Welcome to the Buddy Book Club – we have a light-hearted comedic podcast that covers a variety of books. Artemis by Andy Weir David Benioff is a 2017 science fiction book by Andy Weir (of The Martian and Project Hail Mary fame). Artemis takes place about 60 years in the future following Jazz a smuggler that lives on the moon. A futuristic, science backed thriller. This book was very similar to Andy Weirs other books (which we’ve read as well), but this one definitely is not as well received. 

We did a full breakdown of Artemis on our podcast episode. The episode had the Buddies discussing ‘Ocean 11 crews coming together’, space vacations, uncomfortable sex puns, the ‘moral’ economics of smuggling, and much more in this cathartic episode 6. So check it out if you’re interested.

Our book club questions try to be a little more outside the box/comedic than your typical book club questions – hopefully you enjoy them.

Book Club Discussion Questions – Artemis by Andy Weir

-> Svoboda invents a reusable condom, which begs the question… why? Do condoms cost that much? The whole point of disposing of the condom is that you’re filled with guilt and shame, why would you ever need/want to meticulously clean it? Is this the worst futuristic invention ever?

I hope in 2080 they’ll have figured out something a bit better than a reusable condom. Plus, as Austin Powers said, only sailors use condoms.

-> What did you think of Jazz as a character? Everyone tells her she’s the most talented person, the smartest person, the best looking person, but she kinda of seems like the opposite of a likeable person? Do you agree or disagree?

She’s the super talented person that just coasts by on her smarts and talent but doesn’t work hard. Not super likeable traits.

-> Would you pay $10k to vacation on the moon? We both agreed it’d take millions of dollars to be convinced to head up to the moon.

No alcohol, shitty food, 4-second internet lag, no hospital. Sounds like a nightmare vacation.

-> Jazz imports super flammable noise-canceling material to the cramped poor quarters. Seems like she’s putting everyone in danger for her personal needs. Why can’t she use her chemistry skills to create non-flammable noise canceling material?

Once again Jazz making selfish decisions and not being super smart or a character you want to root for.

-> Jazz claims she’s the best smuggler because she beats prices and doesn’t let drugs in. So that just means that someone else has to be bringing drugs in right and making way more money than her? Is she actually a good smuggler?

A smuggler with morals is going to not be great at their job.

-> There is a part in the book that is a ‘crew assembly scene’ straight out of movies like Ocean’s Eleven. We love these types of scenes in movies. Only problem for this one is that Jazz doesn’t explain the plan, just asks if they’re in. Seems like a bit anti-climatic, how would you have made this better?

Maybe explain why the crew is loyal to her or have Jazz give some details at least?

-> Through Jazz’s actions, she has created deadly chloroform that is pumped into the city’s air supply and likely going to kill thousands of people. Jazz takes the time out to tell Dale she forgives her for stealing her boyfriend 2 years ago. Who is worse the person that stole someone’s boyfriend 2 years ago or the person who is about to kill thousands of people? 

Jazz really is the worst.

-> Jazz describes her burn scars: “I looked like a leper or a hooker who gave hand jobs to lepers.” Funny or sick?

I chuckled at this one.

-> Jazz tells Lena (who can’t walk): “Step by step.” (as pointed out by Dman on our clip here). Is Jazz into dark comedy or completely oblivious?

Shameful Jazz, shameful.

-> Does this book over-glorify welding? It was almost written like welding was like composing jazz music. Are we just haters or does this book vastly overhype welding skills?

I get is a physically demanding job, but it’s not an art form.

-> Should Jazz have died at the end?

I think sacrificing herself at the end would have been a much better ending.

-> How did you grade this book? If you couldn’t tell from our questions, we had the graded pretty low. How many stars/Buddies are you giving it out of 5?

This would land in the 1-2 Buddy range for us.

-> Who would you cast in a movie version of this book?

We cast TV & Movies in our Make it a Movie section, check it out.

Welcome to the Buddy Book Club – we have a light-hearted comedic podcast that covers a variety of books. The Martian by Andy Weir, saw a meteoric rise from a self published blog to novel to movie staring Matt Damon. The book follows Mark Watney, an astronaut and botany/engineering extraordinaire, who finds himself abandon on Mars. Instead of cowering in the corner and doing all the drugs provided (which is what I would have done), he devises a improbable plan to survive and make it back to earth. You like science, math, and surviving the impossible, then this books for you. If you’re interested, you can check out our podcast on the book.

Our book club questions try to be a little more outside the box/comedic than your typical book club questions – hopefully you enjoy them.

Book Club Questions – The Martian by Andy Weir

-> What do you think would be the worst part of being stranded on Mars? The lack of food, the loneliness, the boredom?

It seems like Watney actually was pretty entertained with music and shows. I think the worst part would have been just how brutal communication was and how long it took to relay the simplest message. That would drive me literally insane.

-> Is Mark Watney the perfect person?

What are his flaws? He’s too forgiving, he’s negative for like 10 seconds and the back to his normal self? How is this man so positive all the time!

-> Knowing all the things Watney had to go through… Are you like us and taking the easy way out?

And by easy way out I mean taking a ton of drugs and binging tv shows.

-> Was the science in the book overwhelming at times or interesting throughout?

For us by the end it seemed to get a little bit repetitive (as Dman points out in this clip).

-> If you were one of the astronauts headed home would you turn around to save Mark Watney?

I would, but I probably wouldn’t go out of the way and go against NASAs wishes. I also don’t think Watney would want the astronauts all risking their lives to save him.

-> Did you think Teddy was being unreasonable or cowardly because he didn’t want to try the sling-shot mission?

Everyone calls Teddy a “coward” because he doesn’t want to risk the lives of 5 astronauts headed back to earth with a plan that hasn’t been tested and adds countless more risks. He just just took a risk sending a rocket into space without adequate preparation, and in exploded so I was on his side. If things failed it would have been all his fault.

-> What did you think of the cannibal suicide pack that the astronauts had?

If they weren’t able to acquire the food on the slingshot, then they’ll all immediately take suicide pills and die and the one astronaut would eat their dead corpses… uhh pretty crazy. Seemed to get brushed over. 

-> Did you enjoy the political elements going on back on earth? Do you think it would play out similarly if this same scenario played out for real?

I thought the political elements were fascinating, but I can’t image they would release as much information out to the general public.

-> Did you like how the book ended?

It seemed like the whole book was grounded in science, and then the end they kinda made it a super hero movie by planting bombs, punching holes in suits and risking everyone’s lives 10x over.

-> How do you think the book compared to the movie?

We’re fond of saying the book is better than the movie here at the BBC, but I actually liked the movie better.

Did we miss some questions? Reach out to us or check out our podcast.

The Buddies find themselves back in space, this time stranded on Mars in Andy Weir’s, The Martian. If you like science, trashing on disco, and journaling, this book is for you. If you like two guys who can barely read criticizing a widely popular book, well over their reading abilities, well then this podcast is for you. So join us as we talk suicide pacts, ‘working’ in the shower, and TI-89 calculator games.

Intro: (0:00-1:32)
Stock Up/Down (1:33-24:33)
Love/Hate (24:34-33:59)
Conclusion (34:00-36:22)

