Makes sense. The book was really good and had a lot of the same energy that The Martian did. Weir very clearly grew up on Whedon/Tarantino and the constant self-quipping lines up with that. But, at its core, it is competency porn driven by a refusal to fail. The Martian was about Wattney’s personal survival whereas PHM is more about the survival of a species. Of course it is going to be good.

That said: never read Artemis. That ALSO makes it very clear that Weir grew up on Tarantino an Whedon and why it is probably only a matter of time until “nobody could have seen this coming”. Jesus fucking christ.

Wait, what’s the deal with Jim Butcher?

He has always tended to spend multiple pages lingering on the bodies of any female character in his novels (… and I am intentionally not going to think about how old whatsherface was in Codex Alera) and they almost always have very “porn star” bodies. This is explained by Harry being a self-admitted chauvinist as though that is a good thing.

For years, the big “what the fuck” bits were Lara Raithe (who is literally a sex vampire so she kinda gets a pass) and… one of Harry’s best friend’s daughters (Molly) who literally stripped naked and tried to seduce Harry at least once. But his true love was his cop friend who was very clearly Butcher’s wife.

Then Butcher got divorced. Then the cop friend got got. Then we continued to get stories about how Molly is possessed by a primal energy and almost fucks someone to death. And quite a bit of text that she still wants to bang Harry and how it might even be HIS responsibility because of the primal energy he is possessed by. Then Harry is randomly betrothed to the porn vampire but its cool because they are into each other.

And… people with connections to the publishing/convention world can very much tell you that it is barely even an open secret who Lara Raithe was “inspired” by. And it is NOT mutual and has caused a fair number of headaches for folk over the years. Which then raises the question… if Karrin was his wife and Lara is <REDACTED> then who is Molly?

I gotta be honest, that just sounds like a lot of very boring drama.

If you can get passed the weird shit, the books are pretty good, but yea a lot of the stuff in said books, are just pointless.

I was referring to the personal drama, not the books. I’ve listened to several during road trips and have been fully entertained; my wife is also a big fan overall, and we even have a plan for me to cosplay as Harry; the only inaccuracy is that I’m only 6’5".