The Martian
Ratings2,427
Average rating4.4
The Martian is basically the survivalist fantasy for anyone who thrives on problem-solving under pressure—with a sarcastic edge. Mark Watney isn’t just stranded on Mars; he’s in a nonstop battle of wits against physics, limited resources, and a planet that literally wants him dead. But the magic is in how he makes it feel like a grimly hilarious science project. For someone like me who loves systems, optimization, and a touch of dark humor, this book is peak efficiency porn. It’s not just about surviving—it’s about iterating, adapting, and doing the math until you win. It’s “FP&A in space,” with potatoes.
I'm surprised how well rated this book is, but I guess people are just suckers for a good survival story, where someone persevere when everything seems doomed. For the fiction part of the book, you might as well watch the film, which faithfully represents the book.
What you get when reading the novel is... numbers. And a lot of them! I thing that 3/4 of the book is strictly about calculations, statistics, measurements, physics, chemistry, botany and what not. It is very technical stuff, although written in an accessible way. Think the TV series CSI. Most people have no clue what's going on when the expert meticulously explains what has happened, but hey can't stop watching it anyway.
It is not bad writing, just not compelling fiction. If I were to judge the 1/4 that does not relate to technical stuff, i would give this a 3 stars. This is sort of my kind of book really. I like technical stuff. But its just not what I am looking for when I'm reading for entertainment purposes.
The thing I like about the book is that it faithfully represents what would happen to a scientist when he is forced to survive in an improbable situation. Scientist are great people! They do not give up, they are intelligent, creative and logical thinking. the world is your oyster when you understand how the building blocks of reality work together to create anything.
This is an extremely loved book. I knew going into it, I was getting an epic survival story. But I have to say it was even more that that. This book was filled with humor, snarkiness, science, and adventure and I loved every minute of it. I really wanted to see the movie for this, but I knew I had to read the book before I could see the movie. So of course I waited until the day before to start the book. It ended up not being a problem because I flew through the book and there was a never a doubt that I would not finish it before the movie.
I do not know how accurate all the science actually is, but it was believable and made sense to me. I loved how well explained all the choices were. We got to see Mark's stream of consciousness through the log of why he was making certain choices and his trial and error process until he got it right.
My favorite part of this book was how often I would laugh or giggle. I loved how sarcastic and snarky Mark was and it really added to the whole idea of being stranded on Mars and coping and surviving. I truly believe the book would have been much different had Mark not had the personality he did.
I do not think there was ever a dull moment in this book. We were constantly moving onward and toward bigger and greater challenges. I think the pacing of this book was incredibly well done and I applaud Andy Weir for making a book that mainly focuses on one guy alone on Mars so fascinating. We did have some scenes from others perspectives which added to the story but they were all necessary and helped break up the solo-Mark time.
I definitely recommend you read this book and then go see the movie because both are fantastic!
I received a copy of this book through BloggingForBooks in exchange for an honest review
I think this was written by a 12-year-old kid. The humor is painful. CBS-sitcom level painful. No story need this many disco “jokes”. The dialogue is stilted. The character development is non-existent. The science is interesting, but it's mostly just algebra and unit conversions
I'm quitting this book...it is really boring to me personally and not at all what I want from sci fi. Just writing this to help anyone out.
I like sci fi that has some connection to human feelings, personal experiences and emotions. I also love reading about alien landscapes, the sublime/mysterious feelings evoked by being somewhere completely different. This guy has been on Mars for a third of the book and he has devoted a total of 1 sentence to thinking about his family, 1 sentence to describing the landscape of Mars, and the rest is technical jargon. I know he is supposed to be this practical science man but I genuinely don't think any human person would feel this little emotion about being stuck on Mars. It feels like the author spent all his time researching the science and didn't spend any time characterization at all.
I get that it's supposed to be cool that it's a scientifically accurate sci fi book, but unless you know the science already and can appreciate it, it doesn't really improve your reading experience. Like it could be all made up and it wouldn't be a worse or better book, to a person who is not a NASA scientist.
A bit too funny for a dire experience. Reading is fun though, bursting out laughing guaranteed. Just don't dive in the math / chemistry / calculations those are mind boggling but very well done.
One of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read. It was riveting, funny, and had a satisfying conclusion. The science in it was allegedly true, as well.
Yeah, it's good. One of the all-time great book covers. Starts to drag like the last fifth.
A good read but way too long. The plot was simply brilliant. The two story lines, one of his struggle to survive until a mission could be launched to rescue him and NASA back on Earth trying to come up with way to grab him before his food supply ran out, were simple on the surface but provide an endless stream of obstacles for both to overcome. My complaint was they went on too long and the last one really stretched thing.