Next Book: HEIR TO THE EMPIRE by TIMOTHY ZAHN

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

club I’m Dylan here with my crewmate who
would never abandon me Keith what’s up
buddy never kid I’d go down with this
with this [ __ ] sorry my singing voice is
way off because it’s allergy season and
they are plaguing me right now these
damn allergies it just doesn’t make any
sense like why does God hate us I think
we’ve stalked down God before yeah it’s
really applicable here because it’s
beautiful out like Cape Cod we’ve been
dealing with winter it’s terrible like
you live in a vacation Community which
is wonderful except for the winter when
it’s just dreary and dismal and terrible
a lot of heroin usage yeah that’s true
it is Big heroin please thanks for the
thanks for the support but then it gets
beautiful you want to go outside and I’m
just like oh my God I can’t even
function outside can’t open the windows
can’t do anything back in Winter
whatever I’m not here to gripe because
here’s the Buddy book club we’re
breaking down some best sellers and this
week we’ll be discussing the Martian by
Andy Weir our third and final trip into
the Weavers I think because he doesn’t
have any other books and I mean fine
yeah for sure no final you’re putting
your space boot down yeah 100 well if
you’d like to recommend a book for us to
read or reach out to us about any past
episodes you can visit our website
buddybookclub.com or slide into our dams
on Twitter or Instagram the handle is
better book club podcast you can listen
to us wherever you go for a podcast so
please download And subscribe
Keith let’s just jump into this and
stock up Stockton everyone’s probably
seen the movie you got Matt Damon Kate
stock up the Martian what do you got
talk up Amazon oh the delivery service
or the forest no the delivery service
they want to do some ads you know we got
some ad spaces to sell yeah I go off the
cuff on some ad reads it’d be great I
would be I would be appropriate I
wouldn’t I wouldn’t swear I’d stick to
the copy for the most part so yeah hit
me up Jesus but they couldn’t send what
a couple of box of uh extra crispy
Cheez-Its and some protein bars up to
space like what are we doing here Oh you
mean like on the on the resupply yeah
the resupply they’re like we only have
like three months and like 50 people
working overtime on this what strap them
to a [ __ ] rocket and send it up there
what are we doing here it didn’t make
any sense to me I mean we’ve literally
been to space and landed people on the
moon using a [ __ ] TI and 89
calculator yeah is NASA terrible I mean
I’m gonna get to this later but like
stock down NASA stock down everything we
sent also in 1997 which is reference in
this book a thing there then nobody more
computing power and knowledge we have
this is supposed to take place in 2035
that’s 38 years later we can’t just
strap something to a rocket and send it
we’re really sending Crews on like
years-long voyages into space on these
ships we can’t just send off some food
with nothing manned on it it’s
embarrassing honestly I was I was
shocked by that stock down NASA stock up
Amazon if you give this to Jeffrey Bezos
he would have got it up there kid he’d
have done two-day delivery free of
charge that’s the part of the matter
tomorrow’s in two days I’m glad that you
stuffed this stock up and to stock down
in into one and I do have a question for
you that TI-89 Calculator that fueled
the Apollo flights did it have any of
the wonderful games that we had on ours
I can remember the drug one the drug one
was so good like a drug dealer game so
random but so amazing he was like oh you
jack up the price it was like no no
one’s buying anymore it was a great way
to learn economics honestly it really
was uh but there was like fall down I
remember that was big there was baseball
but the baseball is super easy but it
was also a good just like social aspect
because you’d get your calculator
because you had to get it for like
seventh grade math or whatever the case
was maybe it was ninth grade and you’d
have to find the smart person who like
already had the games yeah you could
like plug it in and pour it over it was
like trading Pokemon or something like
that so it was a nice little social
thing where like the Nerds were teaming
up with the jocks and the drama kids
because like everyone wanted to play it
was like I’m not gonna sit through math
without playing so it was just such a
great idea I forgot about that that’s a
good point didn’t really bring everyone
together my first stock up is uh you
know I’ve been doing this lately and
honestly if it comes to me I’m gonna do
it but uh the phrase uh too many cooks
in the kitchen spoil the broth because
what once NASA gets to communicate with
Watney they just start micromanaging
straight micro managed Vibes I hate it I
hated it and you know maybe I’m gonna
get fired for this but it’s kind of like
what we do with and whatever my
experience has been in Corporate America
where they’re like all right when you’re
charging time to your client if you’re
in the shower thinking about work that’s
work so charge time to the clients it’s
like I’m what like I’m yeah I might be
thinking about it but more of like
dreading the fact that I’m gonna have to
like start work but NASA does that with
the government’s budget your browsers as
a client by the way I didn’t know that
NASA comes in and they’re like all right
we have to justify the billions of
dollars the government’s getting us so
let’s just get 30 botanists to say that
what Watton is already doing is good or
give him some very slight suggestions
like wake up five minutes earlier it’s
like oh okay cool like what he’s got it
Mark Watney is a multi-talented man he’s
already showed you that he can figure
this [ __ ] out just give him a break
leave him alone all you’re doing is and
it goes for all micromanagers out there
all you’re doing is one pissing people
off and two making it so people can’t do
their work because they always have to
communicate back to you with what’s
happening just just give people some
free reign let them do it if they suck
you fire them if Watney fails he dies
but it’s his fault simple as that easy
peasy
yeah no I completely agree yeah get the
micromanagers out of there let uh let
them let them just work let them cook if
you will I would wonder how some
philosophers would think about this
problem in the sense of how much effort
and Manpower is going into saving Watney
oh yeah there’s so much money wasted so
yeah like whether that money how many
more lives could be saved on Earth if
that money was used differently pure
economics yeah and I do appreciate you
know the tone of the book itself which
is you know countries coming together
and like humans inherently want to help
each other which you can argue that fact
as well but I would be interested in
some like the old railroad whatever the
train coming in you can either save one
person or save three people kind of
thing what do you do because it kind of
is a philosophy argument in that sense
because I personally if I was watching
all this [ __ ] I’d be the pessimistic
person or whatever like you’re spend all
his money he’s probably even gonna die
anyways like go right go feed people
that are hungry also at the end of the
book he’s like reflecting he’s like yeah
then they spent hundreds of Millions on
me I’m like whoa whoa Millions Drive try
with a beak first of all inflation until
the 35 is high but just just taking off
on that spaceship that or whatever that
was on Mars planted there that is
hundreds of millions right there you
know that that’s how much that cost to
create that you know probably more than
that granted his knowledge of the stuff
that he learned on Mars would be useful
for sure but it set back the industry
because of all the stuff they’re using I
personally think Mark Watney came home
and like after a year serious alcohol
problem like maybe into some substances
with this the survivor’s guilt just
because he survived but at what cost
well it’s usually survivors got one
everyone else doesn’t survive though
yeah well I’m flipping it on its head
it’s when he survives and also then he’s
probably thinking I have to Now do some
miraculous [ __ ] because they spent all
these billions of dollars so just stay
at home and do nothing and so because
he’s all that pressure he just decides
to hit the bottle like extra heavy maybe
goes down to Cape Cod starts getting
into heroin
well this kind of ties right into it I
was gonna bring up the intro but you
could either do a year and a half worth
of eating potatoes plain and doing
science homework or pop a little that
morphine watch some TV maybe some
painkillers thrown in there I’m like
yeah give me that for a strong month and
die yeah that sounds better to me I
don’t know too too much no I would go
I’d go all in a bit I’m gonna survive
this is amazing I got this whole potato
thing planned one week later I’m more
female I am morphine addict I’m like
start you know I’m watching Three’s
Company disco on oh God yeah yeah oh I
would have a disco party with all these
drugs the fact that he wasn’t taking
more drugs was concerning to me he took
a sleeping pill and he was like oh I
woke up a little late the next day not
taking that again I’m like what else you
have to do bro like I’ll be popping
those like their Advil yeah painkillers
just melting into the couch on the hab
like smoking we’re not drug addicts if
those are listening no I’m saying in
this survival situation I mean there’s a
reason why in Vietnam all you know 15 of
American GIS were on heroin it was
terrible there and they said you know
this is a way to get out of it botany
what are you doing stepping up oh what
else strippers stock up kind of in line
being a coward stock up okay seemingly
everyone calls Teddy a coward I think
the the one female character that’s in
there that’s like the pr person which
every one of anywhere’s book has a cool
female who swears and talks about sex
openly it’s like I always feel very
uncomfortable because it just it just
seems so out of place why would the pr
person who’s supposed to be like all
buttoned up be like [ __ ] you you huge
don’t get what why are these people
talking like this in a business setting
doesn’t make any sense but yeah she’s
calls him a huge [ __ ] right to his face
in a big meeting the head of NASA mind
you don’t don’t worry about that and why
is he supposedly because he basically
was like oh I want these five astronauts
who are coming home to live I don’t want
to risk their lives by literally
swinging them around the earth having to
catch something and if it doesn’t catch
the right timing they die which we’ve
never practiced before never done any
tests on them sending them all the way
back which the ship is not built for
there’s like a billion variables that
they’ve never tested that they’re going
to now throw into the this mix and risk
five astronauts lives for it which well
what’s the probability of that working
probably pretty low and we literally
just saw Teddy launch something and
compromise by saying we’re going to
scrap all the preparation scrap all
these testing because it’s a 1 in 40
chance it fails we just saw that fail so
why would he go around and turn around
and then say well let’s take something
that’s much lower probability of
succeeding and use the same logic but
with five astronauts lives at risk and
to do that why was everyone getting mad
at him I was like no I would never do
that and then the last thing is like
they’re like it’s the astronauts
decision Deja decide well why don’t you
ask Watney then use the exact same logic
do you think Watney like hey what yeah
we’re gonna risk five astronauts lives
that we haven’t practiced it done
anything for this send them to go save
your life are you okay with that you say
no if he was a good person it’s watney’s
choice just as much of anything I like
Teddy he’s a good guy I did as well yeah
he was also the one that did like the
secret sent them like the jpeg that had
the secret message in it right
no no he that was the guy that was the
guy that coward think that yeah right
yeah right the other guy so you like
that guy I don’t like that guy what
happens if he sends that JPEG and then
their ship blows up on the way to Mars
yeah no no I get it I’m just a fan of
mutiny I just like the idea of mutinies
so I I appreciate that it’s back up mute
this is too much you know too much
buttoned up people following protocol
it’s just nice to see someone in a
billion dollar company that’s like [ __ ]
it I’m just gonna throw [ __ ] to the wind
uh my next stock up was potatoes and I
know you said that eating potatoes is
bubble gum shrimp or the root vegetable
world I mean you got baked potatoes you
got mashed potatoes you got potato salad
scallop potatoes roast potatoes crisp
potatoes french fries Hasselback
Potatoes pierogies hash browns gnocchi
the list goes on and on oh vodka of
course yeah sorry I’m surprised Wadi
didn’t even discuss that he’s like how
can I ferment these and like I wonder
what vodka and morphine does together
because this could be a party or you’ll
be like hey you know I could take this
painkiller and feel it or I could take
this half a painkiller with some vodka
and get a Year’s worth of of painkillers
much longer that’s smart plus all these
varieties I mean all the different
things you can make then you get a
different factorial if you consider in
all the different potato varieties I
know he only has one type of potato out
there but maybe like the poop bacteria
evolves them somewhat who knows who
knows how it works but honestly if
you’re stuck with one vegetable for a
few years it’s not a bad choice it may
be the best choice really I can’t think
of anything else that would be as
versatile and I know you’re gonna say
all the commenters because there’s so
many of you guys will be like yeah oh he
doesn’t have oil to fry stuff in like he
doesn’t have ways to make pierogies but
it’s gonna stuff the pierogies with you
know that’s what NASA should be working
yeah this is what I’m saying this is
what NASA should be doing be like hey
die in peace die happy with some
delicious potato things we’ll send them
to you no one’s coming to save you but
we’ll give you some fry oil you already
know how to make fire fry up some french
fries have some morphine and let that
have explode on you be great my last one
was uh just having a side hustle so
whether it be a booming podcast like the
pretty book club or writing a book on
your blog in a serialized fashion which
is what Andy Weir was doing because no
one was interested in his story he was
doing for shoots and gigs and the next
thing you know publishing rights are
being bought for a hundred thousand
dollars and then shortly thereafter it’s
getting made into a movie with Ridley
Scott directing Matt Damon at the helm I
mean come on his normal gay I think he
was like a program engineer some science
Computer Science Guy some you know but
good for him he was doing his normal day
job which he probably hated just like
everyone else does and decided he was
more passionate about this side Hustle
but it wasn’t making any money so he
said I’m just gonna throw it out there
to the world for free and even after
words once people were like hey can we
get a book version of this he did it for
the people he released like a Kindle
version on Amazon or whatever for a
dollar which is like the lowest amount
you can offer it for he was just doing
it for the people like hey this is fun
for me like I’m enjoying that you guys
are enjoying it just like we do here at
the BBC you know we don’t ask for
anything besides like some communication
we’re sending beacons out there like to
Mars hoping for somebody to write back
you know a little validation wouldn’t
hurt here and there uh what do you ever
stock down stock down suicide pack
wait what did I die backs are kind of
cool that’s a cool thing so I mean
am I maybe I’m just dumb is that when
you agree to kill yourself yeah everyone
agrees to go in and kill themselves oh
okay it’s a pact yes I packed okay in
this book and you might have missed it
because it’s so casually mentioned but
on the slingshot if the slingshot around
the earth if they are not able to
acquire the China space rocket that
they’re adapting to shoot up yeah
because that seems like a much more
realistic plan than just sending food
with with Jeffrey Bezos but if they’re
unable to acquire that that means the
food would run out too quickly so that
there’s an immediate suicide pact they
all to kill themselves with suicide
pills oh so the the woman can eat them
right yeah and it’s dropped in there
quickly so that they can eat their dead
bodies that is the plan that’s what we
came up with they all agreed that let’s
turn around the ship around and if we
ourselves immediately we just spent a
year and a half with NASA working on
with Mark Watney to figure out how to
survive live and they’re literally this
first thing is let’s just kill each
other let’s immediately kill each other
I don’t even have morphine on the thing
which I can agree with if they’re all
just gonna go a huge trip to end it just
face each other with something sharp
like all right on three stab on three
one two three we have a whole book on
their solution to survive and they just
casually drop yeah we’ll just kill each
other that’s fine it’s whatever and that
and then they don’t really even get into
the whole science of if you’re taking a
suicide pill to poison yourself and kill
yourself then it goes bad right you
can’t eat a poisonous thing or you’ll be
poisoned yourself like this is a simple
101 cannibalism stuff that mean you
would talk oh yeah sure but they’re not
and NASA or idiots they’re not even
thinking about this they also say that
the animal is scared or something like
that it you know release releases
cortisol and stuff it doesn’t
necessarily poison stuff but it tastes
the meat so it’s not as delicious right
so it’d almost be fun in this situation
to have more of like an assassins type
game like remember that game you played
in high school with like water guns yeah
you have killed your friends yeah
exactly but it’d be like on the ship
well you got to be entertained if you’re
all gonna die anyways like you might as
well be right for the trip back and also
maybe someone wouldn’t scare them so
it’s like all right we have to kill each
other for real but you know if we don’t
know when everyone gets a different name
it’s really exciting they could have
made it a little more creative I had
some fun with it from Magic podcast that
we did with anywhere magic said yeah you
just take a bunch of morphine and you
strap out into space and you just let
the oxygen take you you freezes your
body preserves the meat and your night
you had a nice [ __ ] trip to end your
life I think that’s the easiest way to
do it right then bring that that body
back in you chop it up put in the
freezer find the the filet mignon you
know you go to town and that you just
you know thanks a lot human back strap I
thought watney’s death plan was pretty
solid which was the nitrous oxide one
because
he they explained it in the book
scientifically which must be fun to uh
research you probably get flagged from a
bunch of government websites yeah but
the idea being that your body doesn’t
lack of oxygen it doesn’t know that
necessarily it’s really just like a
buildup of carbon dioxide or something
so if you just take a bunch of nitrous
oxide you just kind of like have a good
time and then pass out and suffocate
yeah but it’s not like terrible like
drowning or something like that which is
weird why we don’t do that like instead
of lethal injection and you know all the
other ways we really kill people yeah
there must be a better way right like
electric chair it seems like the one the
worst possible way to like kill someone
that makes more sense at least yeah well
the only problem with firing squad is
you gotta hope that the one person that
has the bullet actually is Sharpshooter
because if they hit you in like the neck
and you’re just like ah like that’d be
pretty brutal a very badly bad
uh my only stock down is I guess disco I
mean it’s talked about negatively enough
that I’m convinced it’s terrible even
though honestly I really enjoyed disco I
think disco is this is a fun what’s like
give me a disco songs I don’t really
know what like what what is disco music
I don’t even know what that means you
don’t know what disco is I’m thinking of
Macho Macho Man give me what’s your top
discos I’m like trying to think of what
disco is so I’m thinking Abba they’re
like very disco-y oh you gotta sing it
Earth Wind and Fire sing me a song Magic
speaking of magic his mom’s favorite
song September uh September
that’s disco yeah that’s so great
Dancing Queen Le Freak by Chic oh Le
Freak
yeah in that song
okay okay yeah yeah that party’s really
coming together that we were talking
about Boogie Wonderland Great song
Boogie Woogie Woogie and I just can’t
Boogie no more I want that like this hot
stuff hot stuff like this goes this goes
great especially on painkillers Mark
wadney like you should be what are you
doing no just kidding just kidding about
that part it seemed weird that there was
a lot of humor around him [ __ ] on
Disco and I know it was like he was
joking a bit serious if I was stuck with
some music disco would not be in my
bottom five I wonder what would be maybe
like death metal I think I think country
would be awful I love country music like
I hate to love it I like country too but
I like country in a certain mood if I’m
like on a deserted ice planet that
there’s no chance of survival I don’t
want to hear like sitting on my back
porch enjoying a beer with my dog yeah
there’s a lot of talk about like Red
Dirt riding you know with country music
oh which is what he was doing yeah yeah
okay so you throw that on when you’re
like driving yeah there is some like
random good feels though it’s still
country’s good fields which is I need
some negative negative Darkness to
escape Into My Heroine yeah you want so
you want the death metal that’s like the
last yeah yeah of course it’s like yes
you’re taking like Rob Zombie and slip
knot and stuff like that plus it’s like
for head banging and like getting in a
crowd and [ __ ] [ __ ] up so you don’t
really want to be [ __ ] [ __ ] up when
you’re on in the half well that’s what
they would play when they’re doing like
the suicide pack I also don’t understand
they’re like we’re only about a certain
amount of media it’s like it’s 235 you
know how much uh 100 terabytes of ram
cost it’s like 100 bucks that’s like our
memory like you could put every piece of
media You Ever Wanted into a a thing by
then like they’re gonna have plenty of
space it’s not like I only have techno
that’s all I can do the way things are
progressing and how much smaller storage
space is it just would make no like
exactly like you said you could have a
terabyte of data which is a shitload for
if you’re talking just music you could
have everything you could have anything
you wanted it what are you guys talking
about here you know you’re not stuck
with disco like everybody can have
everything they also didn’t talk about
pornography aspect but I’m sure there
was I’m sure there was a little bit of
that there’s a little bit of that why do
you didn’t want to say because he’s
telling what all this stuff he’s
stealing from other people but in his it
was just a terabyte of porn that was it
all I know is how do you think Watney
sealed to have with his terabyte of data
that’s for sure
yeah one hot rope after another do you
have any other stock Downs last one and
this is more just like hate straight up
science stock down I just don’t care
honestly anymore this is really why I
don’t ever want to read one of these
books I just don’t care it’s honestly
the way the book is written is it’s like
someone that’s super super into chess
playing by themselves explaining what
moves they would do against themselves
like that’s what the whole book is I get
it like the first half where he used to
explain stuff I thought it was actually
interesting when we get to the the
second half we do the exact same thing
and there’s no more like like talking
back with NASA and all that stuff gets
cut and it’s just science I’m like yeah
yo I don’t care at all imagine if we’re
watching or reading Armageddon the great
movie Armageddon which is all
scientifically accurate obviously
imagine like Bruce Willis and Benny
Affleck were just during the drilling
scene just talking about angles and
drilling you know Necessities instead of
just being like Harry trust me this one
time you know the movie would have been
awful no one wants to hear this stuff we
get that you’re into it and we I think
it’s it’s valid where like you sprinkle
it in but if it’s just that the whole
time I just like had it in the
background at the end of the book
because I just didn’t care anymore I was
like this is so stupid yeah I mean I had
this again of my hates but the literally
the worst part of the book is that we
spend eight of the 10 hours talking
about realistic science and then we end
the book with them planting bombs on the
ship and shooting off into space and
doing these all these like incredibly
dumb and practical things in this book
That’s supposed to be set in this
realism of science it’s like what kind
of book is this like why’d you just
spend eight hours telling me all these
like why you do this stuff based on
science and then just the end being like
well [ __ ] it let’s just do whatever the
the ending of the book like what what
are you doing yeah I was listening to
this book mostly because it’s it’s
spring here like I said I was listening
to this book mostly As I was dethatching
my lawn which basically is just raking
my lawn but like okay in very small
sections I have and I had broken it
based on like how many pickets in the
fence right so there’s sections eight
foot sections of the fence so as he’s
doing this I’m like doing the same
mental cat because it’s like hard work
it’s terrible and I’m listening to this
which is like kind of the same thing and
so I was like breaking it up
scientifically like okay it takes me one
hour to do this one section there’s 24
sections this is going to take me 24
hours to do as he was doing it and since
you since you started this I’m gonna get
into my only love and my only hate
my love was just that it had it it had
moments and I think specifically like
you said at the beginning okay how’s he
gonna figure this out and the science
aspect there was more of like planning
stuff and it was like oh okay like I see
that angle like this is interesting okay
I get it I get it let’s nice dig that
part that was fun I did also you didn’t
like the end I liked the ending because
it was more theatrical and fun you know
so it got away from the like practical
signs and more into like let’s just do
some crazy [ __ ] and hope it works you
know Iron Man yes I’m totally down let’s
do that idea but the middle that’s my
hate because hearing someone explain
what they’re doing in a play-by-play
format for 11 hours
honestly was terrible and after
listening to this though I feel like I’m
ready for when I have kids and you have
to sit at youth soccer game for two
hours next to the white New Balance and
your dad explaining his lawnmower issues
he’s like yeah my lawnmower won’t start
I checked the spark plugs they look
properly gapped so I thought it might be
the air filter I couldn’t find a new one
for my model so I cleaned out the old
one still no luck I did leave it over
the winter with old gas in it so I added
some fuel stabilizer since I was
tinkering I decided to balance and
sharpen the blades turns out food
stabilizer did the trick bad boy fired
right up what types of grass do you like
to grow in the Northeast I think
Kentucky Bluegrass is actually quite
good for a zone six climate it’s it’s
like that’s amazing
that’s my Will Wheaton impression that
was perfect oh my God it was like that
for 11 hours it was just so it’s like
sciencey sciencey thing science anxiety
thing oh it worked awesome red more
disco yay disco sucks it’s like oh my
God [ __ ] a
so yeah first two hours I was into it
the middle part I was like get me out of
watney’s head it was like get me out of
his head I enjoyed when we go back to
NASA to at least hear something
different and at least different idea
but get just get me out of waddy’s head
it didn’t need to be 11 hours and I’m
sure there is a demo of people out there
who loved this it’s that Dad that new
balance that new balance that yeah yeah
yeah good God so what would you love I
think you already mentioned the
beginning was fun there was certainly
parts that were good and that’s why it
makes a great movie is because it is a
really well thought out outside the box
idea yeah very well researched I wish
you know how like they saw on a bridge I
wish I had The Abridged version and I
would have been like this is pretty good
yes you know just cut his soliloquies in
half and I’m probably in yeah
I also I had a question for you this is
I mean that’s part of love but not
really but is there anything you think
in actual science that would draw the
attention that seemingly Mark Watney
Drew where like the whole world is
watching him and there’s a daily watch
segment on CNN you think there’s
anything that actually draw the interest
like that outside of this like you’re
saying someone getting lost on Mars but
you know what’s going on oh I mean even
that I don’t think people would care I
think they’d be like oh yeah the guy’s
up there and we’re working on it all
right cool what I don’t know like didn’t
they like announce like aliens are real
and people are like yeah whatever yeah
the UFOs the UFO stuff yeah nobody even
care that wasn’t even a big story it was
just like whatever they had the Panama
papers which was like all of this data
of people putting money in offshore
funds like people and companies putting
money in offshore funds like tax evasion
stuff people didn’t even care there’s
just too much going on right now in
Mindless entertainment in Real
Entertainment and everything that I
couldn’t imagine the whole world
stopping and this is the third trip to
Mars too this isn’t wasn’t the first
either which would be like okay we’re
over this I think if there was an
Armageddon type situation that would oh
yeah of course but that’s not science
that’s world ending that’s not like well
that’s being discovered we landed on a
new planet maybe you know no but that’s
what I’m saying is it’d be all of the
trips to like go to the asteroid to blow
it up or yeah okay to land people on it
basically saying the only way we’d be
interested Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis
went into space and tried to blow up an
asteroid yes we could only send Drillers
kid yeah we’re not sending we cannot
teach astronauts to drill that doesn’t
make any sense uh so that was your love
what about hate so I actually wanted to
do some research and I was like how big
is Mars it seems like he’s driving
around everywhere I’m like that’d be
pretty tough to do and one of the
official NASA site and I looked it up
and it says Mars is
216 miles just half the size of the
Earth okay and then they use this great
comparison if Earth were the size of a
nickel Mars would be about as big as a
raspberry
that’s something official site of how to
compare them what raspberries come in
all shapes and sizes I mean I know
there’s probably worse analogy I’ve ever
heard first of all you didn’t even keep
it in the same food group they weren’t
like this is the size of a grape this is
the size of a I don’t I don’t know it
was so befuddling to me oh this is who
writes the book like people that can’t
use an analogy that makes any sense yeah
like your grape analogy all right let me
do let me restate it and make it a
clementine versus a grape that would
make sense right you understand the two
sizes of those uh yeah relatively
they’re in a fruit parent right or if
you said a quarter and a nickel you’d
make sense but a nickel and a raspberry
don’t make any sense first of all
raspberry is actually a sphere a nickel
is not a sphere we’re not a
two-dimensional and to me I think a
nickel and a raspberry are about the
same size yeah that’s what I thought too
so I didn’t get it either so anyways
science doctor Interstellar did it
better so it doesn’t open the hate order
of the book why was the beginning part
just like in the middle the book I
didn’t get that uh the movie did it much
better where they actually just did it
in sequential order which made sense and
then at the end of the book he just like
adds random Journal stuff get me done
with this book I almost quit out I was
like I’ve gone this long I’ll finish it
but this is so stupid I was in the I was
in the shower during that part so uh
still doing your client research
yeah exactly so I paused the browsers
and said you know what I I should I
should finish I should finish this and
then you also should have finished the
book
yeah exactly
I should finish to Mark Watney talking
about what what he liked to eat in space
yeah yeah I just said you know what it’s
it’s like 20 minutes left this is going
to be like the top 10 worst Showers of
my life but I have to finish this book
so I I was with you there I was dead I
didn’t need an appendix I was good uh
what else did you hit the problem again
with these abandoned island or solo
people by themselves is they don’t
really make great books in my opinion
they make better movies because the
movies you can literally visually see
what’s going on and what’s happening to
them whereas the book I just was like
okay he’s like yes this work well
there’s eight hours of the book left so
something’s gonna go wrong and now I’m
just like all right I guess I’ll wait
for that to kind of just boring
otherwise you know it doesn’t come
together so that’s why I like when there
was back and forth in politics within
NASA and all the stuff that was going on
there and them communicating and that
was at least more entertaining because
there’s something going on the Storm was
like this huge thing it was like oh this
storm’s gonna really [ __ ] him up like
I’m excited for the storm to happen he’s
like I put a probe in six mile radius
around me and guessed where the weather
was going and I drove around it it’s
like ah all right good for you bro nice
one yeah I do think there’s probably
some you know Matthew McConaughey
probably enjoyed parts of it for like
having to like pee in your vehicle
considering he has that funnel in his
car that he pees out of you know pooping
in a bucket that sounds kind of fun if
you haven’t had to poo or pee while
driving like stuck in traffic really
hungry for you uh you know sometimes
Nature Calls you know Nature Calls and I
answer so things have happened but uh I
appreciate that stuff although I feel
like there might be some like vomit
situations going on with all the rough
terrain who knows maybe uh took some of
those Dramamine pills that I’m sure they
had back Beck had in his case uh did you
have any other hates the characters and
like the two sentences we got on
background story about them which I was
like well I even include this this is
stupid yeah it was like
yeah and like you should tell that girl
you like her on the ship I’m like who
the [ __ ] are these people we don’t even
know who they are like what do you why
would I care you know and this person
has is like devoutly Catholic and has
kids okay what what does that mean gives
a [ __ ] and you can’t picture them
because I think Andy Weir said he didn’t
include like descriptions really of the
characters like what they look like
because it like didn’t matter to the
story and neither did any of the other
stuff about them so one part no there’s
nothing that mattered in any way they
could have been robots for yeah they
really couldn’t although like Commander
Lewis
I thought was the most fleshed out out
of any of them and maybe just because
she likes disco but but you know that
aspect of it but even the letter back to
her husband was like and then I found
this disco thing that no one else can
find like oh I bet it was the like
version three collection right it’s like
yep the original one okay nerd alert
yeah
would you recommend the Martian Keith no
I’m done with I’m done with these books
I’m done with them if you had to give
one the Martian Artemis or project Hail
Mary what would you say probably project
Hail Mary I mean I think the alien stuff
was cool with that at least it was more
science that wasn’t even real where they
just made something up in that and then
did science around the made up thing for
the whole book my ranking would go
project Hail Mary the Martian and then
Artemis Artemis was just which really
Morris yeah exactly artists are just
terrible well he does have a cool female
lead who swears and does sex jokes
exactly I wouldn’t recommend the Martian
either it’s just so weird everywhere
there’s a period in time where everyone
was reading this book you know which is
kind of the reason why I want to do it I
was like it’s also a Reddit favorite
Artemis was terrible projectile Mary was
better so the Martian must be good
because everyone loved it and and
especially I couldn’t imagine reading
this book like Will Will Wheaton reading
it to me was not that great but imagine
reading like actually putting your eyes
to a page and reading all of this
explanation stuff my eyes would roll
back in my head and I’d just be drooling
like it would be terrible I’d go into a
coma and I thought well we I thought he
did a good job bad boy fired right up
but that’s how it’s written though I
mean he’s doing exactly the voice of how
it’s written yeah I agree I agree okay
well that was the Martian uh I hope you
didn’t read the book but listen to the
Pod because we definitely had some fun
fun here with that uh what’s coming up
next for us hair to the Empire by
Timothy what is it called hair to the
Empire air yeah it’s air h-e-i-r I’m not
French kid I’m American hair
hair to the crown hair to the Empire by
Timothy Zahn it’s basically supposed to
be what should have been episode seven
well that’s what the internet says yeah
well it’s written it has Luke and Leia
in it yeah Luke landhan are the are the
main characters hair to the empires
Timothy’s on yeah I pronounce it heir to
the Empire
um like most people but Hair Works and
uh you can find the rest of our Archive
of episodes on our website
bodybookclub.com
love it all right so that was the
Martian and we’ll catch you guys next
time bye now bye now

