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Books Moon Sci-Fi

Andy Weir, Author of 'The Martian,' Is Writing a Novel Set On the Moon (huffingtonpost.com) 73

Posted by Soulskill from the professional-lunacy dept.
MarkWhittington writes: Readers wondering where Andy Weir, whose book The Martian featured a NASA astronaut stranded on Mars, will take us next need wonder no longer. According to a story in the Huffington Post, Weir's next novel will feature a woman living in a city on the moon. The novel is due to be out in late 2016 or early 2017.

Weir, naturally, is cagey about plot details. But it's likely he will pay as strict attention to the science in his new story as he did in The Martian. There's no word yet about possible movie deal, but considering the success of The Martian, it's a safe bet someone will want to bring Weir's lunar adventure to the big screen.
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Andy Weir, Author of 'The Martian,' Is Writing a Novel Set On the Moon More

Andy Weir, Author of 'The Martian,' Is Writing a Novel Set On the Moon

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  • If they wanted a movie about a city on the moon... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Saturday December 19, 2015 @04:04PM (#51151259) Homepage

    Well, if they wanted a movie about a city on the moon they would have done the excellent "The Moon is a harsh mistress" instead of waiting for a new book that might or might not be good.
    The crazy thing is that while it seems that after all these years they will finally adapt the aforementioned Heinlein book to the big screen (Bryan Singer to direct), they are apparently changing what is probably the best sci-fi title ever, to "Uprising"...

    • Well, if they wanted a movie about a city on the moon they would have done the excellent "The Moon is a harsh mistress" ...

      Too late. 20th Century Fox is already working on a film adaption [wikipedia.org]. It is tentatively called "Uprising". Besides, there is no reason to have only one film about moon colonization. I will see both, as will many others. The scifi film market is huge. If you look at the biggest movies off all time [the-numbers.com], the list is dominated by scifi and fantasy.

    • Re:If they wanted a movie about a city on the moon (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Saturday December 19, 2015 @04:33PM (#51151371)

      Yes, but I'd like to see a modern take on what technology might actually be applicable in the near future - rather than future tech envisioned in 1966. This will likely be a movie for people like me who are just as interested in the science as the science-fiction. Even good science fiction doesn't always age as well as fans sometimes pretend it does. For instance, Childhood's End, while still an interesting story, certainly has to be read with a caveat about its age in mind, not to mention the paranormal focus, of which Clarke later seemed somewhat embarrassed about.

      Besides, the first Heinlein I read involved four unbelievably irritating protagonists, a flying car, and visiting the land of Oz (wtf?). Starship Troopers was decent, but nothing spectacular. I still can't figure out why everyone gushes over Heinlein. I've heard his earlier works were better, but at this point, I don't care enough to find out.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Ecuador ( 740021 )

        Interesting. I have read over 15 Heinlein novels, and yet I did not know what you were talking about! I had to look it up and, indeed, "The Number of the Beast" is one of the few I have not read (and one of the lowest rated apparently). Starship Troopers is also not one of my favorites, still good, but I enjoy others more. So, perhaps you should give "The Moon is a harsh mistress" a try, it is the Heinlein book most people prefer (unless you are specifically into time travel / paradoxes etc in which case yo

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by KGIII ( 973947 )

        If you go back and find some of the earlier Sci-Fi works then they sometimes had an extra section at the end where they explained the theories and had the maths to demonstrate the theories. I kind of like to split the genre mentally into two teams - hard and soft science fiction. If it's based on real science and actually takes the time to make note of it then it mostly falls into the hard category. Else, it's soft science fiction and that has its place but the two are not the same to me.

        Fantasy does, of co

        • Fantasy does, of course, have its place but that shouldn't be mixed in with science fiction.

          Trouble is the line is blurry. Some people consider space opera to be scifi, others consider it to be fantasy. No matter where you draw the line, people will say you got it wrong. Or, you group the whole lot under speculative fiction.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by KGIII ( 973947 )

            I agree entirely and think that we can just go by what the authors seem to prefer. For instance, using Piers Anthony, he calls his Xanth works Fantasy and his earlier works are Science Fiction. It won't be perfect but it *might* be better. There are going to be blurred lines and whatnot but unicorns, elves, and magic are not, generally, science.

            Maybe we need a genre called "Science Fantasy" for the space opera type stuff. Where the "science" isn't science at all but is made up stuff that has no science behi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by trawg ( 308495 )

        Yes, but I'd like to see a modern take on what technology might actually be applicable in the near future - rather than future tech envisioned in 1966

        Not that I disagree, but I just find it interesting to note that 1966 is a lot closer to when we as a species were last on the moon compared to now with all our new-fangled modern technology.

        • Interestingly enough, the same thought also crossed my mind after I wrote that.

          Of course, we could certainly re-visit the moon if we had the political will to do so... meaning if we wanted to spend the money and accept the risks. It's not a question of capabilities, really. Here's hoping NASA puts their budget to good use in the next few years and gets the SLS ready for deployment.

      • Starship Troopers was the closest Heinlein came to a Randian manifesto. "The cat who walks through walls" was my first Heinlein novel, and thoroughly light hearted. It could happen in 1960 with minor changes, if you ignore the expanded universe in which it takes place.

        The short stories are hit and miss, but the hits are worth the misses.

