Kyle’s Reviews > The Martian > Status Update
Kyle
is on page 113 of 369
The scenes on Earth are elliptical, much like NASA would be with multimillion dollar decisions made within minutes according to the chain of command. Yet within this institutional structure, low-ranking op Mindy still wins minor victories over bigwig blowhards like Annie and Bruce. Back on Mars, where it is just Mark and random bits of equipment left in various places, he only ever gets such self-contained victories.
— Feb 10, 2018 10:43AM
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Kyle
is finished
The race to get to the MAV is over, the retrofitting (otherwise trashing) of the rocket that will send Mark to intercept the returning Hermes is sped through to get to the final chapter where all of the crew pull together in a matter of minutes what NASA, JPL and other geniuses had years of planning, pretty much all thrown out the same window that was dismantled and left on the surface of a Watney-less Mars.
— Apr 22, 2018 10:16PM
Kyle
is on page 324 of 369
The impressive trek across the Greater Arabia Terra gets punctuated by a couple third-person narrative moments at conflict with the slow-and-steady rovering. The dust storm Mark enters into would have been devastating if the probabilistic math worked out with him heading off in a stormier direction. Nice to see “Survived Something That Should Have Killed Me” dinner got eaten according to the rules he set for himself.
— Apr 16, 2018 12:53PM
Kyle
is on page 268 of 369
“The worst is not / So long as we can say, ‘This is the worst’” (King Lear IV.i). Just a bit of elbow grease fixes up the Rover for Watney’s departure. The real drama in this short section comes from the multiple homefronts as each astronaut connects with a loved one on Earth revealing the true cost of the NASA (and now CNSA) mission. Mark complains about leftover disco while the crew may cannibalize itself.
— Mar 16, 2018 11:44AM
Kyle
is on page 228 of 369
The all-too-brief Pathfinder communication link to Earth led to some impressive nerdy wisecracks, but made Watney seem less of space pioneer - I kinda think that the drill short circuit was intentional so that he could take control of the narrative and wonder over the resilience of his Martian potatoes. Having seen the movie alleviates some tension, even the Elrond scene, but requires close, patient reading.
— Feb 26, 2018 08:53AM
Kyle
is on page 157 of 369
With an uplinked Pathfinder giving Mark more of a direct link to NASA, the narrative becomes more multifaceted and chatty, much less the meditative self-vs-other-world survival story it had previously been. Even flashes back to Sol 6 to get a POV from the rest of the crew, carefully kept on the story’s sidelines until needed four months later. Weir also subtly weaves into the on-going Sol logs a fabric tear.
— Feb 18, 2018 10:36AM
Kyle
is on page 79 of 369
As intriguing as it was to read the trials and errors of the first crop of Martian potatoes, I had a feeling that the Solly logs would not be the whole story. It was a well-timed narrative switch to hear what was happening back at the ranch, in this case NASA, each scene a slow burn discovery of Mark Watney’s survival and projected demise. Without contact to Earth, he is left to execute rovering Sirius solo missions.
— Jan 30, 2018 06:42PM
Kyle
is on page 27 of 369
A gripping tale that starts post media res: if the story of how Mark Watney arrived and was abandoned on Mars, that part of the story was deftly done with between Sol 1 and 5, giving the necessary flashbacks to his crew’s hasty departure and his survival skills kicking in on Sol 6. Some of 24 hour and 39 minute spans of time are silently passed over, but each moment is literally occupied with his struggle to survive.
— Jan 11, 2018 11:44PM