Welcome to the Buddy Book Club – we have a light-hearted comedic podcast that covers a variety of books. Project Hail Mary was a book that quickly came onto our radar. As big fans of Reddit, we frequent the book communities to find new books and spread BBC propaganda. In the few years I’ve been on Reddit, I can confidently say there isn’t a book more talked about than Project Hail Mary.  After reading through, we understood why. The writing style, the in-depth science, and the Human-Alien relationship all make for a unique fun read. Personally I thought it was a bit overhyped, but I think I’m probably alone in that take. You can check out our book club podcast on it if interested.

Our book club questions try to be a little more outside the box/comedic than your typical book club questions – hopefully you enjoy them.

Book Club Questions – Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

-> Do you think you could fall asleep with an alien watching over you?

I thought this was a really cool concept, but the answer is no, sorry Rocky, I’ll watch you but that’s where the arrangement ends.

-> Is this the most cringy quote from the book: “You and what army?” Stratt asked. “Because I have the U.S. Army,” she said. “And that’s a damn fine army.”

Sorry this just bothered me, seemed straight out of an 80’s movie.

-> What did you think of Eva Stratt as a character? Was she right for what she did to Ryland?

Her saying “I like you Ryland, I just don’t respect you”, was a great line and one I agreed with.

-> What type of science class was Ryland teaching in middle school? He’s asking his students biology, physics, geology, and astronomy questions all at the same time and his class knows the answers?

Maybe it’s because I was in remedial classes, but I don’t remember science classes that touch on every aspect of science all at the same time.

-> All of the scientist side characters seemed to be quite humble, blushing at the mere mention of their accomplishments, did you think this was a bit unrealistic?

I wish that being humble was a virtue, but I feel like you only gain notoriety/fame by toting your accomplishments these days and being your own biggest cheerleader. Also, did I mention that Buddy Book Club is the best blog and podcast?

-> Did the whole Coma thing make sense to you? Why did they need to put everyone on board in a coma (with poor success rate I might add)? Is 4 years really is too long for people to interact with each other?

If it were 25 years, I get it. But it seems like navigating and seeing parts of space no one has ever explored would be a dream job for most scientists/astronauts.

-> Do you think we’d ever let scientists melt the polar caps and place black panels throughout the Sahara Desert to prevent something from occurring 30 years in the future?

I just find it hard to imagine this would ever get consensus/be allowed today especially with how short sighted and selfish we all are. Sorry, I’m coming off as pretty negative huh?

-> Most movies that involve aliens, are typically about them coming to attack or hurt us, did you ever think that Rocky had some sort of ill intent?

Movies have made us so scared of aliens, I really did appreciate that this book had humans working hand-and-hand with aliens to solve a universal (as in multiple universes) problem. Rocky is the man.

-> Who would you cast in a movie of the Project Hail Mary?

Ryan Gosling is set to star as Ryland Grace, but who did you imagine for these characters? Need some inspiration, check out our Make it a Movie blog. 

-> Many consider this one of the best Science Fiction books, where does it rank for you?

Personally, Enders Game & Dark Matter were books we’ve read that I liked better.

Did we miss some questions? Reach out to us or check out our podcast.

The Buddies launch themselves into Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. Things got off to a Rocky start once they realized the book is a sci-fi thriller in the vain of The Martian and not a reference to the famed Roger Staubach Hail Mary pass. Good Buddy, Magic (@nicoitaliano13) joined the pod (and supplied his best Rocky voice), as the buddies discussed a variety of topics including, Microsoft Excel, Tape Measures, and the best way to die in space.

Intro: (0:00-4:31)
Favorite Scene (4:32-9:30)
Stock Up/Down (9:31-35:08)
Favorite Character (35:09-37:13)
Love/Hate (37:14-51:45)
Listener Mail (51:46-56:24)
Casting the Movie (56:25-59:35)
Conclusion (59:36-1:02:03)

Next Book: PERCY JACKSON: THE LIGHTING THIEF by RICK RIORDAN

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂 

All right. Welcome to Buddy Book Club. I’m Dylan here with my crewmate and fellow intrepid Explorer Keith. That’s Iridium for what’s up, Buddy? Well done. Well done. We’re breaking down some bestselling dollars. In this week, we’ll be discussing Andy Weir’s latest novel, Project Hail Mary. If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us about any past episodes, you can visit our website, Buddybookhop.com, or sign into our DMs on Twitter or Instagram Buddy Book Podcast. You can listen to us on itunes and Spotify, so please download and subscribe. We’ve got another special guest on today’s show who will be joining us for Stock up. Stock down. And you know what? Why not just more because he’s a good buddy. So we got magic here, the wizard of Walfam. So Magic, welcome. Thank you. You are also a good buddy. What an honor it is to be here. It’s a shame we aren’t in person. Otherwise, I’d ask you to fist my bump. Before we get into the categories, let’s Zoom out with our petrovoscope and talk about this book at a high level. And I do not mean intellectually. So if you came here for some breakdown of science stuff, you came to the wrong place. Go look at some Carl Sagan videos or something. This is our second foray into Andy Weir’s work. We did an early episode of the Buddy Book Club on Artemis. Keith, what was your general feeling towards Artemis? How can I describe this lightly or in the most destined sense here? It was awful, but too much. Too strong. Not strong enough. I feel like Artemis was almost like, what’s that? Star wars when they get the Death Star plans. Rogue One. Yeah, Rogue One. It was like a Rogue One to the rest of the books he’s written where it was more of like. Well, it was a heist book, really. So this one is definitely more sciencey. I never read The Martian Magic. Have you read any other of his work? I have. I have read The Martian, but I have not read Artemis. Okay, so we’ll get the full spectrum here. We’ll get the full thing. I kind of agreed with Keith on Artemis, but if you want a full breakdown, just go download that episode. But we are not talking about Artemis. We’re talking about Project Hail Mary. Let’s give Andy wear another shot. Project Hail Mary is a nonfiction tale about a historic 1975 NFL playoff game where Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys game, their last minute miracle touchdown passed to Drew Pearson and took down the Minnesota Vikings. The end jokes, jokes, jokes. But it’s actually not too far off. If you substitute Stauvach with Rylan Grace, Drew Pearson with Rocky, the Minnesota Vikings with astrophage and turn a football into science, it’s pretty much essential. They used to play on astrophage or astroturf, right? Oh, yeah, it all works out. Yeah, I found it more to be Armageddon. But instead of an asteroid, we’re dealing with space algae. And instead of roughness Bruce Willis and Benny affect, we get a cool middle school teacher playing the role of Cowardly Lion from wizard of Oz. That’s pretty good. Although Rylan Grace wasn’t playing with animal crackers on Rocky’s belly. Are you sure? I don’t know. It seemed like there was some of that going on. Let me watch you sleep. Yeah, he was pro sleep talk, but anti food talk. Before we get into the categories once again, let’s talk about a libation here. Normally, we like to discuss something from the book and enjoy that throughout the pod. I’m taking a page out of Olafia Elikuni. Fuck, I can’t even say her name. Ilakinas. Whatever her book and having some vodka. It sounds like I’ve already had some already, but I swear I haven’t. I mean, it’s described as a special human liquid for celebration, so it seems pretty perfect for the pod. Although since this is an American holiday today, I’ll go with some fine American vodka in the form of Tito’s. Thanks. Austin, Texas. Really appreciate that. Keith, question for you. Rylan Grace comes up with all sorts of scientific solutions in this book, but he never unlocks the secret to Kovo, even though he has all the ingredients handy. Why is that explained? That’s a great question. I mean, he kept asking for coffee, and I was like, when is he going to figure out you just have to pour a little vodka in there and you get the best of both worlds. We call that a Virgin Koba. I don’t know why you wouldn’t, but you don’t have vodka in it. It’s a Virgin Koba. So it’s not called coffee. No. He could have known that. It was already trademarked and he had no rights to be mentioned in that. Let’s jump into some categories. Let’s start with favorite scene. Keith, what’s your favorite scene from this book? Mine was the arrival type interaction or scene, I guess, or larger scene with Rocky. I actually really appreciate that. I think you’d mentioned to me off record here that you weren’t that into it, but I actually thought it was kind of cool understanding the biology, how they saw, quote unquote, how they interacted, and basically how they are different from us. I thought that was really cool. That was really original. It was really well thought out the whole scene. I don’t know if you’ve seen arrival where they are trying to figure out how to communicate to each other, and they eventually kind of crack the code of how to do that. And it was similar to that, which I was good. The only question I had there was is he playing a flute and talking back to him or is he just understanding what he’s saying and then speaking English back to him and he understands it back? Yeah, I was pretty unclear. I feel like they were just talking English he used his computer as a translator. So I think he was talking into the computer and the computer was shooting back like Rocky notes, and then Rocky was speaking into it and he was shooting back human notes until Rocky started understanding English, because I feel like Rocky got that stuff sooner and then it was just kind of they were both doing it. But how would Rocky’s vocal cords be able to do English? Because even at the end of the book, when he’s when he’s using the kids, it goes through a computer system. He’s playing an organ. Oh, yeah. He was actually playing his organ for the kids. I agree with you that I like that scene. I think the most it took me a minute to really start enjoying it because just like a lot of this book, it was quite verbose. He would keep explaining in detail the things that I felt like really didn’t need to be explained. I mean, Magic and I both know what verbose means, but I don’t think all of our listeners do. So we want to explain that word. We both definitely know what that means, though. It’s just like using a lot of words to say something that could be said in less totally. So I thought that had some aspects of it. But I think in general, those things are always fun where it’s them trying to figure it out and having those Eureka moments, a lot of running back. The guy must have ran miles running down that tunnel there and back. But I enjoyed that as well. I also liked when Rylan wakes up on the Hail Mary. I think there’s probably like a theme for me when it comes to the stuff, and it’s usually originstory, like how we get the original setting kind of thing. So when he wakes up on the ship, it’s like, okay, cool, we’re on a spaceship. This is going to be fun because we like Sci-Fi type stuff. He’s looking at the sun. Oh, but it’s not our sun. It’s like, okay, cool. How did he get there? Now you’ve got all these questions tubes in some uncomfortable places, just like the Matrix, although instead of down the mouth, it’s up your butt mouth. And also he says the butt tube comes out, comes right out and doesn’t even hurt. So all those folks out there putting up colonoscopies, don’t sweat it. It’s no big deal, too. Slides right out, go get checked out. Like it could be a stock out. And there’s a decent lol moment in that scene when he sees the other crew and he says, I don’t know who I am or why I’m here, but at least I’m not alone and they’re dead.

Participant #1:

