The Martian

by Andy Weir

As I crested the rise, I saw something that made me very happy and something that made me very sad: The Hab was intact (yay!) and the MAV was gone (boo!).

So that’s the situation. I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I’m in a Hab designed to last thirty-one days. If the oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So yeah. I’m fucked.

Chemistry, being the sloppy bitch it is,

“We’ve been speaking with Marcus Washington of the United States Postal Service. If you’ve got a Mark Watney commemorative stamp, you might want to hold on to it. Thanks for dropping by, Mr. Washington.”

It worked! Holy shit, it worked!

Good summary of the whole novel, really.

My life is now a desperate struggle for survival…with occasional titration.

‘Houston, be advised: Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed missile man.’”

Call it one hundred because ninety-five cries out to be approximated.

Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.

He turned to Venkat. “It could have been a lasting legacy of scientific research. Now it’s a delivery run. We’ll get a Chinese astronaut on Mars, but what science will he bring back that some other astronaut couldn’t have? This operation is a net loss for mankind’s knowledge.” “Well,” Venkat said cautiously, “it’s a net gain for Mark Watney.” “Mmm,” Zhu Tao said.

Finally realizing what this book is about, beyond a nice story. It's a commentary on the value of human life: how far is the human race collectively ready to go and how much will we willingly sacrifice in the slim hope of prolonging the life of someone who is going to die one day anyway. It's an exploration of human sentimentality. So far NASA has already spent outrageous amounts of taxpayer money on just talking to Mark, with absolutely no guarantee that he will ever make it home alive. Human lives are being risked, satellites are being repositioned, and rockets are being repurposed. 5 years after this story, what ends up being the true, full cost of Mark's survival? And can some be blamed for disagreeing with the value afforded it?

“It’s amazing how much red tape gets cut when everyone’s rooting for one man to survive.”

If that’s the case, I’m just fucking dead, okay? There’s only so much I can do.

Another great summary of the whole book

Deimos is a little piece of crap that’s no good to anyone.