has never pushed novels before. Today, for that man, I will talk about the third science fiction novel "Salvation Plan" author Andy Will published in 2021 - "Salvation Plan".
As a technology resident who is addicted to space, Andy Will began to update "Marls Rescue" on his blog in 2009, and never thought it would become popular.
But his thousands of fans reacted extremely actively to this work, and suggested that he pack the novel on the shelves of Amazon self-publishing platform, priced at $0.99.
From March 2013, Random House bought the copyright of the novel in six figures. Soon after, 20th Century Fox Films had the right to buy the movie adaptation rights, directed by the great director Red Lescott, and Matt Damon played the unlucky astronaut Mark Watney.
"Martian Rescue" movie version won 7 nominations for the 88th Academy Awards, with a global box office of US$630 million, which in turn promoted a sharp increase in novel sales.
After the second novel "Moon City" with a very common reputation, the 2021 "Salvation Plan" was published, and it has a reputation of the king level.
This part is a spoiler. If you mind, please read the second part directly.
The novel tells the story of the sun being infected by a star-eating body, which is some kind of neutrino-level creature similar to seaweed.
They absorb energy in the sun, reproduce on a large scale on Venus, and then return to the sun to absorb energy. In this cycle, the sun's temperature drops sharply, and half of the population will die in decades.
Scientists have discovered that the star-eating body has infected many stars, but the star T of the whale, 11.9 light years away from the Earth, is safe and sound.
They used the star-eating body as fuel to build a spacecraft close to the speed of light, sent three astronauts to the T-Star of the Constellation of the Whale to study the star-eating body antibodies, and then used a small spacecraft to send the research data back to Earth.
But they didn't have time to produce more star-eating bodies as fuel, so the three astronauts were unable to return after completing the mission and could only die in outer space.
Ryan Grace is a middle school teacher who drove a duck to the shelves and boarded the spaceship . The astronaut who was traveling with him died unexpectedly before arriving at T-Star, and he became the only hope for mankind.
It is hard to believe that he met an alien Loki on T star. He is from , and also came to T star because of the star-eating body.
He became the first human to come into contact with aliens. He worked with Loki to save two galaxies and became good friends.
I have been immersed in the world of "Salvation Plan" over the past few days. Apart from some hardcore details, it reads very smoothly.
story is not unique, it is a bit like discovering viruses - finding antibodies mode, and the sun cooling is also a setting that many science fiction works like to use.
But Andy Will wrote so well. He continued his attitude of scientifically solving everything in "Marl Rescue", explaining scientific principles in detail, and solving many scientific problems has become an important pleasure point in the novel.
After three works, this has become a label for the author and is completely different from mainstream Western science fiction. I am used to watching dystopia, cyberpunk , space opera , teenager fantasy, Andy Will's science fiction novel is the orthodox way of writing in my mind.
Another exciting point in "Salvation Plan" is the narrative structure. The beginning is when an amnesia wakes up from a spacecraft. He doesn't know who he is or what his goal is. He can only survive alone in the depths of space while recalling his identity. A double-line narrative like
not only increases suspense, but also leads to the earth line, which can adjust the narrative rhythm, and the memory paragraphs are closely related to the current problems, which is a very cinematic structure.
I have no doubt that the novel aims at the creation of adapted movies during the conception stage. After all, he participated in the screenwriter of "The Mars Rescue", and he must have a lot of experience in script creation.
When it comes to "Salvation Plan", the whole book is very picturesque. If you push one scene after another, the crisis setting of the beginning, the inheritance, turn and end are all very similar to the structure of the movie.
If you like watching movies, you will be very adaptable to the clean and neat rhythm of this novel, and even like it. Another thing that surprised me about the novel is the positive description of the alien Loki, a Hojiang constellation.
When the author started to describe Rocky's appearance, I had a bad feeling. How to write aliens in line with readers' expectations is an almost impossible task.
As stated in "Mysterious Ball", the creatures on our earth live in the same environment, and the differences are so great. For example, it is impossible for you to communicate with dolphin , at least you cannot communicate smoothly, or discuss scientific problems.
So aliens living in completely different galaxies may be existences that humans cannot understand. For example, they may be high-dimensional creatures, and a large part of them are invisible to us humans. In such a situation, it is almost impossible to establish communication with them.
I once thought that indirectly describing aliens and alien technology like "The Three-Body Problem" was the only feasible way, but in "The Save Plan", humans not only face aliens directly, but also regard contact as one of the core plots, which is extremely risky and difficult, but I think Andy Will achieved this feat.
He gave a convincing rational explanation of encounter and communication, such as the two organisms are the same, and the air pressure is close, so the thinking speed is about the same. The most important thing is that only when you are at the same level of technology can you choose to go to , , and find the answer. If you are too backward or too advanced, you will either not be able to achieve this action or there will be a more advanced method.
For example, dolphins cannot build spacecraft to reach the constellation of the Whale at the speed of light, but they are not aware of the danger.
On this basis, humans and aliens have established a fairy friendship that makes people "leak on their faces", and the process is interesting, turning the heavy story about life and death into interesting things.
Novels may not reach the mystery of "Three-Body Problem" that makes you look up at the stars and think about the universe. From this perspective, "Salvation Plan" cannot reach the science fiction classic, but it is written very cutely and read very happily, and I personally like it very much.
The novel was sold at a high price before it was published. It was starred by Ryan Gosling (the same name as the protagonist in the book), and was written again by Drew Goddard, the screenwriter of "Martian Rescue".
The only thing I worry about is the director duo Phil Rod and Christopher Miller, who have worked together to direct " Food Falling from the Sky ", "Dragon and Tiger Youth Team Series" and " Lego Movie ", and the screenwriter's works include "Spider-Man: Parallel Universe".
They are first of all live-action film directors with limited experience and have too strong comedy genes. Although "Salvation Plan" is full of humor, it is still mainly science fiction. I hope they can shoot this part well.
Because I am really looking forward to this movie!