So I think throughout this book there was some decent, like, funny moments. So I do appreciate that. For Mandy Weir Magic, did you have a thing that you liked most about this book? I did like the one. It’s kind of towards the end when he makes his decision, but it’s not abundantly clear what it is right away. It’s been six weeks since I made my decision. Sorry, Rocky. Oh, so he is going back home but it’s like no, he’s not. He sent the Beatles home. He’s going back to him. So he finally gets to have his choice to be the hero and make his own choice moment. And that resolving in the fact that it’s not like the clear endings that we thought. Right. It’s either go that way and die or go home and live. But there was never like the third option of live but don’t go home. So I like that twist at the end. You never really saw that one as a potential option. Yeah, I agree. And I think in terms of story arc because the whole thing is pretty much how towards the end it reveals that he’s actually just a coward and didn’t want to go on this trip, didn’t want to save humanity, wants to save himself kind of thing. And in order to resolve that, to have him self sacrificed in some way to go save Rocky and his people. I found that to be a good use of the story itself, although I was kind of hoping that he just wouldn’t find Rocky and would just die in space. Okay, let’s jump into some stock up. Stock down, stock up. Keith, what do you got? Middle school teachers. Stock up. Okay, go on. So I mean, he was a middle school teacher, obviously before and it’s not good because they chose a disgruntled scientist turned middle school teacher to be the only person to say astrophage for some reason. Not because of that, not because of the impassioned speech he gave to Dr. Strat who constantly shows that she’s like that’s rigid, I don’t give a shit about emotions or anything. But somehow this one speech that he gave in order to continue studying astrophage, that one or over somehow it wasn’t that and it wasn’t the fact that they let him teach NASA scientists. Oh, am I qualified for this? Yeah, I’m qualified. I’m a teacher to teach the smartest NASA scientist. It wasn’t any of those things. It all makes sense. It all makes perfect sense. What the stock up is for is some of this cool teacher is quizzing his class on not just astrology, astronomy, rather not just geology, not just physics, biology. Also all four of those things. When he’s doing the pop quizzes, he’s testing them on all these different sorts of science. So I don’t know what classes you guys have taken to science before but I don’t know any other class where they actually teach you all those things all at once. And Squid, you on all of them all at once. I don’t know if I explained that well, but stock up for middle school teachers. I mean, I also felt like his kids were unnaturally enthusiastic and intelligent because it was like, all right, who wants to calculate the radius of Saturn? Everyone’s like, oh, I do, I do. But he was doing that. And then he would be like the fortress of rock. Then also, what is the power plant source and human body? It’s like, how are these kids knowing all these things? No one teaches like that. Maybe they just don’t have the curriculum standards that we have now. Week three, you got to be teaching about cell structure. And then week four, teach biology, I teach space science, I teach physics. He teaches it all. He’s a one man show. Magic. Do you have a soccer? I do. It’s none other than Microsoft Excel. Do you think it’s just you handle a couple of numbers, maybe a couple of Vlookups here and there? No, it can do that, but it can also serve as a database for an alien language translator. Was he using Excel? Yeah. I don’t know if he had the 1997 or 2003 version. Yeah. You’ve made a couple of pivot tables, I’m sure, so that solves it. I also love how in interviews I use Excel a decent amount at work. And it’s just funny how in interviews and whatnot people are just like, oh, so can you do pivot tables? View, lookups, macros. And the answer is always yes. No one has ever said no to me in an interview in the first two or whatever, but I don’t know how to build a macro. I’m a dollar. You know how to build a micro, though, so you’re good. It’s just a little bigger than that. All right, I’ll see my way out. My first stock up is being a regular at a barrestaront. I feel like that’s when you’ve bought in the past. I feel like I have two. Yeah, I was wondering that. And I mean, this stock should be on the S and P 500. This should be a top stock, because I don’t know who wouldn’t be buying this, but he does mention at some point he’s at his local restaurant that he goes to weekly, and he signals the waiter. The waiter doesn’t even come over, just gives him a tacit nod, shout out to wertle last night spoiler. The waiter knows that he wants a ribeye, medium mashed taters and a pineapinis. That’s just great if you take a date there and she orders whatever she wants. And it looks like the regular Mr. Grace. Yes. It’s like, oh, very nice. Might even bring in a Moose boost or something on the house. We’d appreciate that. But I do have a question for both of you. If you had your own local Honda, maybe you do. What would be your order that they would just assume you’re getting? Well, I go to a place called Submarine, which is like a much better version of Subway out here. I go there, and the girl behind the counter is like, oh, club sandwiches today. I’m like, yes. So I do always do appreciate that very much. Not the same. It’s not as cool as the bar. Anytime I walk in there with someone else who are like, oh, nice, man. I’m like, yeah, do you take a girl there? And she’s like, oh, a awesome. Thanks for taking me to Submarine. It’s a high class establishment, sir. So she’s all hot and bothered because the lady behind the counter knows that you want a club sandwich. Like the woman wearing a hair net and plastic gloves. It’s like, wow, they’re all Hun bothered already. But once I pull out the rewards card, shit gets real, real magic. Do you have a go to order? You know, this is going to come as quite a shock to you, but mine would be a plate of nachos. My plate of nachos. You mean chips and cheese, right? Of course you have to get the toppings on the side because it’s a well known fact that if you get them on the side, you get more of them. There’s nothing to do with what’s on top of it. And if people don’t like it or not, it’s that you get more toppings when you order it on the side. Nothing beats a perfectly layered platonachus. So I don’t disagree with you there. I think mine would probably be similar to Ryland. It’s a nice order. I would probably. That’s a very heavy, heavy order, though. Steak, mashed potatoes, and a Guinness. It’d be done for two days. Well, I’m picturing his place as kind of like a quiet, dark room, lots of leather chairs, and he’s getting a real good ribeye. I’d probably get the ribeye medium rare. I think that’s rare. You don’t really get a medium rib eye, in my opinion, but mash taters pineapinus, delightful. Maybe a sidecar of a whiskey. Even though I’m not a whiskey drinker, it just seems like a Manly thing to do. Okay, Keith, what else you have for stock up? Yeah, I think this goes back to what you were just talking about, but being humble. Stock up. So when you look at someone’s resume, when you talk about that, it’s always the opposite of that, where you’re basically amplifying what your actual skills are. But in this book, there’s a very kind of an obvious trend that continues to happen where they’d introduce some sort of character, where there was the French climatologists or the Thai land scientists or the person in prison or all these astronauts or the Russian or even Rocky, and every single time they’re like, this guy is the most amazing person ever. And they’re, like, talking about their achievements, and the person would, like, blush. Oh, I can’t talk about that. I’m so smart. But I’m the most humble. No, that’s not the real world. This would never happen. People don’t get to the highest levels without actually touting their own success, especially in science, where you could be the smartest scientists in the world. But if you don’t have research papers with your name on them or proven out these things, you’re not the person that’s getting the credit for this stuff. So being humble stock up because it seems that it works. But I disagree with that. I think that makes sense. Elon Musk. No ego whatsoever. Magic. What else do you have for Stockholm? Yeah, I got one more. And that’s aliens. How long has it been? Or how is it our natural thought to hear alien and think, okay, they want to destroy Earth or destroy humans? Yeah, that was a by low period. And now after this, it’s got to be on the way up, right? Making first contact, helping us solve our biggest problem. Yeah. You’re like buying shark stock after watching Jaws? Exactly. What’s the key? Stock. Buy low, baby. My next stock up with space food. Did you guys ever go to the science Museum and get space food? Yeah, it’s terrible. Like Tang. No, it’s like the freeze dried stuff. Yeah. Don’t get me wrong. Freeze dried ice cream was phenomenal. Like the Neapolitan, like chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. That’s where you draw the line, though. Yeah, that was it. They had I feel like Mac and cheese or something like that. And it was just like gross freeze dried stuff. And obviously there’s been leaps and bounds on the International Space Station, but I feel like stock is still pretty low on space food. And this guy is getting like, really? You get burritos and you just say coffee and someone gives you coffee. I mean, even early on, before he can have solid foods, like day four, meal two was a tube of food. And you said it was beef flavored and the food was getting chunkier. I mean, I know you wanted to do, Keith, a crossover of food stuff in the books we read, but I feel like I could make a pretty good tube of food that was beef flavored. Like, just get straight gravy, basically, right? Isn’t that what it is? It’s delicious. It’s got all the things you need. It’s got fat, it’s got protein. I mean, it’s calorically dense and it’s delicious. He’s just getting gravy tubes when he lands or when he gets out of his coma. I’d be super down, butt tube and all. I’d be like, yeah, give me the butt tube if I get tubes of gravy. So stock up on space food. Few quick ones. Watching your friends sleep. That stock is a Penny stock right now, but this book pretty clearly States that one, if you watch your friends sleep and they for some reason have some sort of brain aneurysm, like you’re there so it’s chill, it’s not creepy whatsoever. And then Additionally, they can watch you sleep, and I guess that makes you go to sleep easier. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m going to see if the old lady friend will just sit in a chair and watch me sleep tonight and we’ll see how that works out. Additionally, stock up tape measures. As someone who’s recently moved, I found that tape measures, although I don’t use them very often, are quite useful. They’re compact. You can play all sorts of games. Kids don’t need toys. Just give them a tape measure. Rocky loves it. He pulls a tape out as far as he can go and let both ends go and just have fun with that. I mean, it’s probably better than zero G where it’s just spinning. But I worked some construction in my early life, and tape measures were a big source of entertainment. Have you guys played any tape measure games? And I’m not thinking about the dirty things that you’re probably. What do you mean? Like pull it out, measure it, and then leave it around the apartment for someone to find? Yeah. What games are we talking about here? You just put a Mark on it at like 8.2 inches and that’s how far can go in. Is that you’re saying no? Well, we used to play what I always found to be a very enjoyable game, and it takes quite a bit of skill to it is you get the tape measure and you try to throw it out, like throw the tape out from the holder as far as it can go, as far as you can, let it shoot out. And then the real part of the game is trying to not let the tape measure break. It’s like a slap bracelet almost. So it’s not how far you can throw it out. It’s how far you can throw it out without it breaking. So you really kind of almost have to have soft hands as you lay the tape measure down, because once it gets out far, the tip starts bending down. It’s like fishing almost, but I don’t know. We play that game a lot. You should try to throw the thing out there. You let it extend, you make it as stiff as you possibly can, and it gets how many inches did you say I was doing feet? These were. Oh, wow. Jesus Christ. We’re talking really nice. My last stock up was human meat consumption. I feel like we’ve talked about eating human meat at some point on the podcast before. At the end, that’s what Rylan’s eating. He’s just eating meat burgers. So I have two questions. One, is it better because it’s Lab grown, and two, is it better because he’s eating his own meat? You can answer, but I figure the answer is yes to both. None of us are going to be here and say no. It’s probably better if he brutally murders someone and then cooks there their glutes over a stove. But I feel like if you’re eating lab grown meat and it’s your own cells, what’s the problem? I’m not going to Yuck someone’s Yum thoughts? We’re already making lab grown chicken meat and lab grown beef. So what’s the problem with a little taste of the human flesh? Man flesh. I think we’re all on a poor there. Medic is not in his head over there. I convinced you guys to buy the stock. Perfect. Yeah. Let’s talk to impossible foods and see if they can start selling human meat. Let’s jump into stockdown. What do we have for stockdown? Key human interaction. Stockdown. There’s a human meat. It was like, no. So the whole kind of book hinges on the fact that they need to put people in comas for four years, which four years is really not that long of a time. Yes, especially for scientists. Instead of letting these scientists drive the ship, maybe avoid some asteroid fields, and have probably the best experience of any scientist will ever get, experiencing outer space in a new Galaxy or region no other scientist I’ve ever seen. You can conduct studies while you’re doing it. You can do so much stuff while they’re traveling, and it’s only four years. It’s not like 40 years, right where you’d be like, well, this is going to be mind numbing. But instead they were like, all right, we’re just going to put these people in comas because we are nervous that they might fight with each other, which is crazy to me. And that’s the whole reason why they only can choose one in 7000 have this gene that they have, which, by the way, only has a 33% survivability rate. So we just killed two people over four years of experience. The best space travel of all time. Like, what are we doing here? Even our action way DownsTOP. It’s a decent point because, yes, you could have just chosen all the best scientists without having to do this coma thing. And on top of that, even if it’s like, well, someone might go a little crazy and murder the other two people, that’s pretty much what happened. Anyways. You didn’t go crazy, but the other two people got murdered. So, yeah, I’m with you there. I feel like the only factor that was a difference maker was that the food consumption issues, they have to drink Cola, slurry, or whatever that is, which sounds like a drink you’d get in New Orleans on Bourbon Street. I think they still packed food for them to eat for the four years. Right. So can you just then make it better food? I think they just didn’t have enough. I don’t know. Oh, you’re saying that Coma’s already takes a less space? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think that’s just like the essential nutrients and proteins and stuff, but not for flavor. But I still agree with you. I mean, for every stock you buy or sell, there’s going to be dissenting opinions. I still agree with you, though. That human interaction. I’m selling it. I don’t want any of it. Magic. Would you ever start? Yeah, mine kind of piggybacks right off of that. It’s like the World Science organizations. I mean, we have this problem, and the best that we can come up with is to kill two of our three people from this coma thing and a problem that will take 30 years to solve. Like, that’s the best we can do here? I don’t know. I’m not convinced on that kind of trust the Thai companies to come up with some crazy coma thing. And also, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the cancer treatment stuff is horrible, and there’s lots of things in life that you just want to be like, hey, put me asleep, and when it’s all over with, wake me up. But I feel like that’s a weird impetus to create this coma science thing. Drug. All right? My stock down. Imperial units. I mean, this guy, this guy fucking Andy Weir takes an absolute hatchet to Imperial Units and Visa v America. At one point, the tunnel is 20ft long or 7 meters. And then he’s like, oh, my God, being an American socks. You have to use feet instead of meters, buddy. What is a meter? I sure know what a foot is. I have one. I can judge what a footage. I can say here. This is a foot. That’s how long a foot is. Everyone has a foot. You know how long a foot is? Who has a meter? Nobody. Get over it. Okay. Wow. We have a metric tape measure on board. Thank God. He’s like, oh, praise the heavens. This tape measure is in metric units. I’m saved. Get over it, all right? Every single opportunity he has to shit on Imperial Units, he does. So it just makes the book, like 40 pages longer because he uses it all the time. And trust me, I get it. Metric units are fine. I get blocks of ten. It makes sense. But then he goes on to say, oh, why do we use blocks of ten? It’s so dumb. We only have ten fingers. So why do we do that? Why don’t we use six? It’s like you’re hurting your own argument. None of it makes any sense, okay? It’s all made up, so don’t worry about it. Use feet, use arms, fucking use fathoms. Whatever you want. Just get over it. To piggyback off what you just said. There D man. For all our listeners out there, there’s now a new buddy bookclub.com blog out there. This is before I read this book. Yeah. Why? These clocks have 60 seconds and 60 minutes and 24 hours. I created a new metric clock system. Do you want to read the article? No way. Did you really write that? Yes, that’s right. Anyway, did you start doing drugs or something? Yeah, I had a dream about it, and so I wrote an article on it, so why not fuck it? Anyways, it makes it so we have a three hour work day, which equates 8 hours, but we just change everything so it makes it easier. Also, which I found out by doing my research. What are you talking about? Yeah, make the clock. We make the day 10 hours long, which involves 100 seconds. 100 minutes. Oh, you’re saying you want to change? Yeah, that’s right. Go to Buddyball Club.com and read it. I sure will be very confused and also enlightened at the same time. Get out of Kovo and went nuts. But the one key takeaway here is that, to your point, you said, what is a meter? Turns out they change. The science community changes what those things are on a decent basis. They actually just changed what a kilogram is. What? No way. Our references in the article, they had a conference in 2019 where they changed three of the key metric system, units, sizes. I’m sure it’s by a marginal amount, but they’re changing it. Oh, my God. So this is like when they extend the NFL season by two games or whatever. It’s like, okay, all the previous historical stuff are now obsolete. Like, when we read that book, The Body, it was like, how long in terms of distance can a man orgasm? And it was like 18 inches. Now we have to just throw that out because it’s all changed.

Participant #1:

