leahrosereads
Written on Aug 25, 2019
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Brilliant . . . a celebration of human ingenuity [and] the purest example of real-science sci-fi for many years . . . utterly compelling.”—The Wall Street Journal
The inspiration for the major motion picture
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE
“A hugely entertaining novel [that] reads like a rocket ship afire . . . Weir has fashioned in Mark Watney one of the most appealing, funny, and resourceful characters in recent fiction.”—Chicago Tribune
“As gripping as they come . . . You’ll be rooting for Watney the whole way, groaning at every setback and laughing at his pitchblack humor. Utterly nail-biting and memorable.”—Financial Times
- ISBN10 0804139024
- ISBN13 9780804139021
- Publish Date 11 February 2014 (first published 1 January 2014)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Ballantine Books Inc.
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 384
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780804139021
Reviews
Leigha
Written on Aug 14, 2018
Meet Mark Watney. He was accidentally left behind on Mars. Mark is a fantastic character full of humor and drive. He’s a practical solutions person which I admire so much. I felt like I learned a lot about handling challenging situations just by listening to his methodical and logical critical thinking skills. This nerdy mechanical engineering botanist is sure to capture your heart as well as your mind.
After the first couple of chapters, the view point expands beyond Mark. You get to see the behind the scenes action at NASA, JPL, and on a man-led space craft. The secondary characters are as richly drawn as Mark, bringing their own unique charm to the story. I loved his crew members, although I would have liked some more scenes of them together prior to the failed mission. Common acts of bravery, observation, and just plain hard work pull the various other characters together to build this layered, complex world.
I cannot rave enough about the audiobook. I listened to it in a record six weeks, loving it so much I demanded my husband listen to it. If you haven’t read this novel before (or even if you have read it), I highly recommend you listen to the audiobook. The narrator is fantastic at creating distinguishable characters and keeping the science interesting.
tl;dr A phenomenally well-written science fiction novel with a lovable main character, fascinating science, and plenty of tension.
This review first appeared on Shelfleigh.
gmcgregor
Written on Mar 9, 2018
What follows is an epic struggle for survival, as Mark tries to figure out how to stay alive, and (when they become aware that he's alive at all), NASA tries to figure out how to get him home. Like most engineers, Mark is a skilled problem-solver, and it's only through a combination of his smarts, determination, and some blind luck that he's able to figure out how to meet the challenges his circumstances throw at him: he figures out how to grow food to supplement the insufficient stores he's left with, he has to come up with a way to travel long-distance across the surface, he has to establish ways to communicate with Earth, he has to deal with unpredictable weather...the list goes on and on. But if everything goes right, he just might make it after all.
This was one of those circumstances where I'd seen the movie first, and I have to say, I think the movie worked better. There are some circles where this is heresy, I know. But there's something that worked watching this story play out over two-ish hours onscreen better than spending several hours, over multiple days, reading it on the page. There's a formulaic-ness to the plotting that becomes very obvious: Mark encounters a problem, which he records in his mission log (these entries comprise most of the book), he comes up with a solution, he explains the solution and how he came up with it and the science behind it, and then there's the next problem...lather, rinse, repeat. By the end, I was skimming through the science bits, because they were meant to show how smart and innovative Mark is rather than advance the story, but because I'd been reading a couple hundred pages of it, I already knew that Mark was smart and innovative.
Which brings me to my other issue with the book: the character of Mark. In a lot of ways, he's a good lead character: the aforementioned intelligence and innovation, a good sense of humor, a distinctive "voice". He's easy to root for. But I found him a little too high-spirited to be really realistic. He's perpetually ready to take on the next challenge, but for a person painted as a naturally social, outgoing fellow, it strained my credulity beyond belief that he never particularly struggled with depression, despite months and months of enforced solitude. Every real obstacle that comes his way is external, and I wanted to see a little more internal development.
I know I've just laid out two major issues with characterization and plot, but honestly this book isn't bad. It's pretty good. But given its immense popularity, I was expecting something a lot closer to greatness, and I did not find greatness here. Is this an entertaining sci-fi read, and worth getting to? Sure! It's easy to read and engaging and builds suspense nicely even though the ultimate ending is predictable. But don't expect anything particularly special.
Amber (The Literary Phoenix)
Written on Sep 4, 2017
Even though I saw the movie before reading the book, I feel like I have a lot to wrap my head around.
Science fiction is not my favorite of all favorite genres because it gets really technical. I love the ideas, but when you get too explainy with the science, my brain turns to mush. This is possibly the most explanation-heavy science fiction book ever. I'm serious. There is SO much time spend talking about chemistry and engineering and botany and hypotheticals and jet propulsion and... so much science. At least 75% of the book is explanations.
BUT.
The other 25% of the book is the wonderfulness that is Mark Watney.
Without Mark Watney, this book would be nothing.
It is his snark and optimistic pessimism that keeps this story from being an interaction manual for survival on Mars (under the luckiest of circumstances). The challenge Andy Weir faced in writing this book is making a character so likable that not only is the reader rooting for his survival, but the reader doesn't second guess when other decide to devote so much risk, time, and money to his rescue. Mark is absolutely that character.
