The Martian

ugh

I hate it

I love it

I hate it

I love it

That was my journey with this.

I originally started reading this a couple of years ago and DNF at about 20%. It's one of only two books I've ever not finished.

But it kept popping up as recommended and I had now seen the movie (loved!) and I though, "Give it another go".

15% in I was ready to drop it again for exactly the same reasons.

Mark Watney comes across as a know it all, condescending douchebag with terrible Dad humour.

I'm a Dad.. I know what bad Dad humour sounds like.

And I was forced to listen to him rabbit on for quarter of the book - which essentially amounted to a math's lesson. I swear there were more numbers in this book at this stage than words;

"I'm screwed. However, the body needs 2 litres of water every day to survive, which I can get if I split the atom of 376 oxygens and combine with 800 hydrogens, while parsing them over 65 potatoes under 200psi of pressure at a temperature of 100 kelvin. But I must do this over 56 hours under a strict light intensity of 100 lumens. The advantage of this is that it will also generate 25 pirate-ninjas of power".

ugh

UGH

UUUUGGGHHHHH!!

I feel like Mark Watney was just a vessel for Andy Weir to show the world how bloody smart he thinks he is.

But I'm a tougher reader now so I persevered.

And then something wonderful happened. Mission control. NASA. Other characters. People who were just people solving a problem and with a real personality and a PLOT.

I LOVED these parts of the book.

Unfortunately they kept being in interrupted by Mark F*cking Watney.

Seriously, just let the dude die on that cold red planet. It would have been more interesting just to follow NASA's attempt at retrieving his body for a memorial service.

5 stars for NASA. 1 for Watney.

My parents made me watch this movie nearly a decade ago because it was supposed to be “educational” and i had wayyy more fun watching it than i expected to. So when I saw this book in my library, I immediately picked it up and it was so nostalgic for me. 

The narration by Mark Watney is such a delight to read. It's smart, witty, funny and also heart pumping in certain parts.

This is probably the best survival thriller I've ever read.

What a journey.. I love this book, possibly one of the best books I've read, can't recommend it enough! It's an amazing book filled with science, on-the-edge-of-your-seat events, and some of the snappiest most real dialogue I've read. You really don't know how it will end, but man it pays off.

“Godspeed, little taters. My life depends on you.”

Oh my, easily five stars. I was little bit sceptical about the humor that it would be too much and it will end up lame. But in a very long, long, loooong time the book actually made me laugh. And it was this amazing book! Matt Damon as a Mark Watney is just such an excellent choice.

Just from the first sentence I was immediatelly hooked. I already knew how it would end but I needed the details that didn't get to the movie adaptation. And honestly, being in Mark's head through his unfortunate adventures on Mars was so much fun. The way this character was written is simply amazing, the reactions in some situations were pretty realistic, funny and on point.

“Yeah, that's right, Mars, I'm gonna piss and shit on you.”

just a really great read. Funny, emotional, thrilling, just fantastic in every way. Some parts were a little hard to follow for my dumb little brain, and it was a taaaaaaaaaaad cliche in some ways, but just such an excellent read nonetheless.

Das Buch hat wirklich eine einzigartige und mitreisende Geschichte!
Mir hat der Schreibstil auch sehr gut gefallen, ich kann aber auch verstehen, wenn mans nicht mag.
Mein einziger Minuspunkt ist, dass Andy Weir teilweise bei den technischen Vorgängen zu sehr ins Detail gegangen ist.

Great sci fi. Wasn't a huge fan of the diary perspective, and Weir didn't always do a great job of sticking to that perspective, even within the diary portions of the book. All in all though, it was an excellent read. If you like this book, you'll love Weir's other books even more (Project Hail Mary, Artemis).

It's not often that the movie is better than the book but in this case....

I'm mad that it took me this long to get to this book, but at the same time I am happy that I have finally read this book and join the hype train.

Fantastic story. I loved everything about the book. From the characters, being so diverse but at the same time so likable, the plot, which gave me the chills just to think of how it'd be to be out there alone on Mars. The way it was written, both the logs from Watney that conveyed his reasonings, thoughts and emotions, and the passages that were focused on what was happening on earth and on the spaceship with the rest of the crew. 

Start, middle part and ending, this one was a freaking blast. The only thing that prevents it from being a five-star read in my opinion, is that it was so scientifically fluent and savvy that for me, having little to no knowledge on those topics, it was hard to follow and understand at times.

On a side note: This book will forever be special to me, since it was the first book I ever read on my Kindle, which has truly changed my life when it comes to reading and altogether. That alone gives this one a high spot in my heart. 

4.50/5.00

Okay I was bawling my eyes out at the end. The science is spectacular, especially the dust storm moment! OMG!