Okay, though. Anyways. But I agree. We’re on the same page, I think. Wait, no, actually, I don’t agree. I’m with Andy Weir in this one. All right. Okay. Well, all I know is the record books are open, so let’s when you have a stock down. I also had common sense as a stock down. I mean, how many problems do we run into that could have just been avoided by using common sense? Like you’re saying that we could have short the buck by 60 pages from some of this stuff. Common sense going to shorten this book by 100 pages, too. Give us an anecdote here in the scene where he needs to like, oh, for some reason, I need to send him what my chip is made out of. So he needs to get into his suit, go out, knock off a piece of his Hull. In what world is that a good idea? It’s like you don’t have something inside the ship that is pretty close to what the outside is made of. Or in the beginning, when he’s like, oh, I should have known that when I go into zero GS, I’m going to throw up and things are going to fly off the wall. But I didn’t tape anything down. Oops, I’m a dummy. That was a big point for me. I was like, wait, what? How did you not realize that? And the whole thing would be hilarious if he was like, okay, I’m just going to go outside and chip a piece of my haul. Chips a piece of the end. He died. He died. Humanity died because you wanted to throw a chunk of your halt to a fucking Et waving at you from Blip Bay. I had an Earth specific scientist down as well. Magic for stock down. How about the time where they are like, let’s try exploding this thing and they measured it like a nuclear bomb? Or the fact that we’re allowing these scientists to just melt polar caps and fuck around in the Sahara desert and just do all this shit. We have 26 years to live, and we’re just like, yeah, we might end the Earth here doing these random experiments, but fuck it, let’s try them out. Wouldn’t you rather have a good 30 years of life remaining rather than ending the world potentially, then philosophical question. Either way, Earth scientist sucks. Rocky is the fucking man. Rocky was awesome. Earth scientists are terrible. Okay, my stock down. Washing your clothes. It turns out it’s not necessary. You just soak your clothes in water and toss it in the freezer, and it kills all the germs. So why are we so focused on washing clothes? And currently my washing machine is broken, so I think I’ll just be freezing. Actually, I had a friend of a friend who was very serious about his jeans, just, like, loved his specific pairs of jeans but hated washing them because they shrink, they get uncomfortable the first couple of wears. And so he actually told me years ago, which I thought was blasphemous, until I read this book that he just freezes his jeans. And then that’s it. He said, I’ve never washed his jeans. It’s my favorite pair of jeans. I’ve owned them for, like, five years. I’ve never washed them. I just freeze them and then let them thaw and then put them on. So I also had a friend who, in the summertime, freezes his clothes before he gets in the shower and then puts them on afterwards. And I thought that was maybe the smartest thing I’ve ever heard. Yeah, I don’t get the whole gene thing, because the worst part about jeans is breaking them in. You’re literally stiffening them. You’re doing the exact opposite of what yeah, well, they thaw out after they thaw out, then you hang them to dry, and then they thaw out, and you’re good to go. But, you know, when you wash them and they shrink up a little bit and get tight, like, the fibers get tight. What you should be doing is buying just straight denim. I had a long conversation with someone at work that does this. They just buy straight denim and denim jeans. Yeah. And then he never washes them. He says, oh, wait, what do you mean, denim jeans or just like, denim fabric. And just like, they’re like, I don’t know. I forgot really what the conversation did, but he just kept on saying denim. And I was like, Totally. I’m in. Yes. Aren’t Jane’s just denim? It’s like cotton. Yeah, it’s all denim straight. Either way, don’t wash your clothes. Stock down. Don’t do it. Maytag and Whirlpool are going to be hitting us up, telling us to take this down. And we won’t fucking do it. Magic. Did you do any other stock down? No, that was by two, Keith. All right, last one for me. I want someone to correct me on this, but relativity stock down, so I don’t really know a lot about science, but the whole book is relative. Thank you. The whole book is based around the idea that Earth is going to die in 30 years. It takes him four years, theoretically flying out there. Four years, 13 years, whatever the math is on that right. Rocky says he has 72 years before his land dies. But Rocky, when he says that, didn’t know that there is such a thing as relatively. That’s why his ship has so much more fuel than he needed. And then Rocky had been there, right in that new planet for like, 40 years. He doesn’t know that the relatively exist. We know that four years equals 13 years on Earth. His Rocky system is further away than Earth is to the system they’re in. So shouldn’t by the time if Rocky actually did this calculation, his planet should be destroyed. It should be like 150 years already in his plan. Yes. The problem is with your science is you forgot to carry the one. So if you carry the one, it all adds up. Does that make sense? In the time you’re talking, they changed the units of measurement, too. Shit. Yeah. Well, I mean, a year would be 100 days in my calendar as well, so we’re good there truthfully. Listening to what you just said sounded like exactly something I read in that book. You zoned out. Yeah, I was out. That was good mathematic. I kept on being, waiting for the time where he’d be like, oh, Rocky, sorry you didn’t realize about relativity. Your fucking planet’s done. But it didn’t happen. Come back to Earth with me, bro. I didn’t understand a word that came out of your mouth, and you have made the entire world dumber. I’ve gotten that whole thing, but can’t wait to read your blog post. My last stock down was Kazakhstan. I mean, not since Borat has a Noble country been so shamed. It’s where they built the launch site, which they chose because, and I quote, People generally don’t build launch facilities next to anything important. Yikes. There are people there, and it’s also described as flat and featureless. So the people of Kazakhstan, I apologize on behalf of Andy Weir and the world for this. You are wonderful people. And if I had to build the launch facility, I would spare that for you, because there are lots of wonderful things that come out of Kazakhstan. I can’t name any of them, though. Audit. Here in the Gray Man episode, you purchased stocks in Kazakhstan because the Kazakhs are known for being very good at shooting guns. Yes. So which one is it, kid? So I guess it should have been stock up for me. I mean, the stock itself is down in this example, which means that I’m purchasing more. It’s undervalued. Yeah, exactly. Although I’m still not convinced that it wasn’t Cossack. C-O-S-S-A-C-K but that’s neither here nor there. Let’s jump into a quick pick. Your character. Did you have a favorite character in this one? Keith. Ava Strat. Doctor Strat. Nonsense. To the point. Had the best line in the book, which was when she’s talking to Ryland when he’s been a huge bitch. She says, Listen, Ryland, I like you. I just don’t respect you. Which was a great line. I’ve never heard it that way. I did highlight that in my book, too. I found that to be quite enjoyable. I’m with you. Although she seems like a tough lay, tough lay starfish vibe. Mine would be either, to me, the total opposite for how controlling she is. You’d be the starfish. Yes. Seriously, shaggy like a Minx. Okay. She would probably be correcting you multiple times, which that is not the most efficient way to procreate. Yes. I’m going with either Dimitri or Ilian Kina, basically the Russians. Dimitri likes to blow things up. He’s a light hearted guy when they’re doing the test. It’s not his fault that that other test fucked up. That’s the other two buffoons. But when that thing blows up, he’s like, what happens if Rylan said, what happens if this thing kills us and you fucked up the calculations? He’s like, well, you’re drinking after life, right? Cool. Very chill. And Ilian Keena. She just hangs out at the officer’s bar drinking unstable vodka all the time. If I was going to have a crew mate, that’s who I want. She’s pretty much like a saner version of the crazy Russian guy from the aforementioned Armageddon. There you go. I’m down. She was the one who chose heroin, right? As her way to go. Yes, she did. You think that was real, or she just wanted to have some on board? Yeah, exactly. She’s like, Maybe some heroin, but keep it in different files so I can have a little taste here. Actually, you know what? I should probably test that out now just to make sure it’s good heroin her like, before they went on the mission, she was like, you know what? Just give me some of that right now. Let’s get into some love hate. Oh, did Magic have a favorite character? Oh, did you? Sorry. I apologize. Yeah, it’s the obvious answer, but I thought Rocky was the fucking. Yeah, Rocky. He just seems like just a good hearted guy. Love, Keith, what did you love? I already went to it a little bit, but the alien scenes. I liked Rocky a lot. I thought Rocky loves Rocky love. It’s super original to come up with new biology for a species. I thought it was really cool. Yeah, I loved the whole who am I aspect of the story. And I like how you figure it out. With him. It seemed like a fun way for that journey to go and made sense why they had, like, the two timelines, which I thought the two timelines kept things kind of fresh and got you out of him just solving things on the spaceship the whole time, which I feel like I only saw the Martian movie. So magic, maybe you can tell me. But I feel like that was kind of the whole thing of the Martian was like solving one problem after another and there really wasn’t another side of the story. So I was a big fan of that. And I also enjoyed when he was trying to figure himself out at the beginning, he was like, So I’m a single man in my 30s who lives alone in a small apartment. I don’t have any kids, but I like kids a lot. I do not like where this is going. And he’s like, oh, I’m a teacher of feud, thank God. And it’s going to be so funny if it was like he realized he was a pedophile. Oh, my God, I’m a pedophile. I’m a horrible fucking person. Magic would you have for love? What do you love about this book? I love the relationship between Ryland and Ross. That’s my next one. Oh, adorable. I think kind of what you’re saying to like the science aspect of it, if that was what the whole thing was, which was basically what the Martian was. I mean, this is a little more complex and relative because it’s like space, and the Martian was kind of more like things that were like, how do you grow something? Well, you need this. This is more like interstellar stuff, which is a little less intuitive. But the relationship on this actually not only was my favorite part about it, but it also changed what I said to you guys before we finished reading the book. And how do you do this as an audiobook when the first half of the book is like, how do you do this as an audiobook? I mean, you don’t reread the science parts trying to understand things and go back and this and that. But then when you get the conversations between him and Rocky, hearing that in an audiobook, I think, would be a blast to kind of hear how that’s playing. So you didn’t hear that, right? You read it? I read it, too. I read it all, but I know Keith did audiobook, so I was very curious how this played out. I’m also curious how did they do Rocky? How did they do his voice? Yeah. How did they show it in the book? Because basically in the audiobook, Anytime Rock, you talked. It was basically like a synthetizer would talk. I love you, Rylan. Yeah, that’s why I kept on managing him as a robot at the time. Yeah, but what does it look like in the book? Does it have a note in the book? It’s just like the musical notes when he did musical notes stuff, they’d be like, you have no idea what it’s saying until like, yeah, it would do the same thing. It sounded like a synthesizer, but just notes initially. And then when he started to understand what he was saying, It would be a synthesizer with him talking over it. Okay, well, I’m glad I didn’t do the audiobook. Yeah, it wasn’t groundbreaking. The way I pictured it sounding was cheery and upbeat music, not just like a synthesized monotone kind of thing. It’s just playing like house bells. You’re like, oh, is that what he was saying? Yeah. I don’t want, like, Stephen Hawking in a robot with him. I pictured him sounding like R 2D two. Yeah. All right, fist my bump. Excite, excite. That’s what it sounds like, I said, because I’ll just jump into my forehead. My next love was the relationship between the two Because it’s one of the real parts of the book that gave me a genuine emotional response. There was a couple of times that I actually was like, not like, choked up, but close. He realized Rocky has all the Rocky’s like, oh, I have a ton of astrophage. I can get you home. He’s like, I’m happy, you know, die. Let’s say planet, and you will miss me. Question. I will miss you. You are friends. And then at the end, when he decides to go and get him, It’s like, you save me. I love that stuff. And obviously we talked about the fist bump. What you would enough. But although this is probably the biggest stick in my crossing of the whole book, this could have gone into stock down. But what the fuck was Rylan doing when he thought Rocky was dead? Dying at one point, he’s like, oh, Rocky still hasn’t moved. No surprise there. It’s like, yeah, because you’re letting him die. Of course he hasn’t moved Because you haven’t done anything. And then there’s a leak in the Hall, Which Ryland says it’s so small, it would take weeks to be a problem, but there’s no reason to just let it leak. Yes, there is a reason. You twit your homeboy that just saved your life Is presumably slowly dying 15ft away from you. Rocky is dying, and you’re just doing fucking spring cleaning. Get your ass in gear and work out a solution. Common sense. It made no sense. And granted, I know that what he ends up coming up with Potentially Could have hurt Rocky, and he really just needed to sit there. But as a human, you’re never assuming that this person is mortally injured. If I just sit and watch, Maybe they’ll heal. It just doesn’t make any sense. So for him to just be like, I’m going to go organize the cargo room, I’m going to fix this tiny leak, and just, like, hope something happens. It’s like he just saved your life. This is your friend, and you’re just going to, like, watch his dead body. It blew my cord. I was fucking pissed. Sounds like it’s on a hate section for you. But the problem I had with it was that he’s like, I can’t believe Rocky went and did this and saved my life to enrich this whole thing. And then he does the exact same thing to him to save his life. I’m like, so you’re doing the exact same thing you said that Rocky shouldn’t have done because he almost killed himself, right? Tried to move him. Yeah, I just grabbed him with his bare hands. Common sense for the win. Keith lost you for love. But I do also like the memory loss aspect. I do like having, like, when it’s a mystery and you’re kind of trying to solve it with them. I did think they kind of went a little too quickly into actually everything you need to know. The only big reveal and the only reason for the flashbacks after the first couple Was the cowardly thing. Other than that, I don’t think. And we were like, okay, so how did he get on the ship? That’s the only real mystery that kind of was resolved. So I didn’t really love the flashbacks once we got to the middle of it and it was just like useless ones. I have one in my hate that I think was the worst flashback I got to, but aliens being good guys. I like that. And I really like Rocky in general. Hate. Keith, what did you hate? Tell us. I mean, the biggest thing we’ve talked about this a lot in the pod, But I like to think of a book as a movie. In my head, when you’re in it, you don’t realize you’re reading a book or listening to a book. In my case, you’re just in the story this when you’re doing math equations or comparing. I don’t even know what the units they’re using. They’re kind of using REunits I’ve never even heard of. And being like, that’s like 4 billion. Yeah. I’m like, okay, all it does is just take you completely to the book. I can’t picture this in my head. I have no idea why this is impressive. You could just say it’s fucking a ton of energy, and that would be enough for me. He explains like, 30 different ways of how much energy it is. And I’m like, okay, this is not really helping me now. I just realized I’m reading a science not like textbook. That really just took me out of the book multiple times. Yeah. I mean, I’ll jump into mine because it was the same thing. There’s too much science for me. There’s a lot of times when I felt like I wasn’t the target audience for this book, Even though it’s heavily published and it’s very popular. Andy weird to the Martian. I was like, oh, am I just too dumb for this? And the answer is probably yes. The answer is definitely yes, but it was just too much of a high level science that isn’t really explained. That’s the other thing. It’s like, if you’re going to do that, then almost like, explain it more. It was just a bit much. I needed an Eli five, and that’s explained, like, I’m five for the non Reddit folks out there. What they don’t have in this book, obviously, Because he’s supposed to be alone out there with Rocky Is they don’t have the classic dumb character who the smart character explains things to in a very simple way. So the smart character says something crazy. It’s like, okay, well, we’re not all mental numbers, so what does that mean? Check out this quote. For the reaction. To work, the protons need to collide with a higher kinetic energy Than the mass energy of two neutrinos. If you work backwards from the mass of a neutrino, you know, the velocity of these protons have to collide. And when you know the velocity of a particle and an object, you know, it’s temperature. What? Like, what? And I’m just not this isn’t the kind of book, like Dune, Where I can read a page and be like, I didn’t understand anything and go back and be like, oh, now I get it. It’s like, I could read that 100 times and still have no idea. The average rectal temperature of a healthy goat is 103.4 degrees, by the way. It’s like, yeah, okay, now I understand that’s the sort of interesting science I’m looking for. Now, you told us rectal temperature of a goat. No idea. Okay, here it is. It’s 103 degrees. It’s like, cool. I get it. Let’s move on. Perfect. Give me more of that kind of science. Less than neutrino science. The story was cool enough by itself, too. So it’d be like seeing star Wars And then just explaining the science of a lightsaber for 50% of the book. You’d be like, okay, we don’t care. The cool part is the actual story, not the science. Yeah, exactly. In star wars, he does the Kessel run in twelve parsecs, and twelve parsecs isn’t even like a measurement of time. It’s a measurement of distance, not time. So it’s like, but I didn’t need to know that. I don’t care. It’s like, oh, cool. He did it until parsex. Let’s move on. Whatever. Yeah. It’s made up science about something that’s made up. That’s something that’s made up. So it’s like, this doesn’t mean anything. Yes, it could have been a lot shorter. I think it’s hard to go through it and realize you don’t need to understand the science of it to get the whole point of the book. The first half of the book is all about the science, and it’s like, do I need to be understanding what this is? But then when you get to the real, actual plot of the book, it’s like, okay, I could have just skimmed over the science parts and still gotten the same output of this. And that’s why I think this would work well as a movie. I totally agree with you. And the problem with all the science stuff is it lends you especially being a reader or reading it to start skipping things. Because I actually found towards the end of the book that if you just kind of like breeze through the stuff until you found an exclamation point, that was when actually stuff would happen. I was like, oh, I’ll read that part and if I was listening to an audiobook, I would be zoned out. I would be like, washing the dishes and be like, what the fuck just happened in that book? I have no idea. I definitely zoned out a lot. You have any hates for this one? It’s pretty nitpicky. And I get it kind of goes against the whole point of the story, but the way that they chose Ryland to be the guy to first study this seemed a little far fetched. Like, you get this 8th grade teacher who’s not respected in the science community and suddenly he’s your guy. The other part thing too, is we can only do one scientist on this and just only one. And it’s like, why? It’s like, well, we don’t know anything about this and it might be dangerous. Like, have you ever heard of the Manhattan Project? We put multiple scientists on that and that was just as dangerous. We didn’t know about nuclear energy. Shut out Vernon Brown, right. What if your scientist was one of the three people that dies with them? Well, yeah, speaking of that, I’m going to get into my next one, which is the Annie Shapiro and Martin Dubois. Why are they in the book? Super creepy couple. I mean, I’m all in for open sex talk. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to sex shame or anything like that. But why in front of someone like you’re having a three person class in front of someone, you say, hold on 1 second. We have 15 minutes after the lesson. Do you want to have sex in the bathroom? And the other guy’s like, that sounds very agreeable to me. It’s like, just wait until you’re done with the lesson and you’re in the hallway and you’re like, should we go bang in this co closet? Yeah, sure. Not a problem. Like every other person with the fate of humanity lingering. Yeah, every other normal God fearing person. It just makes no sense. And also, if I had my least favorite character, it would probably be the duo guy. He has a glass of wine that he lets sit for ten minutes so it can breathe and they’re like waiting for the launch. Imagine this guy at a dinner party. Like, he cracks a bottle of wine. So who wants a glass? And you go take a sip. It’s like, no, wait for the creme. The guy just seemed like a total loser. And then on top of that, they’re so dumb that these two people, even though we’re not going to give VD because we got tested, so we’re good. Who are the two scientists on this thing? Just decide to do experiments together. And I’m not talking about sexual experimenting. Like, they go to do real experiments together and die together. It’s like, you guys are so dumb. Common fucking sense, Keith. What else do you hate? This is similar to the sign stuff, but he kept being overly impressed. Everything the world’s about to end. They’re using every possible resource. And then, like, a point of the book, they’re like, oh, my God, the NSA is involved in this. Do you know how big the NSA is? Like, yes, I’m impressed by every single thing that comes up. And the worst of the court session where they go to sue them. It was so fucking bad. The line from Strat is, you can’t do this. We have all these pants, blah, blah, blah. She says, well, you and what army? I have the US Army, and that’s a damn fine army. I’m like, oh, my God. I’ve rolled my eyes so hard. I was like, Jesus, what are we doing here? That upset me so much. I’m sorry. You know what? It was better for me because I pictured the judge as Judge Judy. Like, I pictured it as a Judge Judy courtroom. On one side, we have the US patent rules, and on the other side, we have Director Strat and the US Army. And Judge Judy is like, I’m not going to list it at this. Respect to Judge Judy, I think she makes, like, $25 million a year or something. Insane good for Her Majesty. Do you hate anything about this novel, which is Project Hail Mary? Other than that, not too much. I fully enjoyed that. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we use this hate thing because with every Yin, there is a Yang. There’s love and there’s hate. We don’t actually hate anything. It’s such a strong word, especially when the world’s going to end. Who can you hate? Make love, not war. I didn’t really hate anything else, too, so that’s what I got. Except for the Dubai God, I just can’t get over here. Such a fucking twat. Let’s get into the listener rail key. Do we let any listener rail this week? First, we have a review. Do you want to read it? I’m not good at reading. I don’t have it. So, yeah, you have to read it. This is a review from one of our recent listeners on Apple. What can I say about the Buddy Book Club BBC that hasn’t already been said? They’re funny, smart. This sounds weird now that I’m reading. Yeah. All right. Yeah. If you guys have funnier views, you want to post that shit on us, we’ll be more likely to read them. This one’s, like, almost two self aggrand. Self aggrandizing? Yes. I don’t want to read it. Well, let’s put a caveat if you have shitty reviews, but, like, five stars, but then. Right. Shitty thing. Yeah. Okay. This PS is good to all the Germans out there. This is part of spreading like wildfire from the Black Forest to Hamburg. Don’t miss out. That works. I could go for some Black Forest Gato cake and a hamburger. That sounds delicious. Listener mail. What do you got? You’ve got mail. Listener mail from Stephen or Steven. There’s three ways that each of the astronauts decide to kill themselves. Which of the three is the best way to die? And would you pick something different? I believe it was the carbon monoxide poisoning. Heroin and just a straight up gun, I believe. Is that right? No, it was heroin. The gun and nitrous. Oh, okay. Sorry. Thoughts around those. I’m not sure about, like, straight nitrogen. But nitrous oxide. Right. Is like laughing gas. And can’t you just die from that, too, if you owe on that. I mean, I haven’t done any studies myself because the NSA might be listening because they don’t have anything better to do. But you can just take some nitrous oxide and you have a blast, right? Isn’t that the thing? Have you guys ever had that, even though it wasn’t like balloons at what’s called fish concerts and stuff? Yeah, fish concert here and there. You have first hand experience, then stuff that allegedly tastes like whipped cream, right? Yeah, it’s what’s in whipped cream. So if you just kids, don’t keep that nozzle, straight up, make sure you put it down. But if you do, keep it straight up tastes better than whipped cream. Make sure you’re dressed like a cold. Yeah, I was at a Staples, and I saw a guy in the parking lot snorting Duster keyboard cleaner. Oh, my God. Is that something you should. I should have called the cops on drive. Maybe there’s one of the best and earliest Intervention episodes where the girls addicted to Duster, and I feel bad because this is a human being. But unfortunately, the media and aka, like, entertainment television turns into entertainment. But she said it makes you feel like you’re walking on Sunshine. And then someone took that and put it on YouTube as, like, two walking on Sunshine, the song. So every time they say the chorus, it’s her going walking on Sunshine. It’s really good. That’s what the Internet was made for, unfortunately. I hope she’s doing very well and she’s over her Duster addiction, but Duster, unfortunately, wasn’t included in these three. So. Thanks, Stefan. Steven, Stefan, erkels alter ego. Appreciate that. I would not go with the gun to the head. That just sounds cold and ties into what, like Chow or Chang or whatever his name was, how he wanted to go. And his personality, the heroin was confusing to me because why would you use heroin and not just morphine, which is like clean heroin, right? I mean, I think I’m not a huge morphine, understander? But you just take a huge dose of morphine and you just call it that seems pretty chill. Except you do probably suffocate or something. I think if it was the nitrous oxide thing, which is what I’m thinking of, like laughing gas, and you just have a good time and then you go to outer space in your brain. Not like physically that sounds good to me. I think I’d go with that. I don’t have an alternative. Like, I wouldn’t do anything that I haven’t really put a lot of thought into it. Although I do like this question. Keith, what do you think? Yes, I would have mixed the Tiffany down the heroin first and then turn the nitrogen or nitrogen or whatever, because it sounds like. Because you could get fucked up with an overdose in heroin where you’re, like, choking on your own vomiting shit. So I’d rather do that. You kind of go into a nice sleep and then you die in your sleep with the night. I’m glad we did this uplifting. Question here. You put the mask on and you get the tank ready. You take the morphine, let’s say, and then you open the gas gauge and you just see what happens. You know what happens. You’re going to be done. But Magic, what do you think? I guess if we’re taking some of the heroin theme here, not a lethal amount, just enough to make things interesting and then put on the suit and just untether yourself and float away. Ground control the major Tom, the wildest trip you could ever be on. And then that’s how you go. All right, let’s tie this thing in with a bow here. Let’s cast the movie. Keith, who do you have for Rylan Grace? I had Jake Gillenhaw. That’s actually a good one. I think he’s one of the most underrated actors out there. You can carry a movie. And we should probably preference is this movie is about to come out, right? Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t do my research with this one. Yeah. So I think Ryan Gosling is supposed to be leading it’s supposed to be moving, coming out. Okay. It’s just been approved. Like, they haven’t cast anyone outside of him yet. Okay. But he’s like, put money in to be the maker. Look at the magic. Doing the research for the BBC. I love to see that. Love to see it. I would have just brought it back with Matt Damon, like, just continuing from the Martian. Oh, he gets back home after the Martian, and it’s like, well, we need someone for this other mission. And you had a lot of experience in space doing all this stuff. And he’s like, I’m willing to go back. It’s like, how about them apples? Coping with a bunch of those drugs, make sure he forgets who he was. Yeah. So I would do that. Magic, did you have anyone else for any of this stuff because I knew that Ryan Gossing was in it. I couldn’t unsee it. I think it works. He could carry a movie. Yeah. No, I mean, I enjoy Ryan Gosling myself, and he’s easy on the honest for Strat. I had Eva green, who was the female lead in casino Royale. So she’s the money in casino Royale. So she’s like, I’m the accountant or whatever. I’m in charge of the money, that kind of thing. She just has that badass bitch in a business way vibe to her that I think she could carry this because you really have to have that with Strat. Did you have anyone else, Keith? I had a Jody Foster for her. Oh, maybe call back to contact. Yeah. Written by Carl Sagan, by the way. Oh, really? The book. I mean, the movie? Yeah. I didn’t know that. That’s cool. And then for Rocky, I had the star wars rogue one, K two. So

