The Martian

by Andy Weir

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I LOVED this book.

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.