A spectacular read, edge of the seat adventure, and raw science! I love it.

Plot -> a rather simple overarching story, but filled with brilliant plot elements and amazing science. It's simply astounding that this entire genre of science fiction is essentially reborn with this book. High stakes Adventure filled with intense science and yet totally approachable.

World building -> for a sci-fi book, the world building is rather limited to the nature of story, but Andy weir does an amazing job of what this book needs.

Characters/theme -> I'm rating on the basis of this book being hard sci-fi, which is more thematic than character based. Mark's character is so well developed, I love his humor. I wish there was a touch of sadness in him, at least in some instances, which would have been perfect. But he maintains his good humor interspersed by frustration throughout the book, which is a bit shy of perfection for me. Mark does reflect on his loneliness sometimes, and ponders the wonders of what he is doing, which is the best moment in the book for me. There were a so many good side characters, Lewis and Vogul topping that list.

Prose -> pretty normal everyday prose. Well written, super appropriate and keeps the book a page turner.

Emotional impact -> I cried. Bawled at the end. But otherwise the book was pretty good. I'd say project Hail Mary is better. Thematically this one is better.

An all-around brilliant adventure whose writing keeps consistent plot development despite the life of the protagonist being repetitive and monotonous for most of the time period. Having seen the movie first, I would say the book is an unnecessary read. The movie does the book justice, and its omissions and additions are tasteful for its medium.

Absolutely fantastic book. Loved reading it. Great story told in a very entertaining way. I also liked the main character very much.

This just didn't seem as good as “Project Hail Mary” to me. I enjoyed reading through the story but was not necessarily sucked in. The random info dumps of the MC doing math or some other science facts just took me away from the story. For me, personally, the MC was also hard to take seriously as he just treated the day to day situations he was in with off-handed jokes. It was, however, a decent read!

I've had this book sitting on my shelf for years. In that time I built high expectations that grew larger whenever I heard people talk about it. Maybe I wasn't in the right headspace or something, but it was disappointingly only an okay read for me. 

Left behind on Mars, astronaut Mark Watney keeps a log of his survival efforts. The book follows his attempts to contact his crew so he can be rescued. 

I love the plot of this so much. Everything about it. What I didn't like was the narration style. It's not even the writing style itself as it works perfectly for this situation, rather, the overall voice. I guess I had imagined something more sophisticated sounding. A lot of it was comedic, which is great, I just don't think I was in the mood for it. 

I've heard many good things about the audiobook which I also own. I think I will revisit the book sometime that way and see if my opinion changes. 

What an amazing read!

Andy Weir beautifully brings together science and fiction in this outer space tale that has us striving for survival along with astronaut Mark Watney when he mistakenly ends up stranded, completely alone in the red planet, after a freak accident while aborting the Ares 3 Mars mission.

I'm the first person to be alone on an entire planet.

Turns out the “L” in “LCD” stands for “Liquid”. I guess it either froze or boiled off. Maybe I'll post a costumer review. “Brought product to surface of Mars. It stopped working. 0/10.”

I don't want to come off as arrogant here, but I'm the best botanist on the planet.

overall really good. it started off a little slow but got super interesting fairly quickly. a little science heavy at times so might be hard for some people to understand but I thought all the ideas were explained well

I cried at the end even though I've already seen the movie (multiple times). Mark's little end message was beautiful. The audiobook though!!! The audiobook narrated by R.C. Bray was fantastic, he really brought it to life!!

A bonus side effect of reading this was feeling my brain expand every time Mark explained anything he did. Funny and educational? Hooray for Andy Weir!! I have a martian shaped hole in my heart right now... time to rewatch the movie :P

Fand den Film sehr gut. Das Buch ist wie der Film. Das Buch ist also auch sehr gut.

Danke fürs Zuhören.

4.5

I LOVED this book! I got chocked up in several places of the book. I was on the edge of my seat. There was a lot of scientific data thrown out there, but I just let it bounce off of me. It was important to the character, but not to me, except to demonstrate that they really understood what they were covering and it was “realistic”. I can't wait to talk about it in my book club. And I can't wait to watch the movie that was made after this book was written. I love it! And I think I will love the movie! Will Wheaton did a great job of narrating.

Fantastic book, I loved it.

This story follows Matt Watney an Astronaut stranded on mars after an unexpected event during a mars mission. He has to work his way through science ingeniously to survive on an inhabitable Planet.
Andy Wier is a great Science-Science-Fiction Autor, since he presents us with stories that could only work in science fiction, but explains to us how everything that was done could actually be done. But if science is not your interest, do not fear this is a story and science is in the background. Nonetheless a great touch for us who enjoy science. And this is not just some clever storytelling to convince us that it would work. Actual Nasa scientists have praised this novel for its accuracy.