Participant #1:

robot. Yes. Got you the robot that’s already in it. I just said Boston dynamics will create Rocky. So we’re good there. Boston dynamics, probably. I like it. We all thought of it as just a robot, not a you guys are both wrong. Okay, go on. There’s only one choice for Rocky and you’re crazy that you haven’t. Neither of you have said this, and it’s obviously Andy Serkis. Oh, that’s a great call. This is a tangent and we are going long, but why not? I finally got the significant other here to jump on board with Lord of the rings. So we watched fellowship, and I probably spent like 20 minutes beforehand just explaining Andy circus and who he is, how he’s just the most phenomenal voice and body actor or whatever. And she had no interest in any of it. But this is perfect. Yes, a billion percent. Andy Sergeant should do it. He’ll do all the sounds too. It will be phenomenal. Yeah. So would you recommend the book? No. Yes. This wasn’t for me. Just out of the book too much. It was too long. I know it’s a very popular book. It’s probably against the grain here, but I think the movie would intrigue me and I would definitely watch that. But just too much science for me. I think it’d be a good audio book for going to sleep. It would help you sleep. No, it was bad. I wouldn’t say it was bad. Like we’ve read some bad books. I wouldn’t say this was bad, but it would not be in something I would tell someone like, oh, you should read project hail Mary. Unless someone was like an astrophysicist. I’d be like, oh, you should check this out. But I think I agree with you that I think the movie could be promising magic. What do you think? I mean, I definitely would recommend it. I think if you go on with the understanding that the science isn’t really the main point of the whole story, I think that would make it a lot more manageable for someone who didn’t like it because of the science. I would say it is a little long and it didn’t necessarily need to do with all that, but I think it’s a story definitely worth reading and the twists that it brings are really enjoyable to get to it and I feel like don’t get us wrong here and I’ll speak for everyone. Obviously magic liked it, so I’m not going to speak for you, but I’ll speak for Keith here. I’m very impressed with the science aspect that Andy Ware does in all of his books. It’s very well researched. He tries to put it in reality as opposed to just like with the star wars stuff we’re saying where it’s like, I don’t know any scientists fuck having scientists on the set. Like let’s just roll it out there. I hope that whoever does this movie comes at it with like a Christopher Nolan interstellar aspect Where they try to make it true to the science and I think as Andy we’re probably has some rights as producer credits, so I’m sure they will, but I’ll definitely watch the movie probably when it comes out. Not going to go see in theaters, but either way, magic, thanks for joining us. This was a blast. I really enjoyed chatting with you about these books. Yeah, I appreciate you having me told us about this book, so I appreciate you for that. If you have one in the future, you’re welcome any time on the buddy book club. Keith, as always, magic brought the heat like astrophage. You’ll see your way out. Indeed. Keith, as always, it’s a great time. And until next time, we’re doing Percy Jackson right? All right. Yes, we’re taking it back to kids time. Let’s so to everyone else. Bye now. You sleep. I watch.

This been bugging me for a long time and comes to the forefront in the book we most recently read, Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Almost everything we do and the whole metric system is based on multiples of 10, probably because we have 10 fingers (fun fact 1 in 500 are born with Polydactyly aka having an extra finger). 

If it seems completely arbitrary that we go off of this system based on 60 seconds/60 minutes/24 hours, that’s because it is: 

The Babylonians made astronomical calculations in the sexagesimal (base 60) system they inherited from the Sumerians, who developed it around 2000 B.C. Although it is unknown why 60 was chosen, it is notably convenient for expressing fractions, since 60 is the smallest number divisible by the first six counting numbers.

The buddies time metric system proposal is: instead of of 60 seconds/60 minutes/24 hours, we change to 100 seconds/ 100 minutes/10 hours. Would this math work out currently? No, not at all. In this method there would be 8.64 hours in a day. But that’s way too messy, so what we’ll do instead is just change the length of a second. It’s made up anyway why not change it? ‘But you can’t just change defined units of measurement Buddy, what are you stupid?’ No you’re stupid! 3 units of the metric system were changed as recently as 2019. Science is a liar sometimes.

Sorry for being defensive, back to the rant. So these units of measurement are already made up any way, so all we do is make a second a little quicker (16% faster) and make a day 100,000 seconds rather than 86,400 and just like that we got out our system all figured out. Easy peazy, lemon squeezy.

Now would changing to this system cause mass confusion and a shit load more trouble than it’s worth, yes likely. But a 3 hour work day sounds pretty nice right? A quarter of an hour being 25 minutes and a half hour being 50 minutes makes a whole lot more sense. And the watch market would love it, give a huge boom to the Rolexes and other watch makers of the world. Win-Win for everyone.

Something to think about. Also, I wrote this whole blog and realized there actually already is a metric time but it’s not nearly as cool as our idea.

P.S. This all reminds me of another theory I will bring up at a later time, why isn’t there a world clock/universal time? Fuck time zones.

The Buddies read Andy Weir’s (author of The Martian) second book Artemis. They discuss ‘Ocean 11 crew coming together’ scenes, space vacations, uncomfortable sex puns, the ‘moral’ economics of smuggling and much more in this cathartic episode 6.

Transcript for SEO 🙂

All right. Welcome back to The Buddy Book Club. I’m Dylan here with my co host, the Bombastic Bookworm. Keith, what’s up, buddy? How are you bombastic bookworm like that? All right, well, we’re here to break down some best sellers. I’d say we’re the casual Friday of the Book club world with sweatpants here. No Khakis. Yeah. So we’re going to take it pretty lighthearted, but we’re going to have fun with it. We try to read these books and have a good time and learn something new. That’s really the key. You can catch us on buddybookclubpodcast at gmail. Com. Buddy Book Club on Twitter, buddy Book Club podcast on Instagram and www. Dot. Buddybookclub. Com. So new site just launching. I saw that added I was like, Wait, is this a thing? Oh, yeah. The kids building it out. Don’t worry about it. I just went off the notes. I didn’t even know if it was real or not. You could have put anything in there and I would have read it. Yeah. Pornhub. Com. I don’t know. So yeah. Feel free to send us your comments or questions. Hate mail. We love love mail. We love, too. This week we’re going to be reading read Andy Weir, his second novel after the popularity of The Martian, which is Artemis. This is his first novel after becoming a full time novelist. Previous to this, actually, when he wrote The Martian, he self published it alone, which is crazy to self publish. A best seller that ends up getting made into a movie with Matt Damon is crazy, but Additionally, he was still working as a software engineer when he wrote that. So end of the day. Andy Weir, props to you, brother. He didn’t have, like, an editor. He didn’t have all the other resources that a publishing company would provide, or did he have? He definitely didn’t have the resources, no resources. I don’t know if he had his own editor or whatnot. I’m sure he bounced ideas and he had someone reading his stuff and going over it. And then once it got some sort of popularity, I wonder how that works. If we had read The Martian, I would have done that research, but we did not. We’re reading Artemis, but Artemis is a lunar quality and the home of our protagonist, Jazz Bashara. She’s basically like a gopuff delivery driver for the good folks of Artemis, which is like I said, the lunar colony, but she has a side gig smuggling illegal items. Nothing too nefarious. She eventually takes a job as a get rich quick scheme and also quickly finds herself in over her head, which is pretty much the first half of the novel. The second half is basically Jazz putting together a crew to finish the job. Accurate. Yes, I think that covers it when we first picked it. Or at least I think I picked this one. Unfortunately, you did it read as an Andrew’s follow up book, which I was like, oh, everyone said, the marching is fucking unreal. And then it was basically a Sci-Fi adventure moon journey book. And I was like, oh, this is right up my alley. This is going to be perfect. So that’s what it’s pitched as. I don’t think it delivered, but, yeah, we’ll get into that later. Yeah, it’s kind of like my next question was like, what kind of book is this? Because if someone said, hey, this is a Heist book that takes place on the moon, I’m like, all right, I’m in. That sounds cool. Yeah, it wanted it to be. And I talk about this later, but it wanted to be Oceans Eleven on the Moon, and it ended up being science underscore underscore underscore science fiction. That’s the only thing I would say. It’s basically a science book. I know you love Brave New World, but I think it’s very similar, actually, to Brave New World, where it’s a cool world building, like, a very realistic, real idea, something that could definitely happen in the future, but a shitty story wrapped around it. So that was my issues right away. So would you say that this is a heist book, a crime book, a space colony book or a how to on welding in space. The last one. It was a science book with welding. He wrote about welding. Like, it was, I don’t know what I’d even compare it to. Oh, my God. The weldmanship of jazz. Her dad loved her so much. He welded for 3 hours when it should only take 45 minutes. What? Who cares? All right, well, we’re really getting into it at the top. We got a lot of categories to go through. We’re going to be going through some of our favorite characters in this novel, our favorite scenes stock up, stock down what we loved and what we hated about it. I think you’re going to try to rewrite the book at some point. I am a published author by that. I mean, I’ve said, what author should write instead of actually writing anything. So, yeah, that makes me an author pretty much. Did you know that I actually am a published author? What do you mean? You just bury the lead? It’s just fact. What did you publish? I published a poem. It wasn’t published by me. It was a poem I wrote, but it’s in a book. We’re going to need that red on the air if you’re not ready right now, we’ll have next episode. I’m sure people will be waiting with bated breath to hear that. Actually. Quick aside, my mom asked me about this, like, probably five years ago or something. She’s like, oh, remember that novel or that poem you wrote that was in the book, and I was like, yeah, I guess so. Sure. And she was like, I wonder if you get a hold of that. So I just Googled it. And the first thing that came up was someone reading it on YouTube, and it’s hilarious. It’s like some girl in Chicago or in Ohio. I see reading my poem, which is called Homies. Wow, nice. Just watch the YouTube video and you’ll get everything. But that’s another story. So we’re going to go through these categories, but before that, we’d like to start off with a libation as we do on every episode, to wet your whistle, get excited to kick back and relax, to listen to us. Break this one down. We like to base these libations off of stuff that has been referenced in the book itself. So each episode is different, which is fun. This particular book, a few things were discussed. Scotch, particularly Bowmore 15, but we’ve been down the road of Scotch before, so I think we’re going to pass on that. The bar keep Billy. He makes a few different bathtub gins, which I’m not really trying to get into that wine spotiot situation, and I didn’t have enough time to ferment my own fruit. So I’m going to pass on that and settle for a good old fashioned pint of beer, which is what Billy’s pulling off the draft in his bar in Artemis. So I’m going personally with the Miller Light, but you know what? To reach their own. Take what you like. Well, cheers. And let’s get into it. We like to start this off with our favorite character. So this book is interesting in that it’s a pretty small group. I feel like for some reason, all the books we’ve read have been like a really small cast of characters. It’s in Game of Thrones, so, yeah, that’s good. I don’t think we’d be able to handle that. No. So you pretty much have Jazz, and her inner circle is all the characters in this book with a few ancillary characters, considering we just referenced Billy the bar keeper. He’s up there for me. I mean, he’s running a dive bar on the moon. I don’t even know how that’s possible. Like, there’s only regulars in this joint, but at one point, Jazz walks in there and he has her beer ready for him. And I think we talked about this in the hunting party pod, but that’s, like, my dream for a bar is just walk in and then already have my drinking choice ready. Here’s your Shirley Temple ready to go. Well, I like a Roy Rogers. Better give me the Coca Cola with it. Billy’s up there for me. He’s not my favorite necessarily. But what else did you have? Jazz is basically the whole book. She’s the main character, but she sucked. She was awful. Really? Yeah. I did not like Jazz. I’ll get to that later, but I did a trio of favorites that were all very, very ancillary side characters. One of them was Billy Hartnell, the bar owner who always gives Jazz free drinks, who’s, like, testing out new drinks and then Jazz just shit on it after him, giving her free drinks I was like, Jesus, maybe like, yeah, this one isn’t your best. Maybe you should do this, but, no, she just says it’s pieces of garbage. Yes. So he’s spinning up different kinds of bathtub, which I think you would have to do on the moon, like, find whatever kind of liquor or fruits and sugar. I mean, sugars that you can ferment, ferment them and make something yourself. One thing you did say, though, was he’s giving you free drinks? It was a weird writing. The first time she goes in there and gives him a free drink, he gives her a drink, she finishes it. Can’t get a second one because she has to run out and he charges her. So I didn’t get that part. It was like, Wait, maybe he was just Downing drinks, and then she had another one. Maybe I misread it. But either way. So, yeah, Billy’s up there for us. Who else you got? I mean, most of the characters in this side characters are all like, entrepreneurs and go getters. And Jazz is like, everyone tells her she’s the most talented person, the smartest person, the best looking person, and she’s the opposite. She does like, everything is shortcut, and she does everything half as she doesn’t fucking fully commit. She’s like, and then she gets all her friends to do shit for her. She just asks for favors all the time. From that, I respect this. She seems jazz. I’m like, what the hell is this? Why would you like Jazz? I just don’t understand that. Just as like a person, she’s a diamond in the rough. She’s like, Aladdin, she’s got a lot of potential. The people that, you know, that are like, the smartest people, but least likely to try hard or do stuff on their own. Those are the people you don’t admire. You’re not like, oh, I don’t care for this person any day. Those are people you hate. No, you haven’t worked hard. You haven’t done anything. You’ve had all these opportunities and you squandered them. So fuck you. I think they’re trying to lift her up. Whatever Loretta Sanchez is who Jazz should be. She is a CEO and founder of the Sanchez Aluminum. She grew up on the mean streets of Brazil. Basically, for some reason, she’s able to kick Jazz’s ass. She’s like, a 50 year old, like, Taekwondo or some shit, but, yeah, she’s only in the book briefly, but she’s fucking awesome. And then Jazz is like, oh, I hate her. For what? What reason? Why do you hate her? She was protecting her business. If someone came into my business and she has multimillion dollar harvesters and they try to destroy them, that person would be killed, right? That’s fair. So she’s like, oh, she tried to kill me. Why would she do that? Could you try to ruin the business? She grew by herself after starting from nothing. How about a little bit empathy from the other person’s point of view. Fucking Jazz. Am I getting mad a little bit? Yeah. You don’t like Jazz at all? No, I don’t like it. I don’t like her at all. And she’s like, yeah, I’m really good looking. How do you like jazz? Do you like jazz? Well, it’s for your Loretta point. She is Brazilian, and Brazilians are great fighters in general. I mean, that you have the whole Gracie family. Like you said, she grew up on the main street. She probably learned how to fight there. She learned leverage. She learned leverage. So I’m not too concerned about the fighting situation. But Loretta seems like a good person. I don’t know why Jazz continued to hit her the entire time and saved her life. Yeah. And then afterwards, they’re like, oh, who’s running the company? And she’s like, Loretta. It’s like, no, why is this prison? Your enemy made no sense. Even at one point, I’m not connected to the mob. I just like, I have to do this. I want to run this company, and I have to pay off mob people. If this is 1950 New York and there’s, like, the ice cream parlor guy who has to pay some cash to the mob so they don’t throw bricks through his windows. Like, You’re shitting on that guy. What? Yes. I’m confused. Jazz. She also was, like, all she cared about her employees. She basically was on the Titanic, going down with the ship at her facility, being like, everyone out except for me. I go down with this fucking thing. I want everyone else to be safe. And then when the train went back to town, she said, All I care about is my boys. All I care about is that’s all she cared about. She’s like, the best person. Yeah, it seemed like she was a great person. And Jeff hated her for literally no reason. She hated her because she’s who she should be. But she’s not because she’s the worst. Oh, that’s an interesting take. Yeah. So she just didn’t like her because she was kind of jealous. Okay. Other favorite characters I had. You know what? I love the nerdy guy in any movie or book who can’t get the ladies but tries

