The Martian

This book is great and I urge anyone vaguely interested in the synopsis to read it. The premise and story are actually quite basic but the excellent writing makes it a thrilling read with characters you really care about.

I was worried it would get a bit repetitive half way through but it evolved to keep it interesting and absorbing.

A must read, especially for scientists and engineers.

The Martian started as a self published book on Amazon before eventually being picked up by a publisher, and now has a movie in the works with Matt Damon scheduled for late 2015. The easiest way to describe it is Castaway meets Apollo 13. It was a gripping story with enough realism to keep things interesting.

The Martian started as a self published book on Amazon before eventually being picked up by a publisher, and now has a movie in the works with Matt Damon scheduled for late 2015. The easiest way to describe it is Castaway meets Apollo 13. It was a gripping story with enough realism to keep things interesting.

This is an incredible book. Simply said.

You'd think a book told mostly from the point of view of a single, completely isolated character would be boring, but you'd be very VERY wrong. All it really takes is the very first chapter for you to instantly fall in love with Mark Watney. His personality just smacks you in the face the moment you start reading his recorded personal logs of his life while stranded on Mars, alone, after suffering an assumed fatal injury while his team were forced to make a quick exit from their stay on the red planet in our not-so-distant future.

It's an amazing story of survival and ingenuity; of the brightest minds on the planet Earth banding together to save a single human life 12 light-minutes from home. The surprising aspect of this book is how funny it is! Watney's day-to-day survival logs are injected with humorous one-liners such as, “Why can Aquaman control whales? They're mammals!”.

There's enough twists and turns that you honestly won't know if there's a happy ending, or if Watney's fate is to be memorialized as something humans just can't overcome yet. This unknown keeps you engrossed right up until the last few pages. The ending is satisfying, but deserves an epilogue that sadly doesn't exist yet.

I am not a fan of space stories. Books, TV, movies...space is rarely my cup of tea for entertainment. Firefly the TV show, and now “The Martian” are such exceptions to the rule that I think everyone needs to experience them as well.

If that's not enough to sway you, the audiobook (which I usually listen to for all books I'm reading while in my car. Thanks WhisperSync for Kindle!) is top-notch!

The perfect popcorn sci-fi book. Page turner, no utterly unexpected events, perfect bantering, etc. Yeah, I can't deny that I really enjoyed reading that book and I wouldn't be surprised to see that as a mini tv series, it would really work well. Movie, not so, but as a mini tv show yes.

It didn't get give stars, because it is just too predictable. Certain things are written and you know exactly what will happen.

Still, a very nice read, recommended. Very nice, especially if you are not a hard core sci-fi fan.

As far as entertainment, The Martian is a thrill ride. It's the sort of novel you feel like you've seen in a movie somewhere; it's a little Gravity/Apollo 13 meets Cast Away with sprinkles of Deep Impact, The Right Stuff, and other similar films. I'd say this means The Martian has a very promising future. Has someone bought the film rights yet? ... Checking ... Yep, Matt Damon is set to star. Figures.

The Martian was so entertaining I was tempted to give the novel a full five stars, but once you trim the thrills, The Martian is a bit thin. Still, it's good for what it is. The tension is high, but not over the top. At times it's predictable as action stories tend to be, but at other times the author surprises the reader. It's funny, but occasionally heartfelt. It's full of science babble, but not at the risk of losing the reader. It's a good mix. I liked that Watney doesn't take himself too seriously, but at the same time, I have to wonder how believable he is as a character. Stranded on Mars for hundreds of days, Watney lacks a moroseness and an introspective outlook I would expect. Now, I can accept Watney is unique. I can learn from a character who is different from me BUT I still can't quite believe him at all times. If Watney is so comical and witty, would he waste his time on this log? If he expects to die on Mars, wouldn't he find his time better spent writing a hilarious farce and burying it in the Martian sand for future astronauts to find; a farce that would detail how his people, the Martians, propagated their seeds throughout the universe before their planet died and how, after many millennia, each people would discover the Martian language: English. I don't know. I just can't see someone as clever as Watney wasting his time formulating pirate-ninjas and complaining about disco. It seems beneath him.

Really, I'm not complaining about Watney. He was a good character, certainly worth rooting for. And it was a good novel: entertaining and very well written. My only complaint is the dialogue meant to explain technical details to the reader. Sometimes it didn't give the reader the benefit of the doubt. I understand Watney doing it, because his intended audience is an unknown reader; but within dialogue at NASA and aboard Hermes, it stood out. These people know what they're doing. If the commander of a spacecraft orders something, she doesn't then need it explained back to her in simple terms. A minor irritation in an otherwise great novel. How great? Well, let's just say I'm not that thrilled about Matt Damon in the lead role, but I still put my money on the belief this is going to make one hell of a film.