        "The moon" is more grounded and serious, and more typical of Heinlein.

        Just don't accidentally read the diary of the redhead, or "Time Enough for Love", without having 4 or 5

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Toad-san ( 64810 )

        Heinlein? Get away from the teenage novels, skip the later incestuous ones, and scratch your eyes out before watching the Starship Troopers movie. But definitely, MOST definitely, read "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress."

        • Well, I guess I might be willing to give it one more shot, given that people keep recommending that particular story. It might be fun to compare and contrast it against Weir's new story.

          I'll try to avoid disliking Heinlein even more out of spite, having just received a "Troll" rating from someone who apparently can't stand the fact that not everyone loves him. Gosh, how dare I have an opinion about what I like to read! Unbelievable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Toad-san ( 64810 )

      Yep, it'll never get better than "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress."

      Although I shudder to think of all the very bad Russianesque accents :-)

  • If they're going to keep it accurate, they're going to have women whose breasts are larger in the lower gravity (fluid doesn't accumulate so much in the lower body) and don't have to deal with Cooper's Droop. So for once they can have big-breasted women in a sci-fi. Sub-plot: Man meets woman on the moon, they get it on, get married, then come to earth and not only do her breasts shrink and sag, but with normal G sex is too much work to be worth it, so they re-up for another tour of duty at Luna City (yes, it's a bit of a rip-off of a sci-fi story about a Lunar couple who can't wait to get back to earth, then find out it isn't what they remembered it like)..

  • *snicker*

    Will he promise to at least learn the difference between a mole and a liter this time?

    • Agreed. His knowledge of the gas laws and Bernoulli's equation could also use some polishing.

      I'll ignore some handwaving for the general precept of the book, as I can't think of another means to strand a single person on Mars except for some sort of slowly escalating event that forces an abort. Never mind that the dynamic pressure on Mars is minimal even in the worst of sandstorms and would never topple the MAV.

      But he seemed too willing to handle a 14.7 psi pressure differential (i.e. over a ton of force on

  • Andy Weir is wiping his ass (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    slashdot will continue reporting on this important nerd news all night if necessary!

  • Good for him. What's the Martian? Is he on Star Wars The Never-Ending Saga? I used to watch My Favorite Martian starting Bill Bixby in TV as a kid. And of course, there's Marvin the Martian on Loony Tunes.

  • What? (Score:3, Informative)

    by edittard ( 805475 ) on Saturday December 19, 2015 @05:13PM (#51151473)

    US Primaries, all the ISIS shit, sabre rattling over the Spratly Islands and JIMMY HILL died.

    Bugger that. Some dude wrote a book set somewhere other than Earth, and now he's writing ANOTHER ONE? OMGeleventyhundredandone!!!!!!

  • Didn't he write most of The Martian as a web-collaboration, where he'd write a chapter or two, let people savage it on the web for a while, then rewrite based on their criticisms?

  • Sensible (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday December 19, 2015 @06:33PM (#51151685)

    It's sensible, it's much cheaper to get the filming equipment to the Moon instead of Mars.

  • The movie was better than the book. This guy is like the second-coming of Michael Crichton -- on steroids. The level of detailed minutia he creates is entertaining at first but quickly becomes tiresome. The only reason "The Martian" is remotely decent as a book is because the story he thought up was actually good. The microscope level of detail was absolutely unnecessary.

    I think the guy actually has a decent ability to create and tell a story. But he doesn't need to prove the feasibility of his stories

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by matija ( 27014 )

      I am the guy who thinks Science Fiction should have science with it, not just flimsy background for a big bada-boom. You must be the other guy.

      The Martian has been described as "a love letter to science", and I loved how it paid attention to details, because getting the details wrong is dangerous when your margin of survival is thin. I loved how Watney paid a big price when he got the details wrong.

      I liked Star Wars and Star Trek as much as the next guy (the earlier ones more than the later ones), but I LOV

  • Reddit AMA (Score:3)

    by vossman77 ( 300689 ) on Saturday December 19, 2015 @11:06PM (#51152385) Homepage

    Andy must have had a shower epiphany.

    From his Reddit AMA 2 months ago. /u/rosweldrmr asks:

    I read something over a year ago from you that said you were doing a lot of research for your next book, which was supposed to be another hard science book. Later you said your pitch about a Moon Base was shot down, so you moved on to Zhek. I know Zhek will probably be a series, so there's not a lot of hope, but do you think you'd get to write the Moon Base hard scifi someday? And would you be willing to speak a little about what your idea was? I am desperate for more hard science fiction and I think it's a shame about the Moon Base idea, I thought it sounded really interesting (and you did all that research!).

    Andy Weir's response:

    The publisher loved the Moon Base idea's setting. They just didn't like the story. Some day I'll have a shower epiphany and have an idea for a better story and then I'll be ready to write it.

  • If it's like the Martian story, it has to begin with a bullshit wind storm that can't happen, yet must happen for the entire rest of the story to happen.

    So there will be some massive WIND STORM on the moon and the entire thing will get blown out of Earth's orbit and go careening across space encountering shaded of beige, gray, and brown, and lots of hostile aliens. Oh wait. That's been done.

    Um

    Well fuck it all Andy, I guess you are out of luck. How about a book about dryer lint? I bet you can MacGuyver

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