Participant #1:

how they say it. You listen to the audio books I usually read. So how did they say his name in the book? Sabota. So, yeah, he’s kind of jazz. He’s got a huge crush on Jazz throughout the whole book. You can tell she’s not picking up on it for some reason, which is weird. I thought she was. And she was like, yes, I know he likes me, but I don’t like him. Yeah, maybe. And I need these favors. Yeah. She wasn’t even, like, fun flirty back or anything. She was just like, hey, you need to learn how to talk to women. He’s like, all right, cool. What’s the worst thing to say to someone at the same time? He creates a reusable condom. I don’t know if it’s a good idea or bad idea. We might get into that later, but at least it’s an idea. He’s got something going for them. Entrepreneurs in this book are very other than Jazz, and he’s just an interesting nerdy science type. So I was down with him, and he’s loyal. What else do you need? Good guy. He’s probably my pick. He’s my pick. He’s my pick. I like that. Yeah, that was definitely up there on the list. Potentially. Yeah. The only person I ever had was Rudy de Bois, who just gets shit on for being good looking and wanting to do his job. That’s literally. She’s like, yeah, then Rudy is trying to get me kicked out for stealing all this shit and doing all this illegal stuff. What an asshole. That’s why he’s bad. All right. Jazz has some issues. And you have some issues with Jazz. That’s clear. I’m going to burn one of my potent quotables for this because you said, Rudy. When Jazz describes Rudy, she says Rudy Dubois is a seriously good looking man. He’s 2 meters tall and as blonde as a Hitler’s wet dream. Jesus Christ. Decent line. Andy. We are decent line. I think he’d be bad, though. You think he’d be a bad guy after hearing that, and then he’s just like, yeah, I’m always trying to do is do my job and not like, have the city burned down? Yeah. I mean, why would you think he’s bad? He’s just blonde just because he says Hitler, and it doesn’t mean he’s bad. It’s just how blonde he was. Jesus. So that covers your characters. So this book actually doesn’t have a lot of scenes in terms of a set thing that happens. It’s a lot of in between Jazz kind of running from somebody or going to a meeting with somebody in terms of science and a lot of science, a lot of science. Like, Andy, I appreciate the science, but I thought you would like this. I did. We’ll get into that later, but I did it’s just like, all right. There’s a lot of signs, but in terms of scenes, I have a few that I had listed as potentials for the favorite. I had the first attempted sabotage when Jazz goes out and tries to blow up the loaders or something, harvesters the harvesters like a command and conquer red Alert type thing. Got you noon alert, building the crew, which is good for any Heist movie. When they build the crew, I have any other way to go on Macroeconomics with Fidelis new Guggy, which is like, this book needs this conversation that Jazz has with her in terms of explaining the bigger picture. So it’s like, okay, I’m just trying to do this little Heist thing, and it’s like, okay, but take a step back, Zoom out and look at exactly what’s going on here. And it’s important for the reader to get that to understand. Like, how this space colony works. Or this lunar colony? Excuse me, space colony. This lunar colony works. So that was three. And then the fourth was the second heist, which is kind of the climax of the book itself. Did you have any other ones that you like to throw out there for potential when everything backfires after the Smelting incident, creating a core form? Yes. So the end of it after the high stone? Yes. The one thing I didn’t see coming was that which I actually really liked because I thought it was going to be actually a dark turn. And I thought Jazz is going to finally realize all the shit she’s been doing. So I thought, like, the squandering, her talent fucking over her dad importing dangerous shit. Doing all the shit she’s doing is finally catching up with her. And I was like, yes, this scene is going to fucking rectify this. And then, no, nothing happens. The end of the book happens, and they’re like, no one was injured at all. And it didn’t have any consequences for you in any way. I’m like, oh, great. This is perfect. But I thought it would be more like, I think it’s like a Twilight zone. Do you know how Twilight Zone a lot of them end where the person thinks they’re doing everything right. In the end, they realize their own faults because phenomenal. Yeah. That’s what I thought it was going to happen. She’d finally look herself in the mirror and be like, oh, I killed all these people type of thing. But no, that definitely applies to this. I think that’s actually a good call out for my favorite scene, though. I think it’s the first attempted sabotage when she tries to fuck with the harvesters, because it’s our first real experience on the lunar surface. And I think the science plays in really well with that scene in terms of explaining how things work, and you really get, like, a good picture of her doing this because it would be hard to explain without the science stuff. But it also then, because the science is involved, it makes it way more interesting. And it’s just like a cool action scene. She’s blowing up shit on the moon and lunar gravity is affecting it. And it’s also like a clock running. She’s got X amount of oxygen and Y amount of time. Oh, shit. Is she going to get away from this? Is she not going to get away from it? And I think the way that they got her out of that scene, it seemed like she wasn’t going to be able to escape. And then they also introduce, who’s a Doug, like, who’s her buddy character or whatever. So they get out of that scene in a cool way. And then they also introduce his other character and you’re like, oh, she’s screwed now and then. This guy is kind of like, I’ll give you a pass here and you’re like, Wait, why would he give you a pass, and it kind of creates that whole situation with her and her ex boyfriend and stuff like that. That really wouldn’t be that interesting, but it creates a lot of character development in there. I thought it was just a good scene. Like if I was going to see the movie and this scene was on, I’d sit down and be like, oh, I’ll watch this part. This seems like a cool part. That’s a good point. If this were just on Earth, it still be interesting. But this had all the other elements of being on the moon and gravity and all the different things of, like, chemistry coming to play. Yeah, this is where I saw the movie being like, oh, this would be cool. My runner up would be the Macroeconomics with Fidelisnaguji. I just think that it explains so much and the interesting stuff that I’m interested when it comes to this kind of moon or whatever space stuff. I love the idea of there’s, like, way more moving parts than you even believe. And also this story in itself where you’re saying it’s a selfish girl kind of trying to get rich quick, but she’s not seeing all the other things that are happening in the background. Is that about anyone else? No, she definitely doesn’t. So, yeah, out of those that I listed, those are my one A and one B. And then you like the cliff form. Yes. I thought that was the one point where things could go off the rails. And you didn’t see that coming at all, which I thought was cool to it. No, I dug it. Although it is I will 100 million% agree with you that no one dying or anything. It’s like now there’s a couple of casualties. I think they said that a couple of people died, but they had, like, previous conditions. They said they had cardiac arrests, but because the society loved out their neighbors so much, they only checked on them, and they got them in the hospital as soon as. Yes, which is surprising because she doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. They knew that person was having heart attacks, so they got them taken care of. I feel you’re going to have a lot of stocks in terms of ups and downs and loves and hates. So let’s first get into our stock up, stock down segment. Stock up. What do you got this ties into the ending. But forgiving people when you’re dying, that’s a big stock up for me here. I don’t know if you caught it, but she’s about to die, and she’s like, just no, Dale, I forgive you for everything. So let me put this a little bit in context. She’s about to kill 2000 people in society. Dale cheated with her then boyfriend two years ago, who was not attracted to her because he’s gay. He was using her as a beard. He’s actually attracted to men. He’s into Dale. It’s semi cheating. But to compare, I forgive you for about to kill two dozen people to cheating on a boyfriend two years ago is mind numbingly insane. The most insane thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. So stock up forgiving people. All right, we’re continuing the tradition of very blurry lines between stock up and stock down. So Dale and I can’t remember what her dad’s boyfriend’s name is because he wasn’t part of the story. But, like, kept getting brought up. I still love him, by the way. But fuck you, Dale. I’m like, Wait, what? Yeah, obviously it’s tougher. Jazz holds Grudges. She holds grudges. I respect that. Yeah. So stock up for Grudges. She holds Grudges without question. But, yeah, it seems like, OK, you love this guy and you had a good relationship, but he was gay and like, yeah, your best friend cheated on him with you. Would you rather him be with me? Yeah. You like this guy too, Dale? Yeah. It’s a shitty situation, especially a small colony. It’s like high school. I mean, I get it in the sense, it’d be like high school if your best friend took your girlfriend and you have to stay together, you have no chance with that person. Not because, yes, I get it. I see how that’s, like, takes it the hurt down a little bit because this guy was gay, so our future would have not worked out anyways, but it still hurts. I understand that. And then Additionally, you have to see these people all the time. I forgot you’re about to kill the other people, by the way, but I forgive you. It is pretty insane. All right. I like that one space vacations. Huge stock up for space vacations. This book has to be good for the commercial space travel industry as a whole, because it shows, like, all the cool stuff you can do if there was a place to go on the moon, which is probably if you stretch things out, it’s probably like, our next step in terms of solar commercial endeavors outside of obviously these kind of trips around the Earth that they’re trying to do with SpaceX and Virgin is trying to do it. I get that. But if you’re trying to actually go somewhere, the moon is the spot, and it’s a pretty good spot. There’s this low gravity, which they talk about a lot seems pretty interesting. You get to Zorb on the lunar surface. I’m not into zorbing, but I could see how on the lunar surface that would be super cool. I mean, imagine what the stars would look like and then you got an Earth rise going on in the background. Like this sounds great. And then Additionally, most importantly, for the space vacations, nothing really bad happens. I know the Clifford thing totally screws stuff up, but there’s no breaches. Andy Weir takes a lot of time explaining all the safety precautions that would be in place and how the redundancies on top of that. So if I’ve read this book before going onto a plane to a space shuttle, I’d be like, yeah, get me there. This sounds sick, but I have a question for you. Are you into doing this if this was available to you? So let’s say right now you could go to the moon for a vacation for a week or whatever it would cost you. I know. It’s like 70 grand in the book. Let’s say it’ll cost you ten grand. Ten grand all in to go to the fucking moon. Would you be down? Listen, I think the view of the moon onto the Earth is probably the best thing you’ll ever see. However, no chance, like zero. You have to pay me. Probably. You’ve got to pay me, like, a million dollars to do it. I think I don’t think I would do it for anything less than that. I won’t even consider it. I don’t think. Is it because I don’t like flying that’s first off. So I’m not taking a spaceship up to. I also heard that when you’re in space, it just basically feels like a roller coaster feeling in your stomach. Never been on a roller coaster. Never been on one. All right. The roller coaster feeling here. So apparently you have that at all times. That sounds fun. That sounds miserable. And then the moon has the shittiest food. Apparently, no beer or no alcohol. There’s all these restrictions. It sounds terrible to me. I don’t know. And then you obviously can die very easily. Well, that factors. Then what about the Internet? You got a four second Internet lag time. Is that a problem for you? I actually had stock down the moon. I actually thought it would be patroller. It sucks. You know what? To tell you the truth, I’m with you. I’m 100% with you. Okay? To be brutally honest, I’m with you. The Internet lag time. Not for me. There’s no fucking hospital on the moon. Why is there no hospital? I don’t understand that. That’s a good point. It’s a frontier town, but it’s the final frontier. So it seems exciting. But it’s not because outside of getting to do this Orbing excursion, if this is, like, your all inclusive, potentially written. No, I’m sure they figured out the gamma raise and stuff like that. But you get 2 hours. That’s what they say. I think it’s like 2 hours to do that. And that will cost a shitload. So I get it. But then outside of that, you’re just like living in these bubbles for me. Personally, I went to the Grand Canyon, and it was like, mind blowing experience just because of the stars. So I think you’d probably have a similar experience on the moon of just like the stars, like seeing the Earth. It makes you feel tiny, like it makes you feel intention. So I think that would be amazing. But that’s a moment. There are a series of moments. I don’t want to fucking fly to the moon. Heart has for me, but in general, space, vacation, stock up, send it to the moon. Another stock up I had, though. I’ll go and click here. Pen pals. Yeah, pen pals. It used to be a thing. I feel like when we were in elementary school, it was like, hey, we’re going to write to this other elementary school in Phoenix, and it’d be like, oh, what’s life like in Phoenix and Jazz? Throughout this story, Jazz has a consistent pen pal in Kelvin, who’s living in Africa. He’s in Kenya, Kenya. Okay. And they started off early based on their writings, but they end up from this pen pal. Not only do they have a long lasting friendship, like a lifelong friendship, but it also becomes quite profitable because then she has an Earth contact to use for smuggling goods and use. She sure does. Yes. And for a lot of favors. Do all these things for me and don’t ask questions. But they say some nice things to each other. He’s into soap operas. And Jazz says soap operas are lame, but it’s okay. If you like lame stuff, we can still be friends. That’s a cool way to approach friendship. But in general, Pen pals, it’s a good sign for Pen pals. Stock up. There you go. Yeah. It was a very friendly exchange, considering, like, if you go on Instagram or Twitter, those random people you meet are not very nice. Agreed. I had another stock up. This may be a side, but gone in 60 seconds. Villains. I don’t know if you remember gone in 60 seconds. But basically, the premise is they need to steal 50 cars right in this allotted time to get, like, a million dollar payout or something like that. And these cars themselves are all worth, like, they’re stealing cars that are, like, $250,000. So they’re selling 50 of them. So the math there, I don’t really make sense. But anyways, he also had to save his brother. Well, yeah, I’m just saying the general principle of what the contract was. Okay. I like, how you’re equated to Nick Cage movie. This is on point. Yeah, they steal 49 and a half cars. The 50th car was damaged, and the villain is like, no, you’re dying for this shit. You’re dead. I’m fucking killing you because you didn’t bring me 50 exact cars. My reputation through. And this one car is a little bit damaged, which is the most mind blowing, evil thing to possibly do. Okay, so this is like, gone in 60 seconds. Stock up. Yeah. So when Jazz destroys three of the four harvesters, which are worth, I think they said, like, hundreds of millions of dollars, which would substantially ruin the smelting business, all she does is like, Are you fucking done with that fourth one yet or no? Well, no, but the whole point is, the oxygen contract or whatever can expire or the aluminum contract, but their production levels are going to go be still be available to stay above the contracted limit. I mean, that’s all that matters. And then eventually they’ll build more, and then nothing happens. So I get that took a company that had very limited or basically limited assets, and they basically took, like, $600 million of assets. Is it still a stock up for you? I’m confused. Oh, I’m just saying that villains, those type of villains are back up. They’re stuck up. Irrational villains are still up. All right, 60 seconds ran. You can parlay that into your stock down then, because I feel like everything has been stocked down for Listers out there. It’s not a great book. I mean, on the same note, one of my stockdowns are actually my only stock down. Because I loved this book. I thought it was phenomenal. My only stock down was law and order itself. I mean, Jazz’s original boyfriend was cheating on her with a 14 year old girl. She’s an adult. He’s an adult, but she’s not this 14 year old girl. Okay? Jazz and her boyfriend are both adults, and he’s cheating on her with a 14 year old girl. And this is not illegal. The worst case this gets you is like a beat down. And, yes, I know that in this world we call Earth, there are lots of countries that don’t have ages of consent, which is fucked up. But the fact that it’s like, yeah, so different people have different moral standards. And that’s just the way it is. It’s like, all right, that’s fucking weird. And then when Jazz gets assaulted with that guy with a knife lefty, the security guard who finds him, he runs away, the attacker runs away, and the security guards like, he had a knife. So it’s best to just let him go. Like, what? Yeah, that made no sense. What? But then I was like, all right, fine. I love Westerns. So I get it. This is just a lawless town. That’s what we’re going to go for. Just completely lawless. I get it. Okay. That’s what we’re going for. I was fine with that. Until at the end, when Jazz gets in trouble for this whole thing, trying to kill everyone and everything, Fidelis Naguji is like, we need to present ourselves as a community that lives under a rule of law. What is a great point? You’ve literally presented this entire book as there are no laws on Artemis. If Billy the Barkeep wants to get 13 year old kids drunk, he can. But he might face an angry mob of parents once their kids come home. It’s like, okay, fine, sure. Yeah, this is an old timey saloon. But then all of a sudden it’s like, no, we have to be law and order. So the quagmire of law and order is stuck down for me. I don’t understand the amount of passivity. She’s a 14 year old girl, like, whatever people different moral understanding. So you can just get a 14 year old drunk and hook up with them on the moon and it’s chill. This is why he wanted to visit the moon. I did not want to visit the moon. I was anti moon from the star. Okay, speaking of the morals and the laws, moral smugglers was stocked down for me. Jazz, jazz is a moral smuggler. Yeah, she’s like, yeah, the reason I’m the best smuggler is I beat out everyone’s prices, and I don’t let drugs in ever. Hey, Jazz, that’s not how economics works. Ever. If you’re not bringing drugs in, someone else will bring them in. People want drugs, though. This is not fucking Disney. Well, that’s her argument at the end. I’m saying the reason she said she was the best smuggler is that she beats everyone else in prices. Drugs are the biggest commodity, I’m guessing for smugglers. So who the fuck is she beating out if she’s not selling them? Yeah, it’s Economics 101. And also, this is, like, gets into my later points. But there’s a huge, poor population that’s, like, suffering in these little fucking enclosed tiny cabinets for houses. That drug fucking usage is going to be skyrocket. And that leads me to the next point. Her herself is a fucking drug addict. She’s a fucking alcohol addict, right? She goes to the bar every day and just don’t drink because she can’t live with herself. Being at home. Fucking place sucks. So that’s a little dark, but, I mean, there’s going to be fucking tons of people that want drugs and ways to get fucked up so they don’t have to deal with their shitting existence. No, I think it’s a good point. Personally, I’m pro whatever people want to do. Kids spin around in circles to alter their state. So if people want to smoke a little weed to alter their state, feel free to do. So if you need the heroin, whatever. Okay. Yeah, I’m Portugal, man. Let people do whatever. It doesn’t matter. But then have the things in place to help support these people. But at the same time, I agree with you in that she’s like, oh, I don’t do all like, I don’t smuggle and all the crazy stuff. It’s like, Well, someone does. It’s not like it’s just not happening. Well, she was like, I make sure it doesn’t happen. That’s not how it works. And also, we have not heard anything in this book about how you don’t let that happen. You’re pretty much out for yourself. So you’re not like, telling Rudy like, hey, Rudy, by the way, all they do is write that in be like, hey, Rudy, I heard this thing is coming in. And also, it wouldn’t make much sense, because then it would break the moral code between her and other smugglers. Like, Yo, you stay out of my shit. I stay out of your shit, right? So, yeah, I’m 100% with you on that. All right. And then the last one I had stocked down was the Oceans Eleven bar scene where they all got together. And I was like, oh, shit, here it’s coming. And then it just ended up being like a Dick sucking Fest of like, how great Jazz is at science and her dad cares about her and shit. I was like, this is the most anticlimactic. Ocean Eleven getting the gang back together, saying I’ve ever read in my entire life. It was terrible. I know you used it. You talked about it earlier, but I thought it was awful. This is my biggest gripe. Okay, I use that scene as a potential favorite scene, just in case, just in case someone out there might have really enjoyed it, because I personally, this is my favorite part of every Heist movie. The crew coming together is the best part without question. Oceans Eleven, the way they like. Soderberg who made Oceans Eleven? Great director. Also the Nick Cinemax. It’s now on HBO, Max. Whatever. But the part where they are explaining how things are going to work and who’s going to do what and trying to get these guys on board while also then smash cutting to the actual event happening. So it’ll be like, oh, yeah. Don Cheeto is going to do this, and then it smashed. John Cheeto doing that love that stuff. Those are the best parts of Heist movies and this book. If anything else, it was like, you have to nail this scene and it fucking ruined it. It ruined it. She didn’t explain anything to anybody. She just said, all right, guys, I have you all here. We need to get this done. And Bob, who’s the ex Marine Eva master? Whatever he’s like. Alright, why should I get involved with this? Good question, Bob. Jazz, would you like to explain? She says pretty much. If you don’t get it, go stand in the corner until you do what? Wait. Pardon me? Like you’re not like the prom Queen here. Hold on a second. That makes absolutely no sense. And then after that, when everyone’s like, okay, cool. So what’s the plan? She’s like. I can answer all of that. But first, I need to know if you’re in. You didn’t explain what they’re doing. You just said I have you all here because something needs to happen and you didn’t explain what everyone’s job was, what the situation is. I just need to know you’re in beforehand. That’s the last line of the intro to the Heist. It’s okay here’s. Everything that’s going to happen. Is everyone in? Yeah, we’re in. No, not in this one. I mean, even Bob says he’s like, It doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not sure you’re right. But just in case, maybe you are right. I’m in. It’s like, what? Anyone bear the point that Chloroform could have killed all the citizens when they were going through this. Yeah. What happened to the oceans, movies when it’s like, every little thing is tied up and there’s like good questions being asked. There was no questions, there was no explanation. It was just everyone sighing Jazz’s D and I hated it. Oh my God, that welding work is amazing. I’ve never seen welding like this. I’m just so buttered because it’s like movies and books are so cool when they’re explaining all this stuff and it’s like, oh, sweet, the Italian job. Same deal. It’s like, oh, and this one just really fucking killed just killed me on that. So I know I threw it up there as like a potential best scene because it really should be. It really should have been. And Unfortunately, Yeah, I assume they were going to tie everyone back in. I don’t know what everyone is doing during the heist. I still don’t understand what was going on there. It was very confusing until she blew up the smelter. I was like, Wait, what’s everyone’s job. What are people doing? Very good. I agree. It could have been a cool way of kind of like smashing between different. The whole book is taken from actually, let’s get into this with love, hate, love, hate. What did you love about it? I did think that it was really well researched. And again, I think it could be a very good movie. It’s very similar to A Brave New World. I’ve said a couple of times. Is that the world building the idea of this civilization occurring on the moon? It seemed very reasonable. There was no like, wait a second. How is this? He was like, oh no. I’ll go into like, ten layers of depth on how this works before there will be no questions after this. Once I get done with the scientific part of this. So I thought that was really good about this. That was really my biggest thing. Again, we come across a book, though, that has like a cool idea premise, at least around the setting and then just a shitty story surrounded by it. So it is what it is. But that was my favorite person. Compare this to Adolescoxley’s Brave New World because that’s a fucking masterpiece. But you gave the benefit of the dough because it’s written the 30s, but this book, I don’t judge. I don’t care about shit what year is written. I love here. Keith, you got to love it. Alright. I told you I like the brand new world part of that too. I will agree the science aspect was awesome. It was really fun to read. And also because Andy Weir, like all of this science stuff that he included in this book is like factual as of today. Like The Martian. He took a little bit more leeway with that. And he kind of extrapolated on some ideas that are currently like some science that’s currently out there and basically said, okay, here’s what could happen. But this particular book he even said in an interview. He’s like, no, all of this stuff is real today. Everything is 100% on, and I like that in terms of when you read these books, you’re like, oh, that’s pretty out there. Like, this would never happen. But everything in this book, 100% could happen. It makes a lot of sense. I think it does great with the descriptive stuff. So I agree with you on that part. And Andy for him doing all the research. I feel like that’s a lot of what he did with this book and what he’s interested in in general. And I appreciate that. I like that he grounds himself with these physics problems and then creates the stories out of them. So I really do like that. It’s super impressive. There’s no doubt about that. He’s a great writer or at least researcher. Yeah. Well, what else you got for love? Guess it. I didn’t know anything ever. Like some of the characters I liked. I think I quoted you, this is me. But I sent you a text that said, I fucking hate this book. I’m not holding back here in any way. Yeah, that’s fair. The things I loved about this book was thinking about the visuals. That was a big one for me. Just the spaces themselves. Artemis as a whole, you know, the different buildings. Armstrong Aldrin going to that Apollo Eleven visitor center. That would be super cool. I’d love to see that come to life in a movie. I would see this movie if it came out. And I think it’s because of those kind of visuals, those spaces. And then my last one is just the idea of a story of a character who’s kind of a small cog in a big machine. So although she’s operating on this small little heist that’s going on, there’s a ton more in terms of how the colony works and whatnot that is addressed, but isn’t the forefront of the story, but it gives you a scope. So kind of like Rogue One, where it’s like just the story of stealing this death star plans. But as a Star Wars fan, you know, like, the bigger implications, which is funny, because as I was reading this, I was picturing it as kind of like a film noir. I know what noir means, but once you explain it to the listeners, I definitely know what it means. It’s a crime story where there’s usually, like a protagonist who has some characteristics that you don’t really love a lot. So there’s like, stuff about them that you’re like, they kind of live in this CD underground. There’s usually like, a FEM fatale, which isn’t a characteristic in this particular novel, but it’s just kind of like there’s questionable ethics or morals going on. La Confidential is a good one. Okay. Yeah. So not everyone’s not perfect. So that kind of storyline got you. I thought this was more of a comedic twang to it than it did. Yeah. I mean, this tries to beat up, but Chinatown is a good one with Jack Nicholson. Great NewAir, great movie. And it actually turned out when I was researching this afterwards, Andy Weir was like, Chinatown was one of my biggest influences when I wrote this. Interesting. Yeah. So I like the idea of the small cog kind of in a big machine. Okay, here we go. Are you ready? Take a deep breath. What did you hate about this? All right, let me start off with reusable condoms. Limited to, like, three. Okay, I’ll try to cut it down. Reusable condoms. Do condoms cost that much? They don’t. Right? In what world would you need your usable condoms? I don’t understand. The whole point of the condom is like, once you get done, you’re like, filled with guilt and shame. You and I aren’t deep. Man, can you explain to me what a condom is? It’s like a house on top of other houses, like, short for condominium? No, but you throw it away and you forget about it. Why would you ever need to meticulously clean it? It’d be like, having and like, oh, we’re usable, like, toilet paper, like, gross. Why the fuck would you want that? It’s just like, you’re saving what a dollar to now use. That makes zero sense. Condoms on the moon would be way more expensive because you have to get all of them there. And although they seemingly don’t weigh a lot, if you’re having a good time, you’re going to use a lot of them. Use a reusable condom. You said you have to meticulously clean it. But the point was that savoda. He says, you just kind of like, throw it. It’s like you throw it on your lava lamp, of it, seeing it there and knowing you have to clean something that is literally. Oh, you got the Catholic guilt. Yeah, exactly. You’re an Irish Catholic, and you get thrown up with the Catholic guilt. You’re like, I got to see my seed. Okay, so I picture it more of, like, on your nightstand. You have a lava lamp. And when you use this condom, when you’re done, you just throw it back on the lava lamp. It cleans itself off. And you’re ready to go. Jesus Christ, if I was familiar with using condoms, I would use one. Fair enough. They talk about this is always bugs me. How they’re not ashamed of sex. And, like, sex is whatever. But then she got asked, hey, what’s the next time you’re having sex? Which would be a normal question if you weren’t ashamed of it, right? You’re saying when asked her to test it? Yeah. And she was like, oh, when are you having sex next? And she’s like, oh, how dare you ask? And she’s like, feigned being upset about it, which it doesn’t make sense. You can either be shameful of it and be private about it, or you can be out in the open, which she says, the whole city. Is she’s like, I don’t get why prostitutes bad. I don’t get why talking about sex is bad. But then Sabota asks you, when are you having sex? And she’s like, oh, dare you. How dare you even mention that to me? Which one is it? Well, I’m glad we finally got here, because what’s here here is the whole sex stuff going on in this book that we have not talked about yet, which is props to us that we haven’t even scratched. But, yeah, there’s a lot of talk about Jazz’s promiscuity, which we actually don’t witness at all. Everyone she addresses it, everyone else addresses it. There’s, like, really uncomfortable sex comments that are made. I mean, one of the people says to her, like, you must be used to taking shots in the face. But I’m not correct. Yeah, it was like, Pardon me. And then she even says after that, that was a good one. It’s like, what? There’s so many weird sexual stuff when she meets the Long Shoreman, the guy she says, like, What’s in the box? And Jazz says, porn mostly starring your mom. It was like, what? There was a lot of those. I get it. She’s trying to be cool. There was just, like, a lot of weird sex stuff that didn’t make much sense. We got it. Jazz likes to bang Congrats to her, but I don’t need it to be. Even her dad and her have a weird conversation. Oh, he was like, yeah, he asked about friends with. Yeah. Is he one of your friends with benefits? And she’s like, no, actually, I haven’t had sex with anyone in this room. And her dad says it’s a small room. Let’s talk about more than the high stuff. I don’t want you and your Muslim dad talking about sex stuff. It just wasn’t that interesting. And I think also because it came from Andy Weir writing it, it was a little off putting. That was a hate for me as well. I have a lot. I’m just going to try to cut them down. Her not dying at the end. I think that would actually have been a good if she just died at the end, but instead she gets saved for no reason and then makes a dumb deal. Yeah, it would have been nice if she sacrificed herself considered. Yes. Then I’d be like, okay, then that’d be the only redeeming quality she has. Instead, she’s like, does some power play with the head woman and is like, oh, yeah. You’re going to keep me here because I’m the best smuggler again, obviously being super modest as usual. Yeah. Well, the whole point of the book is kind of like that she loves Artemis, and so Artemis is her, and she loves it more than she loves herself, which is awesome. I respected that part of it, and it’s something that she should be willing to die for or be deported for. She was kept saying, I don’t want to be deported the whole time, and it would have been nice at the end when she was like, I know this is going to get me deported, and I’m willing to do it because I want Artemis to survive. Yeah, my biggest one. I’ll do this last for hate was that in a letter with Kelvin, she’s like, oh, the big thing is that there’s so much noise here, especially in the poor area where they’re all crammed in. Let’s get some of that noise canceling shit. That’s super flammable in a very tight, compact place with tons of poor people in it. That’s going to lead to just massive mass people dying, right? I’m like, what in the fuck? And she’s like, I’m so morally, like, just and doing all this stuff for money just to pay back my dad. But that’s the most fucked up thing I’ve ever read. Like, what the fuck? That’s worse than bringing drugs in. And not only does she do that, but I was like, Why don’t you take your chemistry skills and your entrepreneurial skills and just make non flammable noise canceling shit? That would be like an easy way. Instead of having to smuggle shit in, you just take, like, a good idea that you had. And instead of making everyone die in a ventral fire, which will happen to all these poor people, you do that. I wrote that before core form incident. And when the core form incident happened, I was like, thank you. This is what she gets. This is what she fucking gets for doing this shit all the time. The great fire of Armstrong 2049, brought on by Jazz Bashar. Yes. A couple of things. I didn’t like. The diary style writing wasn’t really for me. So if it was a movie, she’d be breaking the fourth wall a lot. She talks to the reader a lot. It’s like a narrator in a movie. I’m not usually a huge fan, but in Good Fellows, it works great. Or Shawshank, it works great. It took me out of the story. And then also I had love for the science part. And then my last one is, I hate the science part. I don’t need to know how capillary action in space affects welding. I get it. I hate welding. It’s like, if this Weld doesn’t work or it’s going to drop on my suit and it’s going to kill me. It’s like, I got it. It’s like, no, but the surface tension and the capillary action based on this gravity, it’s like, okay, let’s move on. Potent quotables. What did you have for big quotes? I already gave my description of Rudy Hitler’s Wet dream. Hilarious. When Jazz was taking her trip to the Smelter, she said, this wasn’t the farthest from the Shire I’d ever been or anything. So I respect any shout outs to J-R-R. Tolkien and or Samwise Gamgee, so I appreciate that. What you have. Yeah, mine ties directly in with rewriting the book. So I’ll just use them together. I’ll start with the rewriting the book. Basically what I would have done is make this like a class warfare book where Jazz is basically an indentured servant on the moon. She’s part of the lower rung class that can’t everything is so expensive on the moon, but she has to work there. So everything she does, she can’t get basically out of her position in life. That’s why she basically needs to do all these things, make money, try to get out of her position because she’s basically been downtrodden in life. I would not have her parents. And then around her everything, the tourists and cartels run everything. So she’s basically stuck in a position she can’t leave. She can’t do anything to increase her like. So I would have made this both like an uprising and fight back revolting against the government. Basically a Braveheart on the moon is what I would have done. It actually sounds phenomenal. It would have made much more sense, right? Kind of like Red Rising or like City of God or something like that. Where it’s for a class. Nothing she can do and even include the Disney aspects where she’s an orphan. Her parents have died, their parents aren’t around. And she could be like, when she was six, they said, You’re going out here and this is like, you have to go and they promise her everything. And now she gets there and it’s like she’s stuck. I love it. Well, so my quote was which would be like a Braveheart quote she had. But it was terrible. And the thing is, the moment right now is where we decide what kind of city arm is going to be. We can either act now or let our home to generate into syndicate rule for generations, they murder two people. There’s a huge amount of money in play. They’re not going to stop. That would be a fucking amazing life