I typically don't care for stories that happen off planet earth, but this was a fantastic narrative that kept me engaged at every turn.
This was such a FUN ride!!
The research done for the writing of this book must have been incredibly extensive. It is very technical so if you loathe engineering you may want to skip this one. It reads mostly like a captains log of events, with some healthy personality thrown in. Kind of like if the movie Gravity happened on Mars instead.
Still, such a super fun read.
P.S. I just learned. MOVIE!! Ridley Scott!! Matt Damon!! Such awesome awaits.
I'm the biggest hater.
If you're the kind of person who rolled their eyes in the Martian movie trailer when Matt Damon said "I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this", you're in a for a bad time with this book.
It gets even more cringey, with choices like:
Yay! More oxygen!
[...] designed to work against technical faults, not deliberate sabotage (bwa ha ha!)
Fear my botany powers!
Yeah, that's right Mars, I'm gonna piss and shit on you. That's what you get for trying to kill me all the time.
"Kilowatt-hours per sol" is a pain in the ass to say. I'm going to invent a new scientific unit name. One kilowatt-hour per sol is... it can be anything...um... I suck at this... I'll call it a "pirate-ninja"
Mark Watney is absolutely insufferable as a character, and only described through execution of snark, not the heavy mental load of an astronaut stranded on a foreign planet. They should have left this guy on Mars.
There are maybe... three or four times where the actual emotional state of Mark is discussed. There's a tantrum, a couple mentions of "fear" and "uncertainty" and ... that's it. The rest is numerical facts (not calculations, just numbers and units) for "scientific credibility", I guess.
Fortunately, the supporting cast of characters, that is, everyone not on Mars, are more reasonable and don't seek to fill every moment with jokes.
Reading this after reading the real-life log entries of Arctic and Antarctic exploration in the form of Endurance or Empire of Ice and Stone was such a shock to the system - those log entries show the hardened consummate professional sailor, much like The Martian, trapped in a hostile, uncaring alien land, facing starvation, and the tone could not be more different. I know they are intended for different audiences but The Martian loses that element of immersion from having an unbelievable character contrasted to the logs of similar non-fiction counterparts.
Never bothered to read this before since I thought it might be repetitive after watching the movie.
Ended up still being very enjoyable. Lots of believable problem solving, things going wrong, never losing hope. The characters are all pretty likable too.
I'm going to rank this one between Project Hail Mary (which I loved) and Artemis (not so much). Looking forward to reading whatever Andy writes next.
A long, tiresome slog through the potatoes who are the effective protagonist of the book.
This book lifted me up in my darkest times.
A quirky biologist, stranded far away from any civilization, probably doomed to death, having calculated the exact number of days his food will last, has the greatest day ever:
He realized that peeing on the soil will give his small potato farm just enough nutrients to thrive.
I don't remember if that scene actually happened in the book, but it truly captures how I felt reading it: In awe at how happy and resilient the protagonist is and how even in our darkest times, we feel joy from little things like peeing on dirt.
It's a wonderful book and one of my favorites just because of how it made me feel. I highly recommend it!
Enjoyed this immensely. I enjoy Weir's writing style, in particular his humour, but he has a knack for walking the line between not giving enough Scientific detail and giving too much. Everything feels believable (most of it is sound after all), but it doesn't feel so complex that it becomes convoluted and difficult to follow.
4.75 potato's out of 5.
Having already seen the film and knowing that I'm a sucker for survival stories, I knew even before reading this book that I would love it.
And, of course, I wasn't disappointed by my expectations. This is evident in the fact that, even though I already knew the story from the film, I couldn't help but remain glued to the book.
But what I didn't expect was the incredible balance between scientific/technical descriptions, adventure and (for the reader, not the protagonist) pure fun.
This book takes the hard science fiction philosophy really seriously, as everything is tried to be explained with a scientific eye. Most of the time, you don't feel like what's happening is unreasonable or unrealistic. And when you do, it's not due to the science explanation, but rather the feeling of "how many times can this man survive ?".
The only real flaws I can find are:
- a luck of the exploration of the emotions and background of the protagonist, most if the times when something emotional comes up, there's a joke to cover it.
- the quite visible patter of Problem -> Solution -> Complication -> Resolution that is incredible in making this book so addictive, but at the same time it can be a little repetitive.
One takeaway from this book is that I'm glad I abandoned my childhood dream of becoming an astronaut.
Captivating thriller. I’m surprised i read the book within two days - I would’ve expected to get bored of a ‘daily blog’ type science thriller book but it was pretty entertaining. Not a whole lot of takeaways from the book though.
