The Martian in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Feb 15, 2015 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-and-sci-fi, stayed-up-way-too-late, lotsa-buzz, engineering

Ares 3. Well, that was my mission. Okay, not mine per se. Commander Lewis was in charge. I was just one of her crew. Actually, I was the very lowest ranked member of the crew. I would only be "in command" of the mission if I were the only remaining person.

What do you know? I'm in command.

I absolutely loved this book! It was so much better than I expected. I mean, a book about a guy stranded all alone on Mars? boring beyond belief, right? WRONG. I do not know how Mr Weir did it, but he did it, a

Ares 3. Well, that was my mission. Okay, not mine per se. Commander Lewis was in charge. I was just one of her crew. Actually, I was the very lowest ranked member of the crew. I would only be "in command" of the mission if I were the only remaining person.

What do you know? I'm in command.

I absolutely loved this book! It was so much better than I expected. I mean, a book about a guy stranded all alone on Mars? boring beyond belief, right? WRONG. I do not know how Mr Weir did it, but he did it, and he did it well.

The character of Mark Watney was so charismatic, I wouldn't have minded spending all 369 pages with just him - but as it turns out, there ARE other people in the book: his other crewmates (who accidentally left Mars without him), and various employees of NASA, JPL, etc who are back on Earth.

And part of it is like this is a book made just for ME. Mark Watney is a mechanical engineer - *I* am a mechanical engineer! Watney is a botanist, I'm a gardener! Okay, he's a little juvenile at times, and he uses some racist/sexist/ableist language at times, but hey, the guy is stranded, ALONE, on Mars. Death appears imminent. I'll let a few offensive terms slide. He is amazingly clever, occasionally witty, almost always a smart ass. There is, of course, a TON of exposition in this book, because the author understands that we aren't all NASA astronauts, but I really enjoyed that part too - it's fun to learn about some of this stuff!! (There was one off note, Watney is going to connect a drill to a 36 Volt power source, and thinks "I'll be playing with high voltage tomorrow!" and I think "uhhh ... 'high' voltage is 46,000 Volts, not 36 Volts." But maybe to NASA, 36 Volts IS high. I dunno. It doesn't matter. The book is still fucking fantastic.)

I knew this was being made into a movie starring Matt Damon, and there were passages where I could HEAR Matt Damon's voice saying the words, so much so that I started to wonder if Mr Weir had Damon in mind all along. I'm looking forward to the movie - this might be one of the very rare cases where the movie is even better than the book!!

There really isn't much else I can say about this. I did mark a lot of passages that I found especially witty or interesting. Here are a few:

I came up with a solution ... I'm going to use the RTG. The RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator) is a big box of plutonium. But not the kind used in nuclear bombs. No, no. This plutonium is way more dangerous!

*

Things didn't go exactly as planned, but I'm not dead, so it's a win.

*

I tested the brackets by hitting them with rocks. This kind of sophistication is what we interplanetary scientists are known for.

*

As it is, going only south, I'm not nearly as fast. I'm traveling 90 kilometers per day as usual, but I only get 37 kilometers closer to Schiaparelli because Pythagoras is a dick.

At one point, Johannsen, one of the other crew members, tells her commander, "Communications five by five." - "five by five" is what Faith always said on Buffy, instead of "I'm okay." I always thought Faith just made that up (or, rather, the writers just made that up for Faith.) Is it an astronaut term???

Ah! Apparently it's a military term and amateur radio term! From Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_by... "Five by five is the best of 25 possible subjective responses used to describe the quality of communications, specifically the signal-to-noise ratio." I never knew! And now I know!

ETA: a month and some days later, and I am STILL thinking about this book! I might think about it more now than when I was reading it! I'm reading Sagan's Cosmos right now, and when I'm reading passages about Mars, I find myself thinking "yes, that is how they ended up doing that!" and then I realize "no, silly, The Martian was just a fictional book!! we haven't actually been to Mars yet!")

ETA x2: I saw the movie! And it is great! But they change a lot, the first line is NOT "I'm fucked," none of my favorite lines are included, most of the middle is discarded, and the ending is amped up for maximum drama and closure. ...more

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Jul 15, 2015 Ryan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed, 2015

Considering the mad amounts of chemistry and physics contained in this story, it's really an achievement that it can keep a scientific know-nothing like me engaged. A lot of credit for that has to go to the voice Weir gave to Watney, who is able to inject even the most intricate bit of scientific exposition with just the right amount of smartassery.

What's more, the amount of MacGyvering that goes into this story is inspiring to anyone who spends their time solving problems. Seems like we've reac ...more

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Aug 25, 2015 Kim Marques rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I could not put this book down. It was incredibly engaging and honestly, not at all what I expected. Loved it.

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Jun 14, 2015 Carla rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own, ebook, 2015

I'm in one of those moments in which concentration is a gift I don't have and the reading might have suffered because of that. I really liked Mark and his humour but I was a bit worried the book would be only his logs, so to have the perspective of his colleagues and the people back on earth was nice. However, and this is were I think the reading suffered from my lack of focus, the science was a bit too much. Yes, it lend credibility to the account but it usually lost me, with my mind drifting w ...more

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Nov 24, 2015 Shelley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, 2015

Botanist Astronaut Mark Watney is thought dead and left behind on Mars, and he needs to science the shit out of things to survive. I'm so glad I read this after I saw the movie, because it is super sciencey and seeing it happen helped me understand it better. But holy crap, was this an awesome adventure. I loved it just as much as I did the movie - both are wonderful and well done. I really wish we'd gotten the bedroom line with Beck and Johanssen in the movie, since we got the helmet kiss and i ...more

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Aug 29, 2016 ellen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, fiction, read-2016, genre-speculative, group-office

Fun and engaging, but not exceptionally either. I liked the narrator's voice (and I've always been a fan of epistolary novels anyways) and was definitely invested in the story at the very end. Based on what I've heard a lot of other people say about it, I thought the book would be a series of infodumps strung together by jokes, but it really wasn't. I never felt overwhelmed by the scientific detail and the amount there was in the book seemed appropriate, if not minimal, considering he's a scient ...more

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Dec 24, 2015 taeli rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

read 12/23/15

An engaging, riveting read.

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Nov 21, 2015 Cathy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Such fun. Lots of good, accurate science, plus plenty of sarcastic humor. Not the best writing, but I don't expect the best in a scifi novel. I just want an outstanding, unusual premise that proceeds appropriately and keeps me engaged. Weir absolutely committed to the idea of being stuck on Mars, and all the critical thinking, scavenging, and innovating you'd need to survive. It's basically MacGyver on crack. Highly recommend. ...more

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Jul 14, 2015 Elizabeth rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I am glad I knew Matt Damon is starring in the movie adaptation of this book before I started reading. The narrator is funny and smart, but also a bit condescending. I may have been a little put - off at first, but picturing Matt Damon as the character made it all good.

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Jul 23, 2015 Loretta rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-and-fantasy

This was an excellent airplane and hotel read. I finished most of it in one long day of travel. It's four and a half stars, really. This isn't so much sci-fi as it is near-future science. For this one, I am actually quite interested in seeing the movie - Matt Damon in the trailers looks and sounds just about perfect. ...more

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