villages in that particular area. Persian cuisine probably would’ve been a very alien idea and time was probably required for people to decide to try it. On the first day, the sisters get no customers to their cafe.
In a way, this book is like a Persian-influenced Sarah Addison Allen. I’ve read all of Addison Allen’s books and there are several which revolve around characters that can inject power and emotions into food. Marjan seems to possess a similar sort of quality and she applies cultural inspiration and tradition into her dishes, using certain ingredients and spices for mood. As the oldest sister, she is practical and level-headed. I think she’s had to be, in order to get them this far. It was Marjan that arranged their escape and then supported the family by working in restaurants and then orchestrated their move to Ireland when they felt their safety was threatened living in London. Middle sister Bahar is nervy and frightened, not particularly positive about this move. A former nurse, she will be working in the cafe as well now and the reactions of some of the local people seem to hit Bahar the hardest. She’s very timid, for reasons which are revealed quite late in the story and I feel as though Bahar has perhaps a lot of pent up guilt and sadness still within her as well. Youngest sister Layla is still in high school and when she sets eyes on Malachy McGuire she becomes smitten immediately. Malachy is the younger son of Thomas McGuire and he’s furious when he finds out that his son is equally smitten by Layla.
Although I did really enjoy reading about the three women and their journey, I did find the magical realism stuff a touch heavy handed. It just felt a little bit too overdone, like it was trying a little too hard to inject something special into each of the three women. I really appreciated having a recipe to kick off each chapter though, something that Marjan would be cooking during that part of the book. I don’t know much about Persian food so it was wonderful to have that included and be better able to picture what the dish might look, smell and taste like. I was really interested in their past in Iran and appreciated the way in which it was told, in little trickles without too much grisly detail. In this case, less was definitely more and the author painted a very good picture of the fear that gripped Marjan and how she knew they had to get out.
Despite the magical realism being a bit too magical for me a times I still enjoyed this book a lot and I would definitely like to read the second book, Rosewater & Soda Bread and see what happens next to the 3 sisters....more
In the grand scheme of things, I’m a recent convert to AFL. I grew up in northern NSW where it wasn’t really a thing. There rugby league mostly ruled In the grand scheme of things, I’m a recent convert to AFL. I grew up in northern NSW where it wasn’t really a thing. There rugby league mostly ruled the boys that played sport but to be honest, even that wasn’t a huge deal. Then I moved to Victoria, the home of the AFL in 2006 and thought that I’d better sort myself out. Having been born in Sydney, it was a no brainer � I was of course going to follow the Sydney Swans. They were also the winners of the 2005 Grand Final, their first in 70+ years. That success had helped begin putting AFL a little more prominently on the map in NSW. They made the Grand Final again in 2006 and lost. A one point agonising loss. By then I was hooked on my new loves and in 2012 when they made the Grand Final again and won, I may have been crying when the siren sounded. Maybe. They also made the Grand Final last year but to be honest, the less said about that the better.
So when I heard about this book late last year I really wanted to read it, simply because I haven’t read too many books centered around AFL (although there are a few out there) and I was curious. It also ties in very neatly with one of my challenges, the Eclectic Reader Challenge, which has a category of sports. I didn’t want to find a biography or memoir because I figured there’d be lots of those, instead I wanted to try and find something a bit different. I don’t read much (ok, any) sports fiction really. I’m not even aware of how much is out there and given this was Australian as well, about a game that’s very much a part of the country’s culture in many places, it seemed a great choice.
What is intriguing about this book is also in a way, it’s greatest weakness. It chooses a lot of points of view and some of them are very interesting and ones you might not always consider when thinking about AFL, such as the umpire and the medic. As well as those, there’s the rookie, the has-been, the coach under pressure, etc. Such a wide array of points of view in some ways, gives a really big picture and I especially liked the chapter from the point of view of the mother of one of the rookies. However, the book also skips forward a lot, beginning with pre-season and then jumping several weeks at a time in order to conclude at the Big Dance, aka the Grand Final. Because of this, you don’t really get an in depth picture of the season and none of the characters particularly end up fleshed out as well as I would’ve liked. There are glimpses but just when you’re getting into a chapter and a character, it ends and the focus is on someone new. It leaves things hanging at times � results, on-field incidents etc which are cleared up in a brief sentence later on but in a way that somehow seems to lessen the impact on the reader. Because I’m interested in the sport, I wanted to get to know the team and experience their season with them. Instead huge chunks of it are missing which does make it difficult to really connect with anyone.
Game Day was an interesting read and I did enjoy it despite a few frustrations with it that it didn’t delve deep enough into the components of the game and those that are involved. I appreciated some of the more unusual points of view but there were jumps in time that made the story a bit jerky and not quite as smooth as it could’ve been. It was good to see some Australian fiction tackling one of our premier sports but I think the opportunity was there to go deeper, especially into player behaviour....more
Loading...
