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What Members Thought
This book was a lot of fun. Ok, it isn't a literary masterpiece. The dialogue is at a middle school level, and the character development is almost non-existent. The premise was great and lots of cool techy stuff that I thoroughly enjoyed, even a bit of UNIX. I thought the computer geeks were represented and correctly stereotyped. All-in-all, I loved it.
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I thought this book was only okay. I did not think it was particularly well-written. Entire sections of the book are super dry and technical. The characters seem like emotionless super genius robots. Then during other sections the characters morph into very immature frat-boy types, like teens. The women scientists are weirdly sexualized and demeaned throughout. Did not seem realistic at all and I couldn't ever get really into the story or believe the tension was real. It got tedious. I didn't fi
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Oct 08, 2015
Tanya
rated it
really liked it
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review of another edition
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format-audiobook,
2015
This was a fun listen as an audiobook. Not sure I would have picked it up to read, except that I got into a conversation with my daughter's teacher and he was searching for an audio version before heading out to see the movie. I felt that the humor provided a nice balance with the technical information. I am amazed at how the rescue plan can continue to evolve and how much MacGuyvering can occur if one is nerdy enough to have have that much relevant technical information. Some ideas and even phr
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I am not a huge Science a Fiction fan but the book was well written and interesting.
What happens if you get left on Mars and your fellow astronauts think you are dead? If you are me, you really would be dead in short order.However, if you are the highly intelligent botanist-fixit-man of this book you McGyver your way to survival, in the face of enormous odds, over and over again because anything that could possibly go wrong seems to do just that. Some of the solutions are ingenious, and some just require plain repetitive back-breaking work. The book is frequently quite mathemat
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The physics and ingenuity of this book is fascinating! It is very interesting and exciting even when not much is happening. The main character is a genius! He briefly explains what he is doing to solve these complex problems. Some of it is a little over my head and certainly I couldn't reproduce any of it, but it's so interesting. He's like a astrophysics and chemistry McGyver! It does have quite a bit of language, but Otherwise I would recommend it to anyone! I actually have recommended it to f
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Mark Watney is left behind on Mars when the rest of his crew has to make an emergency exit and believes Mark has died in a sandstorm. Mark is left to try to find a way to survive and to get in touch with Earth to tell them he's alive and hopefully be rescued. An edge of your seat read. A lot of bad things happen to Mark but the author makes it all very believable and the science understandable. I couldn't put this book down. I had to know what happened next.
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Loved this book--virtually borrowed over the miles from our library back in the US. Poo-poo to all the reviewers who say otherwise! This is the kind of "sci-fi" I can get into that has realistic characters and scenarios based on real science. Fascinating story that unravels with just the right amount of tension and believability. Humor also that was well done and added to the unfolding intensity of the story. A very strong debut novel by an author who will go far.
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Great read! At times the scientific information was a little too detailed, but enjoyed the book from start to finish.
May 07, 2015
Shannon Wallner
added it
Sep 09, 2015
Kat
rated it
really liked it
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review of another edition
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2015
Feb 25, 2016
Stephanie
marked it as to-read
Dec 27, 2016
Alan
marked it as to-read
Aug 08, 2017
Kara
marked it as to-read
Nov 13, 2017
Jules
marked it as to-read
Apr 29, 2018
Kathy Jo
marked it as to-read
Jan 01, 2019
grace
marked it as to-read
Feb 11, 2019
Te-ge Bramhall
marked it as to-read
