The Martian in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 15, 2015 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was amazing

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

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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Dec 13, 2014 Sarah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, pants-crappingly-awesome, page-to-screen, magic-sci-fi-fantasy, audio, recommend-to-friends

On a mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney is injured in an accident. His crewmates, believing him to be dead, leave him alone on Mars when they evacuate. What follows is the story of Mark's survival, NASA'a discovery via satellite photos that he's alive, and the rescue mission.

This isn't the kind of book I'd normally read. I'm not big on science, or sci-fi, or space travel. It's OK, but it's not my first choice of genre. But it's one of the best books I've read all year. Watney's survival depe On a mission to Mars, astronaut Mark Watney is injured in an accident. His crewmates, believing him to be dead, leave him alone on Mars when they evacuate. What follows is the story of Mark's survival, NASA'a discovery via satellite photos that he's alive, and the rescue mission.

This isn't the kind of book I'd normally read. I'm not big on science, or sci-fi, or space travel. It's OK, but it's not my first choice of genre. But it's one of the best books I've read all year. Watney's survival depends upon his smarts - he's a botanist as well as an engineer, so he can fix stuff and build stuff and even grow food on Mars to prolong his life. It depends on some luck - there are, of course, accident after accident after mishap and somehow nothing gets truly FUBAR. And it depends on his spirit and good sense of humor, superbly delivered by R.C. Bray in the audiobook. I don't want to give the whole book away, but here are a couple of gems:

[NASA:] He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?” He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”

[WATNEY:] LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.

and

I broke two ribs during the MAV ascent. They were sore the whole time, but they really started screaming when (view spoiler). I didn’t want to distract the people who were saving my life, so I muted my mic and screamed like a little girl. It’s true, you know. In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl.

But it's not all chuckles all the time. There is real drama here. While Mark Watney struggles to survive and NASA struggles to find a way to save him, the world watches. I kept imagining how I would feel if I were watching this play out for real on CNN. And while I don't think that it's realistic that there would be a daily Mark Watney Watch segment on CNN for 18 months (because humans have short attention spans and if nothing exciting happened for a few days, someone somewhere would get shot by a cop or pose naked on Paper Magazine and we'd forget about Watney for awhile), I did feel the excitement and the stress of wondering what would happen. I got a little choked up in the end.

I'll just leave you with this:

The cost for my survival must have been hundreds of millions of dollars. All to save one dorky botanist. Why bother? Well, okay. I know the answer to that. Part of it might be what I represent: progress, science, and the interplanetary future we’ve dreamed of for centuries. But really, they did it because every human being has a basic instinct to help each other out. It might not seem that way sometimes, but it’s true.
If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it’s found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don’t care, but they’re massively outnumbered by the people who do. And because of that, I had billions of people on my side. Pretty cool, eh?

...more

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Dec 29, 2014 Isabel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, audiobook, space, brrhc

I'm not a big fan of science fiction but I loved this book. Gave me heart palpitations because I can think of nothing worse than being stuck alone on Mars, but Mark Watney's log entries were hilarious and had me laughing out loud several times. ...more

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Apr 03, 2015 Lori rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction

I've heard nothing but rave reviews for this book for months. I finally read it. In 36 hours. I would have read it faster but a crazy thing called responsibility got in the way. What is there not to love about this book? Survival? Check. An insanely hostile environment? Check. Writing that made me both giggle and cringe at the same time? Check. Some sciencey stuff that I could understand? Check. Picturing Matt Damon as Mark Watney through the whole book? Check and check. ...more

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Oct 25, 2014 Rachel rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: libraryebook, fiction, fantasysci-fi

There was a lot of science in this book (parts where I was like, skim? and parts where I went whoaaahhh!!) and a bunch of semi-funny jokes, but it all added up to my really wanting Mark Watney to live!

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May 24, 2014 Oblomov rated it really liked it

The Martian is a classic castaway story, a man alone in a inhospitable location with limited resources, battling the elements to survive long enough until rescue can arrive. The twist in this case is that he is a astronaut accidentally marooned on Mars when a sandstorm forced the abandonment of the mission.

Was in many respects not thrilled by the writing style, but found myself forgiving the style due to the combination of tension and scientific rigor.

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Jun 10, 2015 Kara rated it it was amazing

Amazing! Read it in three days, (because I had to go to work) and devoured it. I'm ready for book 2!
An adventure, scientific, Mac-Gyver, humanitarian survival story. Loved it.
Thanks again to my dad for sharing his books. ...more

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Dec 28, 2014 Katie rated it liked it

Shelves: male-author, science-fiction

Not bad. The story was gripping and kept me somewhat interested but I just wasn't that into it. I think I would like the movie better than the book. This is something I never say. ...more

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