I finished it much sooner than I expected! The bibliography and all the footnotes at the end of the Kindle book faked me out. The actual book ended at about 75%.
I did find it a little anticlimactic. The title made it sound like Mars was the goal any day now. We’re years from going to Mars.
I powered through and just finished!
I certainly liked Stiff better but I learned a lot from this, even with some of its dated views and references.
The last chapter was really short and not well telegraphed as the last chapter.
I think that in 2010 they thought Mars would be closer than it is now… it was when the rovers were first being sent out.
I did get this feeling halfway through the last chapter like… is this the end?!
Yeah, that makes sense.
I am reading so slowly, too. I’m usually kind of fast at reading but my brain is full. I can’t squeeze much more in, it seems. I’ve had to do so much learning to learn how to be a public school teacher from my house while also making my kids become distance learners that my brain has turned to goo. I’ve only been reading lately at night, right when I go to bed, and I’m so damn exhausted that I can only read about two pages before my eyes are closing. I like the book, I do. But I don’t like life during a pandemic.
I read nonfiction slower to begin with but I realized I’ve also been reading this while Kiddo is falling asleep (he insists on needing company and has generally been dealing with this pandemic nonsense very well so I can give on this one thing). But I’ve also chewed through a bunch of steampunk romance novels as soon as they become available in my ereader so lack of time to read is not entirely the issue. Come to think of it, though, the romance novels I can read during times I know I’ll be interrupted but I don’t want to do that for the Mars book so that does limit things a bit.
Finished! And on the last day of the month.
I agree - the book didn’t end as I expected, it was kind of jarring. But I guess it is just different from the usual epilogues you would expect.
I enjoyed the science anecdotes that were shared, and it encouraged me to look things up for more information ( for example, Felix and the stratosphere jump).
I would consider reading more of her books as this was my first exposure to her. Thanks for the recommendation and I look forward to next month’s read!