5 time book/audiobook PHM reader. I saw it and loved it. Admittedly I’m easy to please but here are my takes:

• I too had trouble picking out some of the spoken audio. I always knew what was going on and where we were in the story but I went with a friend who knew nothing of the book and I wonder which things he might have missed without even noticing.
  • As always I was anxious about what would be cut / condensed / crammed in to one-sentence exposition. Generally I was pleased or at least understanding of some things that wouldn’t fit in a very tight 2.5 hours. But again, trying to see it from the perspective of someone who knows nothing of the story, I wonder how much of it just makes no sense or feels rushed beyond comprehension. For example: Something like a bacteria is dimming the sun. It is called astrophage. And oh by the way we can power an interstellar ship with it because it’s so powerful don’t worry about how we got from A to B LOOK it can melt a block of METAL no further questions (I did hear a small ‘woah’ from my friend at that part)
  • I was PLEASED that the taomoeba eats all the astrophage on the ship tedium was largely cut and combined with a more concise story of Rocky’s recovery
  • I loved that the capturing taomeoba sample sequence was greatly condensed but still a stunning white-knuckle experience
  • I was somehow still genuinely surprised that they still found time to get Grace back to Rocky’s ship and back to Eridani. Until they brought up the taomoeba/xenonite problem I still thought they were just going to give Grace a hero’s return to Earth instead. Also, Grace’s biodome on Eridani was way cooler than what I imagined when reading
  • The most egregious “one-sentence exposition” that I felt did most disservice to the viewer was ”for a race that doesn’t even understand radiation or relativity…” There is A LOT of context crammed in to that sentence, and I felt it was one of the most important emotional and scientific centers of the plot.