Wow. I am really behind in my Sword and Laser reads! This is partly due to my schedule, but also because it has been damn hard to get my hands on a copy of the book these past few months. The Martian, in particular, had a huge wait list at my local library. However, I finally made it to the top of that list, and it was well worth the wait.

At first I was ambivalent about this book. I don't typically like the diary type of style, which is how this book starts off. I think that type of narration is very limiting and can become really repetitive. However, this book is not solely comprised of log entries–there are chapters where the point of view changes and those were the parts that really stood out to me.

I love astronaut stories, and this one was really well written. The stakes are high, there are many suspenseful and emotionally charged scenes, and Mark Whatney is a great narrator–I love his sense of humor.

4.5 out of 5 stars!

The book is definitely interesting. It is not, though, SF, as that is literary genre, and The Martian is more of a NASA guidebook or manual. The protagonist muddles through catastrophe after catastrophe, only to be thrown into the next one with extreme predictability, all the time keeping the certainty that his/NASA's engineering genius will save him. No characters to speak of, the whole read is a demonstration of authors proficiency with the “science” part, but very little of the “fiction”. More like an astronaut training drill.

Enthralling from the opening scene all the way to the end. One of my top reads of 2014.

It was a great book but I wonder what would NASA think about this story?

Entertaining read despite all the chemistry talk!

The best part is the main characters unrelenting witty thoughts. He doesn't take himself too seriously and it makes for plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in dire situations.

Although the language is R rated, it was a refreshingly new science fiction story, almost felt like science fact! Loved it, nice job.

A sci-fi book unlike any other. The level of realism and attention of detail is amazing. Granted, I suspect this might appeal to those of a certain detail-orientated state of mind, but it avoids the data dumps of some sci-fi novels. It manages to talk about the minutiae of what might be required to survive on Mars in an engaging way that adds, rather than extracts, from the excitement of the story.

My favorite book of the year!

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

All I can say is I could not put this book down.

This was excellent sort of Castaway in space.I found myself looking for reasons to listen to this book. The narrator was perfect for it also.

My only comment to this book:

AWESOME!!

Best book I've read in a looooong time! :D

My only comment to this book:

AWESOME!!

Best book I've read in a looooong time! :D

Executive Summary: A surprisingly enjoyable hard sci-fi novel. I think most people's enjoyment will rely heavily on how much you enjoy the humor or not however.

Audio book: There are some books where the audio makes it even better. This is definitely one of those. I've never heard of R.C. Bray before this, but I definitely will be more inclined to listen to anything else he reads from now on.

Full Review
I'm always more of a sword than a laser. I tend to watch sci-fi and stick to fantasy for reading. Most of the sci-fi books I do enjoy are more space fantasy or space opera types. I'm not really into hard sci-fi despite having a science and math background. It just feels too much like work I guess.

So I hadn't really planned on reading this book despite all the hype it's been getting lately. Thankfully Sword & Laser decided to make this their May pick, because I really enjoyed it.

I've seen it described as MacGuyver in Space and that seems really fitting. Mark Watney is an engineer and a Botanist. He's good at problem solving and fixing things. That probably a good thing as he finds himself left behind on Mars with both limited supplies and food.

The story takes the form of log entries, leaving the reader to wonder if Mark made it through his ordeal or if we're simply listening to the record of his final days recovered at some later date.

The book is a bit formulaic:

1. Evaluate Problem for possible solutions.
2. Fix Problem
3. Make humorous remarks about the Problem.
4. Discover what new Problem crops up as a result.
5. Repeat.

This may sound boring to some folks, but it just worked for me. It really helped that just as I was starting to think this he started interspersing Mark's log entries with events of the people at NASA back on Earth as they are trying to do all they can to recover Mark alive.

I think that anyone who don't find the jokes as funny as I did (laughing uncontrollably a few times while cleaning dishes in the break room or riding my bike), may grow tired of the story.

The science seems pretty good to me. However that's not something I normally care much about. As long as it seems mostly reasonable I don't give it much thought. I'm sure there are things that are wrong or could be nitpicked by people who know better than me.

Also anyone looking for case study of isolation and desperation that results from being left behind on Mars will be disappointed. I can't say that I spent much time thinking “Mark's mental state doesn't seem realistic to me.” People who say that may probably be right.

However, astronauts are chosen not only for their skill-set and physical fitness, but mental fitness as well. I tend to make jokes when I'm stressed. Mark makes a lot of jokes. To me that seems fitting for someone between being super busy just trying to stay alive. Your mileage may vary.

I for one really enjoyed this book and it's put me in a total sci-fi mood for both TV and in my choice of audiobooks. I'll be eagerly awaiting for Mr. Weir's next novel as this was an excellent debut.

The Martian tells the tale of Mark Watney, a NASA astronaut who accidentally gets stranded on Mars when a dust storm cuts his mission short. Using his wits as a mechanical engineer/botanist, Mark is forced to come up with a survival plan using only his team's leftover supplies and any other piece of NASA debris he can find near his campsite.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, (1) I am a science nerd, (2) Apollo 13 is one of my favorite movies, and (3) I loves me a character full of some snark. So, basically, I am this book's target audience. So when I go on to say I obsessively loved it, you might have to take that with a grain of salt.

