Book of the Month Chat!

[Maude, Book Boss]

A thread of talking points we might not have covered or want to expand upon!

[Andre]

We went over it a bit during the last stream, but I was curious what people's thoughts are on Grace's scientific explanations on what he was doing all the time.

The pros are that it helped establish Grace's background and has some plot relevance in that Grace had amnesia. This especially makes sense early on in the story and is helpful to most readers/listeners.

However, the main con to me was that it happened so frequently, it disrupted the pacing of the book and undermined the drama much of the time. Even late into the book when there were so many interesting issues arising and Grace got his memory back, the story would come to a temporary halt so that he could back to teaching. I found it took me out of the moment.

[Nick]

This part of the book was one of the reasons I loved it so much. Weir can make science so readable and understandable and it doesn't come across as teaching or like reading a textbook. I fell really smart reading his books because I can understand these complex science ideas. His other book, The Martian, was very similar in this aspect. I don't think the science explanations take away from the plot at all either, they always felt natural to the story to me.