Books – Science fiction | Adsulto Cordis

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer

Published in 2012 by Macmillan Publishers

Read 27th of September

This is a retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale set in new Beijing, in which Cinder is a mechanic cyborg indentured to a family who adopted her, before her stepfather died of the plague.

It’s science fiction, with androids, cyborgs, new technologies, a Lunar civilisation who wants to bring war on Earth or marry the Emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth to enslave the human race…

It’s extremely well done, because the parallels between the fairy tale and the story are obvious but both stories are very different. When Cinderella is a slave resigned to her fate who needs the intervention of her fairy godmother to change her destiny, Cinder is a rebel who takes her fate in her own hands. When Cinderella marries the Prince and has a happily ever after, Cinder’s story is just the beginning.

I can’t wait to read the rest of the story in the following books.

My opinion : 4 / 5 for being a fascinating adaptation of a well-known story

The Martian, by Andy Weir

Self-published in 2011, audiobook released in 2013, published in 2014 by Crown Publishing

Listened to sometime in July

This is another book that has been made into a film, due on the screens in October this year. It’s a realistic science fiction book about astronaut Mark Watney, left for dead on Mars, but very still alive and who must use his wits and cunning and brilliant or stupid ideas to survive on a alien planet.

This is the very first audiobook I ever listened to, because I wasn’t sold on the concept. Well, I’m not ashamed to admit, I was wrong, very very wrong. It was a delightful period of being read to, like a child, a very adult book, with the deep masculine voice doing effects so that it was nearly like I was reading it in my head. Yes, it was long, nearly ten hours, though I now know it’s actually quite a short book.

The adventures of Watney in space are very well thought out, very thrilling, with a lot of suspense. Will Earth discover he’s still alive? Will he survive? Will there be a rescue mission? Will it be successful? It was great because everything that could go wrong go wrong, which was heart-stopping and fantastic.

So I haven’t really read the book, but I warmly suggest you do, or even better, like me listened to the audiobook which is a successful venture in this case.

My opinion : 5 / 5 for great suspense, wonderful reading voice and superb story.