The Martian in Fantasy Buddy Reads

May 05, 2014 Ctgt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

This book has been the "belle of the ball" recently and I tend to avoid these like the plague. Usually when there is so much smoke, instead of fire I find blackened coals ready to flame out. So S&L bookclub made it their monthly pick and I was dragged kicking and screaming.....that's probably a bit too dramatic, don't you think?
Anyway, there was a point fairly early on(maybe 10 or 15% in, I'm not exactly sure) where I'm thinking to myself, I knew it! If there is one more page about soil, potatoe ...more

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Jul 15, 2014 Tammie rated it liked it

Shelves: stand-alones, adult-fiction, sci-fi, book-club-reads

I liked the idea behind this book, but I found the execution somewhat boring. The explanations of what he was doing and how he was doing it dragged on so much that I eventually began to skim over parts. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't amazing either. Like another reviewer said, it's science fantasy for engineers. I did enjoy the humor in the book. That is what made it a pleasant read.

Update 2/6/16: I saw the movie adaptation of this a while back and liked it better than the book, mainly because it ...more

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Jan 07, 2019 Justine (Milkz) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, standalone, adult-sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 03, 2014 Kaila rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, audio, movies, humor, 2016, mary-sue

This went on juuuust a little too long. There wasn't enough deviation from shitty thing-fixed it!-another shitty thing-I FIXED THAT TOO-no wait fuck another shitty thing-ah just kidding, you guys all know I fixed it.

The narrator was really good and I want to watch the movie now. ...more

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May 29, 2014 Mike rated it liked it · review of another edition

Okay...um...

count me as the odd man out here.

Though I have read many overwhelmingly positive reviews - from many whose opinions I respect greatly - essentially stating this book is amazing, it just didn't hit me the same way.

I found it

at best.

The story was decent, but I came extremely close to putting it down in the beginning. All I mentally heard during the first 10% of the story was blah, science, blah, math, blah, more science, and more math. All of which (the whole adventure for that mat Okay...um...

count me as the odd man out here.

Though I have read many overwhelmingly positive reviews - from many whose opinions I respect greatly - essentially stating this book is amazing, it just didn't hit me the same way.

I found it

at best.

The story was decent, but I came extremely close to putting it down in the beginning. All I mentally heard during the first 10% of the story was blah, science, blah, math, blah, more science, and more math. All of which (the whole adventure for that matter) had humor interspersed throughout. The issue though, at least for me, was that a lot of the humor somewhat came off as forced simply because of the abundance of foul language and corny child like remarks (think pull my finger funny).

The story is built as a thriller, but after the first few narrowly side stepped catastrophic and life ending threats,

I came to understand that nothing was going to stop Watney (MC). That no matter what unfathomable and impending death scenario was presented to Watney, he would overcome it.

I am confident that there is no man on Earth (or Mars for that matter), much less employed by NASA, that would be able to hold a candle to Watney's unfailing wit, cleverness, or genius. Bottom line, in the scientific community you have extremely big brained individuals who are either genius or just at its precipice, all of whom have zero (or close to nil) social skills, or a better expectation is that you will come across some really cool but also intelligent (not genius) people who can socialize just as any other person might. Watney is the personification of super cool, really funny, and genius. The man is seriously the perfect composite of Chuck Noland, Bill Murray, the Six Million Dollar Man, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and MacGyver (look them up if you're unfamiliar with them, it'll make more sense). .

Nothing could stop such a man. That's what ruined it for me. Not to mention Watney was the epitome of zen like calm in the face of impending Armageddon.

The story wasn't horrible though. I did enjoy it. Three stars is not a bad review. It was...entertaining. Just not four stars or better entertaining. ...more

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Nov 17, 2014 Rebecca rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi, favorites

This book was amazing. It was 368 pages of awesome - I left one page off because I was disappointed that we didn't actually see Mark get back to Earth. It's action packed and interesting and full of humour.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, because it is full of physics, maths, botany, astrophysics, chemistry, biology - whatever science you can think of, it's packed in here. It didn't weigh the story down at all though, but added to Mark's characterisation.

That's another thing. I love th ...more

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