From the Bookshelf of On Paths Unknown…

The Martian

Andy Weir

Start date: October 3, 2015

Discussion: BOOKS & FILMS: THE MARTIAN

Why we're reading this: The movie, of course!
[close] The movie, of course!

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BOOKS & FILMS: THE MARTIAN

Books and their films 1: The Martian convening thread
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last updated Apr 20, 2016 01:05PM

The Martian: THE MOVIE (Spoilers)
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last updated Dec 10, 2015 06:34AM

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What Members Thought

Feb 02, 2015 Andrew Smith rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

I’ve always included some science fiction in my everyday reading diet. In my formative years I was a big fan of the Original Star Trek television series and loved 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind in both film and written form. Later I formed a fascination for time travel books. So this appealed to me straight away. There have been mainly positive reviews on Goodreads and it seemed to be a book grounded on ‘almost there’ technology. These days I do like sci-fi I can ...more

98 likes · Like · see review

Sep 15, 2016 Nandakishore Mridula rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This would have been five stars had the author concentrated more on characterisation. That is from a reader's perspective.

From an engineer's perspective, this is a ten-star book!

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The art of engineering is finding solutions.

Engineering is applied science. The scientist will find out that a high enough force applied over a small area will provide tremendous pressure: the engineer will use the knowledge to fashion the sword. The scientist will discover that ma ...more

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Jul 02, 2014 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: media-ebooks, somewheres-in-this-universe

Mark Watney got stranded on Mars after his fellow astronauts left, believing he had died in a dust-storm. All on his own – on his own planet – Mark is pretty much fucked (his words), and he's sure he won't survive. The next supermarket is four months away by rocket ship (only there is no rocket ship). All he's got left is a habitat that is supposed to last only a month or two, and the next Mars mission, that is his only chance of ever being rescued, is four years away. Needless to say communicat ...more

27 likes · Like · see review

Aug 06, 2014 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

Yep. 5 stars. A scene from the movie "A Fish Called Wanda" comes to mind. Its where the head thief screams out "un-be-fucking-lievable" and dances around. That was me when I finished this book. I want to say its McGyver on Mars. Like a really awesome,funny, amazing,COMPLETELY believable McGyver. I think Astronaut Mark Watney would like that description of himself. I know he is a literary character, but I would love to hang out with him. We could watch Sanford and Sons together. There has been al ...more

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Jul 19, 2016 John rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.5 stars;can't wait to watch the movie now! There was maybe one section where the pace got bogged down with technical sciencey stuff, but really that's a nitpick. Other that that this was a top-notch survival thriller. ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

Nov 10, 2015 Chinook rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1-kindle, space, science, america, adventure

That was amazing. I'd heard it was mathy and was expecting it to be a bit drier, more boring. Not the case at all. There's great tension and all the problems Mark faces seem realistic and probable. Loved the humour too. ...more

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Sep 29, 2014 Kamakana rated it liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction, aa-unitedstateslit, zz2014, science, conceptual-fiction

this is a later addition: i have read a few less than laudatory reviews, i have had a few chuckles, i see that at least one group is going to talk about it, another group is going to talk about it, movie, matt damon... and i just thought to revisit my review, restate my original take: if you like a certain subgenre of sf known as 'hard': https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7..., then you will like this book, if you have never even heard of that subgenre, if you do not like implicit heroism in gr this is a later addition: i have read a few less than laudatory reviews, i have had a few chuckles, i see that at least one group is going to talk about it, another group is going to talk about it, movie, matt damon... and i just thought to revisit my review, restate my original take: if you like a certain subgenre of sf known as 'hard': https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7..., then you will like this book, if you have never even heard of that subgenre, if you do not like implicit heroism in growing food from your shit, drinking water from your piss... no you will not like it. there are no women, no natives, no others of any sort. nothing like close psychological inspection, but then, what can he add to his basic outline of all the ways he will probably die? that takes about a half page...

for those who have ever read 'gateway' by fred pohl: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2..., this is a situation on-site computer psychoanalyst would be fun. better than what passes as humour. this is not what we call a 'novel', this is a 'romance', in a technical sense not genre romance. this is the world, the terrors, the triumphs, and our character is just a viewpoint, and like the efficient prose, his psychological, emotional, sensory, human reality, is deliberately not 'rounded' because such lens would distort obvious, material, mechanical, endless round of things-to-fix...

is 'agency' the problem here? is the fact he copes rationally in a (super)human way, with his 'situation', a sceptical if not cynical impossibility? there are perhaps other ways to tell something like this story, from recounting what got him into this to having aliens rescue him... because aliens. but that is another story. i have read sf is a literature of hope: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8.... you cannot get much more hopeful than this...

first review: read in one sitting so obviously an easy, compelling read. or i just reached a point where i wanted the whole effect, did not want to read it in thoughtful increments. i can certainly see how this book greatly appeals to any sf reader, yet also how it might repel readers unfamiliar with sf. not a surprise. science fiction as engineering fiction written by engineers for engineers. science, particularly surpassing solutions against inflexible physical constraints, thus enabling, saving our first-person protagonist, nothing more or less. reminds me of verne, in particular the mysterious island: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3..., so that review says basically all this updated version of survival by science says, dropping other survivors but adding over a century...

this is mostly first-person, on occasion switching to earth long distance support, which shows why he should stay with the astronaut. fun, naive, quaint- i may have been too young for Apollo, but i remember the shuttle program, my father a scientist, my early love for only the best sf, my later exploration of limits to that genre, all this combines to emotionally attract even against the rather thin characters. there are a few comic moments, a few satirical jabs, but for the most part the plot is a series of things-to-fix. but then, who needs complex characters when the important thing is how to generate water, how to scrub the air, how to navigate without compass, how to grow potatoes in Martian soil... fun. implausible perhaps, but rigorously possible. fun but not something i will likely ever read again... i will watch the movie though... ...more

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Oct 04, 2015 Amani Haak rated it liked it

The story is fine but the writing and dialogue aren't believable or good. I wish the author had spent more time considering the psychology of Mark Watney rather than make 3rd grade jokes. Oh, the science/math part was too much... I don't like science/math which means I didn't like half of the book.

Anyway, this novel argues a deep faith in human reason and hard work to solve any problem, but it could have been so much better. ...more

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Jun 27, 2017 Sean DeLauder rated it it was amazing

Marstronaut Mark Watney blogs about getting marooned on Mars and chronicles his wacky misadventures and plans for survival, how his skill set works out perfectly for surviving just long enough to be rescued, sprinkled with explanations of how he plans to do so, his trials and errors, and an uncrushable sense of humor that manages to endure so effectively one has an easy time forgetting the relentless and extreme stress under which Watney struggles. In the face of all-but-certain-death, Watney re ...more

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