This book definitely had a feeling of MacGuyver/Cast Away/Apollo 13 all mixed together, but that only made it more fun for me. If you aren't excited by a character doing math to figure out exactly when, why, and how they are going to die you might not be super excited by this story. On the other hand, the main character's sense of humor might be enough to pull anyone through, even during the mathematical bits. Also, despite the fact that there was a lot of discussions of “technical” things the story moved at a quick pace and never felt bogged down. The author definitely has a skill with comedic timing that lent the book a perfect balance of excitement, danger, and humor.

My only minor quibble with the book is that I wasn't sure if the ending provided quite enough closure for me. However, in light of the title of the book, the chosen end point does make quite a bit of sense. And I think the ending is appropriate for the characters of the story - just not sure if it is quite emotional enough for me as the reader. I don't know that the story needed to continue, but perhaps something like a brief Afterword would have been appropriate in this situation. Overall I was quite satisfied with the book though, so, like I said, minor quibble.

This review is a bit short as the book has only been out a few months and I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible. And this book is really hard to talk about without giving away spoilers. But it is good. So, so good. I will say that if you find curse words incredibly offensive you may not like this book (they aren't used overly much, but often enough when the main character finds himself in dire straights, which is, well, often enough), or you may not want to let younger children read it, but otherwise it really is fantastic. The book remains quick, light, and fun despite dealing with a somewhat fantastical life and death situation, and avoids get bogged down in its own technical jargon and seriousness. It is a fantastic read and I highly recommend it.

Spectacularly funny, enjoyed the story from start to finish. Very realistic engineer attitude and sense of humor.

So I've read a lot of books this year, and most of them have been fun. Lots of 4 stars. Very few that actually strike an emotional chord (which is my main crieria for hitting five). The Martian just wiped the floor with all of them and is by far my favorite thing I've read all year.

Let it be said that while I occasionally read hard sci-fi, most of it is way over my head and I'm in no way fit to judge the accuracy of such novels. When I finished this book, I felt better versed in space travel and how exactly humans can get such a thing done. I may not have understood all the physics, but Weir takes a concept people spend multiple doctorates on and makes it comprehensible to the average space fangirl.

And it's not boring! Too often, hard sci-fi spends so much time explaining how such and such is possible, I forget why I'm supposed to care in the first place. I never stopped caring in this book. Every technical detail was directly connected to Mark's survival, and his sense of humor and clever analogies kept the pace moving firmly ahead. Mark is resourceful, entertaining, and entirely loveable. He's like Wash if Wash were stranded on Mars. Alan Tudyk should play him in the movie. I could not stop reading this yesterday and churned through way more than is strictly healthy for my bedtime. I just couldn't sleep knowing something else was going to go terribly wrong at any moment. Don't pick this book up without a solid block of time to devote to it. It's not long, but you won't want to take a break.

So far the book is smart and engaging, but what really got me is the way it balances Mark's mission and NASA. NASA does a lot for Mark, obviously, but the times he is at his best are when all the bureaucratic strings are cut. Mark succeeds partially because of team of people rooting for him to survive, but mostly because the people rooting for him all either trust him to do his job or have no choice but to let him do his job. Same for the folks on Hermes. I felt a real kinship in this book for what humans can do when we are allowed to just do our jobs without anyone babysitting or critiquing.

Of course, Mark also screws up plenty of times because no one is babysitting, but such is balance.

There's a few odds and ends that bugged me. I can't believe a geek like Mark brought none of his own entertainment with him... or that anyone on the ship would have brought no entertainment or only one variety of entertainment, and the world rooting as one for Watney is a bit over the top, but Weir balances that out with the bureaucratic worlds actual discussion of budget cuts and mission safety regulations. Nothing actually hampers my enjoyment of the Story. And it gets a capital Story.

Man vs. the Elements may be older than Robinson Crusoe, but Weir does the archetype proud in this novel. Highly recommended to Space Pirates everywhere.

I loved this, couldn't put it down. It was funny because my Kindle kept dying while I was reading it, so every time Mark was having power problems-I kind of was too. I've read what other people are saying about this, that it's Macguyver on Mars, and I do agree. That's not a bad thing! I wasn't bothered by the lack of emotion from Mark, I got a general idea of his personality from his “log” reports and emotion probably would have bogged this story down. It does have a ton of tension, and I think that had me reading faster and faster. Honestly, I really enjoyed this and am glad that I bought it (I was 19th on the waiting list at the library for it and just got impatient). It's one of the ultimate survival stories. Highly recommended for fans of Hugh Howley as the writing style is very similar, and Michael Creighton because of the mix of adventure and science. It would be a great beach read!