After watching Spaceman I picked up the novel it was based on, Spaceman of Bohemia. The movie only covers 50% of the book. After the point at which the movie ends, where Jakub is rescued, the whole thing shifts to a more personal story of Jakub and his return home and how his experience in space has impacted him.
I won't say the book is bad, it isn't. I will say that it goes on and on and on by the end. Kalfar, the author, is obviously very much in love with his Country and does a good job of explaining some of the political turmoil, struggles, communism vs. capitalism, and the beauty of the whole region. But, it is all told from the perspective of Jakub who is, honestly, just a mopy depressed character. The Space stuff with Chopra and Hanusz was interesting from a science fiction perspective. It all comes off very similar to Solaris.
Some of the main differences from the film include an almost exclusive focus on his relationship with his wife, Lenka, and how he has treated her. This is certainly a part of the book, but not nearly to the same extent it is shown in the movie. And on film they have added a lot of actions of Jakub that make him come of as an extreme asshole. in the book he's just more career focused and impacted by the politics of his upbringing. I can understand why they did it in the movie, but it wasn't exactly a fair representation of his character.
Much of the first 50% is close to the movie from a space perspective, just with more detail. That big divergence in the middle is when he is rescued. In the movie it is by South Koreans who are also trying to investigate Chopra and racing the Czechs to get there. In the book he is rescued by a secret Russian space program that sent astronauts without the rest of the world's knowledge. Since this is a "secret" space program Jakub is told that he won't be able to ever go back to his family because then everyone would know of the Russian secrets. He'll be held political prisoner for the rest of his life. Some of the relationships between Jakub and the Russians are interesting, I won't go in to details but eventually he escapes them when their re-entry shuttle crashes in a field.
And then the book spends 40% of it focusing on the major plot point that was not included in the movie, adn taht is the whole backstory of his father being an interrogator for the Party, and how his Dad tortured a man that eventually comes back to Jakub's family and ruins his life and his grandparents. The "Shoe Man" as Jakub calls him, because his dad tortured him with electro shock shoes. Jakub's parents were killed in a gondola lift accident, likely politically assassinated b/c of the communist party relationships.
Its hard to go in to any more because I'm kind of tired just thinking of the whole thing. As a love letter or whatever to Czechoslovakia I guess I get it. And parts really were gorgeous and meaningful, impactful. It just drug way too far for me. Conversely, the other thing I could compare it to, rather than Solaris, would be something like Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Dreams series. His stuff is so Spanish Civil War and amazing period stories that are interesting, and really make you fall in love with the setting.