Participant #1:

rally. The truth get like the oceans eleven together. That would be the rallying cry. But instead, we get the fucking we got. When Jazz is explaining her outfit or not her outfit. After she gets the Burns, I looked like a leper or a hooker who gave hand jobs to lepers. Jesus Christ, why, Andy? I looked like a leper. Fine. It’s good there. Why did you have to say who gave you hand jobs exclusively to lepers? Jesus Christ, Andy’s sick. He’s sick in the head, but it did make me laugh. So I appreciate you. Last one I had was Jazz. So Jazz whole thing was with Tron Landwick and Tron ended up dying at one point later, she’s talking to Lena Ludvik, who’s a cripple, and she’s talking to her after her father dies. And she says, how are you doing, kiddo? And the girl says better. And she said, Step by step. The girl’s a fucking cripple. He can’t say, Step by step. Are you kidding me? Are you, like, what? The girl can’t walk? How dare you? Step by step. Shameful, jazz. Shameful. So this is going to become a movie. Potentially, the rights were obtained by 20th Century Fox, which was then recently in the past couple of years bought out by Disney. So now Disney holds the rights with, like, 21st Century Fox. So it’s actually not 100% that this movie is going to be made, but the rights are purchased. So if it does get made, do you have any suggestions to the casting director as to who should play what role? So I did jazz. So it was hard to imagine anyone other than Rosario Dawson who actually think did a really good job reading the book. Rosario Dawson did the narration for the audiobook. Yeah, she created all the accents. She did a bunch of different accents. She was really solid. I’m not sure how my brain works because you told me that, right? When you started reading it. And then weeks later, when I was thinking about who to cast for Jazz, I was like, oh, Israel Dawson. And I was like, Why am I thinking that? And it’s crazy because I probably thought about that from your situation. She’s probably a little too old for this. And then Mila Kunis, I thought would be good too. Yeah, she’s a little too old too. But you need, like, a little bit of comedy and sass. But I thought the best person would be who I think is actually a really good actor and really funny. Haley Steinfeld. I know she’s not necessarily doesn’t look necessarily. She’s in True grit, and she’s the girl on that. She’s, like, super young. She’s also a singer. She’s a really good singer. Okay. She’s in a couple of movies that are coming of age movies, and she’s actually really good on them. I know the girl you’re talking about. Yes. So obviously she doesn’t look necessarily Saudi Arabian, but she’s dark skinned somewhat. But, I mean, it’s Hollywood. Okay. I had Latita Wright for the role of Jazz, who is the sister from Black Panther, like the sciency sister. Okay. Do you think she could Lee, like, Carrie? I do. I think that for Jazz, you need someone who is, like, spunky, but funny, but can also be believable that she could beat someone up and also has a lot of sass. That’s really all I had for cast. That’s the only person. And then I had Jazz’s dad. I don’t know any of that. I just had Nick Offerman. What? Yeah, that’s right. He just seems like a good dad. Oh, my God. Rudy. I had Alex Pettifer, the guy who’s Hitler’s Wet Dream. He’s in I Am number four and Magic Bike. Yes, magic Bike. And then he’s also in, like, that JT movie out of time. All right, that’s Brandon. I appreciate it. Martin Sabota. I had Peter Stormay from definitely way too old, but from Armageddon he’s like the Russian dude. Oh, my God. Yes, that’s all I could picture. All right, what role would Nicholas Cage play in this one? You spoiled mine. I was going to say Kelvin would be Nick Edge.

Participant #1:

Oh, my God. The Nigerian Kenyan Pental. Oh, my God. All right. Not bad. I like Peter Stormer, though. He’s great. Would you recommend this book? No, I said definitely. No, I’ve already kind of got onto it, but Skyward six of Crows. Those are the two I would recommend way over this one. Yeah, I’d say if you’re a big Andy weird fan, then for sure. If you really like The Martian, then give it a go. But it’s not for me. It didn’t make a ton of sense. If they redid it as a movie, it could be kind of interesting if, like, we talked about, they expanded on the high stroll and took out a lot of the sex stuff. Hey, you know what? You win some, you lose some. But either way, we enjoyed our experience together, and sometimes it’s cathartic just to get on the Horn here and talk some shit about a book. I kind of wish we had both read The Martian so we could have been like, well, the Martian was sick because I loved the movie for our next episode. Well, I guess we’re keeping in the Sci-Fi fantasy realm and reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Either way, for this particular episode, I’m glad everyone checked in and always, buddy, it’s good chatting with you and getting this off of our chest sometimes. Like I said, it’s just catharsis. Exactly. But until next time. All right, catch you later, buddy.