Mark isn't all science. He is smart and well-studied - that's abundantly clear. He also is real. You find him contemplating Aquaman and declaring himself a pirate. He gets such glee when he learns from his alma mater that he has technically colonized the planet, so he's the original Martian. I won't say much more here about his quips, because they take you by surprise and make you laugh out loud. I don't want to spoil them for anyone, but rest assured, he's a great character.
His odds of survival were astronomical.
I think that the author/character acknowledges this fairly well with the opening line of the book. I mean, when you open a novel and the first sentence is "I'm fucked." you know that something really terrible has gone down and we're in a bad situation. Before nearly every experiment, Mark talks about how he's probably going to die, but what the hell? Literally every single odd would have to be in his favor for him to get off Mars, and there's a lot of criticism in the reviews about it. Okay, I agree. The chances of these things happening in real life are basically zero.
You know what else? This is fiction.
I for one would have been miffed if Mark died to make this "more realistic" for a small slice of the populace.
10/10 read this book.
When it was published, The Martian got a lot of hype and you may recall the movie starring Matt Damon from 2015? The movie does a fantastic job representing the book with a few minor changes to move things along or make it a wee bit more exciting. But this book has so many more laugh out loud moments. Don't get me wrong - Damon was perfection. But read the book as well or you're missing out. The scientific jargon is easy enough to power through and it's told mostly in Mark's voice, so it's easy to read and interwoven with predictions of his own death and random sarcastic comments that will make you chuckle.
Read the book. See the film. They're both worth your time.
thepunktheory
Written on Oct 7, 2016
I'll start of with the novel. A huge shout out to Andy Weir for putting so much effort into not only writing a fascinating story but also trying to make it as accurate as possible. I even ended up researching some of the stuff on the internet!
It definitely is hell of a ride. We experience what Watney goes through via the logbook, working as a form a diary. I read Robinson Crusoe a year ago and didn't fancy it too much, so I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy Weir's novel. Surprise: it has a great pace, a great sense of humor and you actually learn something. As you can imagine, the book contains lots of scientific stuff and you have to concentrate while reading to get it all right. However, Andy Weir tried hard to explain everything in a way that you can understand it. Watney's character is very relatable and I just loved his jokes.
So, let's move on the adaptation. Matt Damon was the perfect choice to embody Watney. He had already proved his acting skills in other splendid roles but with the Martian I had the feeling that he really captured the essence of Mark Watney. Well, the actors also really fitted their roles, I swear some looked exactly the way I imagined them. I had to laugh so hard when Sean Bean explained why the call that one secret thing Elrond.
Furthermore it was really cool to see all the technical stuff on screen. I don't know about you but I have no clue what an MAV actually looks like. So I had a hard time to construct a picture in my head for a few things while reading.
When it comes to the plot itself, they stuck rather close to the original. Some things were left out, but the managed to still make sense with the whole thing. I also enjoyed the little epilogue we got in the movie. To be honest, I wondered "That's really supposed to be it? Nothing more?" when I read the final page.
Last but not least I want to shower the soundtrack with a little praise. The original music for the movie is amazing but what I liked best were the disco songs they incorporated. It's actually a running gag as the only music Mark has on Mars is some 70's disco stuff the mission commander had on her personal hard-drive.
I have to say, The Martian is one of the best adaptations I came across in a long time. Both the book and the movie are very well made and fascinating. They complement one another perfectly!
abigailjohnson
Written on Jul 29, 2016
mitabird
Written on Jun 25, 2016
Kait ✨
Written on Mar 2, 2016
Chelsea
Written on Jan 9, 2016
1. This book started off very slow and continues with a slower pace throughout.
2. It was a very technical book so I didn't understand much but Mark was a very humorous character so it made it easier to read.
3. I was a little disappointed with the character development. There was none at all except for Mark. I was hoping for more relationships with him but even his crew mates felt a little left out with the development.
4. At the end it was a really good book even though the ending was pretty obvious. There were still lots of things thrown at Mark and it was cool seeing how he maneuvered his way out of things.
celinenyx
Written on Dec 4, 2015
Mark Watney is part of a mission to perform tests on Mars. Disaster strikes, and Mark is left hurt and all alone on Mars, while his team mates and everyone else in the world, for that matter, assume him dead. The next Mars-bound mission is scheduled in five years. Can he survive that long in a hostile environment?
The Martian is basically Robinson Crusoe in space without the racism. This similarity touches on what I see as the weakest aspect of the book - the fact that entirely too much time is spent on Mark's day to day survival. He tells us about his potatoes. He tells us about his machines. He tells us more about the potatoes. What was missing for me was any psychological insight into the mind of Watney. We barely get any sense of what he actually thinks about - unless he truly does only have potatoes on his mind? That part of the story fell flat for me, and often I felt Watney's chapters were as dry as the dusty surface of Mars.
On the bright side, The Martian comes with a healthy dose of witticisms and quips, and there are plenty of exciting life-threatening situations for Watney to overcome. Additionally, after a while additional points of view are added to the story, which makes it move along faster and breaks the possible monotony of Mark's potato farming.
At times The Martian felt very much like a debut - the writing isn't always as smooth as it should be, and there was a lack of psychological depth. Ultimately though, it is a fun and light-hearted science-fiction novel that appeals to a wide public.