The story itself was also great, Matt Watney is such a great character with a great sense of humor. I was rooting for him from the beginning. And since a great part of the book is written as “Diary” entries (actually log entries, but are comparable) where at the end of the day Matt sums us up what he did and how Mars fucked with him. He raised himself through adversities and conquered every challenge that is associated with living on an inhabitable planet.

After the film adaptation, one can not compare the book to the motion picture, but I actually enjoyed the book even more. Starting with a different ending which was more satisfying (at least to me). And Watneys humor is in the book more rough and uncensored, which leads to much more laughter.

All in all an Excellent book, a must-read. I will be gifting it this Christmas season.

Damm this book is perfect from start till end it's engaging and adictive as hell I read this one in just 6 hours because it was so interesting by moments tense and I just wanted to know what's gonna happen next
Another thing that I think is important to point out is the humour because is hilarious and because that humour I get to feel more comfortable with the character and feel concerned about all the bad thing that he has to fight this is for me 5/5 stars

Wow. This book has been on my book shelf for four years and now I've finally read it.

I love this take on man vs. wild. I also loved the protagonist and his comedy commentary. If I were ever in a dire situation, I feel like I would also make jokes and swear to keep myself together.

However, the science mentioned in the book lost me a little bit but it was still enjoyable. Especially at the end. I don't think I've ever felt more anticipation and excitement for an ending.

I shared the same feelings of the protagonist all throughout. And the story itself is amazing.

Note: This book was read in audiobook format. There will be a smaller separate review for just the audiobook at the end.

—-

There are certain books where I think to myself that I'm either going to love it or I'm going to hate it. The Martian by Andy Weir was one of those books.

I remember the surge of popularity it had when it first came out and when the movie was released a few years later. It felt like one of those books everyone was checking out and picking up to read. I tend to be late to the party when it comes to popular books like that, but Andy Weir is an author I've had on my wishlist for a while. He comes up frequently in most recommended science fiction books, and as a science fiction lover, that caught my interest. It was especially interesting because, as opposed to space operas filled with exotic locations, this was a fairly grounded speculative fiction set in the near future with probable technology and still in our Solar System.

Needless to say, I was intrigued. So, I finally bit the dust and decided to get the audiobook. I have to admit that I kind of took my sweet time starting it despite marking it as having begun reading it, in case anyone is wondering why it took me almost a month to finish an ~11 hour audiobook. But once I actually started listening to it, I was hooked.

And I'm happy to say that I found myself in the “love it” camp by the time I finished this book.

It's definitely a different kind of science fiction book that I really hadn't read before. It's a mixture of a lot of different formats; part epistolary, part narrative, jumping around multiple characters, and chat dialogues peppered within. Instead of being disorienting, I actually really enjoyed it. It's one of the books where I wanted to know everyone's point of view because I was invested in all sides of the story. The way I was hooked into the conflict and dying to know what happened was a joy to experience. It really did feel like I was there in the book's setting, riding along with Mark as he tried to find his way home, or in the conference room as the higher-ups discussed how to get him home. It was also interesting to see this conflict explored from all angles: on one side, it's a harrowing adventure of a man trapped in an alien landscape. And then on the other side, it's a stressful rescue mission to save a marooned person against all the odds. And yet, it's also a bureaucratic tangle of leaders, scientists, and news outlets scrambling amongst themselves. Seeing it from all angles was a fascinating exploration of all the different characters and methods, but all united towards one goal: bring Mark home.

There are a lot of scientific explanations and jargon included in the book, but I found it fascinating to hear about in the same way it was fascinating to hear about the psuedo-science in Jurassic Park. As someone who knows very little about these kinds of things, hearing a breakdown of them as explained through Mark's witty and dry commentary was pretty funny.

One of my favorite things about the book's plot is how organically it seemed to grow. It goes from Mark being trapped on Mars alone, to suddenly being discovered, to a rescue mission being planned, and keeps growing from there. Problems would pop up, new developments in the conflict would arise, and it kept me pulled in. I can't tell you how invested I was in Mark's predicament, and how invested I was in cheering on the people who were trying to save him. I distinctly remember thinking to myself at one point in the book, “God, please, please let Mark get home.” It was like he was a real person that I was rooting for and desperately hoping would make it home.

I'm honestly surprised at how much I was rooting for Mark and how much I related with him. Mark is almost detached from his situation through his wit and dry humor. There are hardly any parts where Mark wallows and becomes emotional at his predicament (though in all honesty, any person who did that in his situation, I would completely sympathize with). He handles everything with determination, joke cracking, and level-headedness. I was worried that it would prevent me from really sympathizing with Mark's plight. After all, why feel sorry for someone if they seem to be not at all perturbed at the situation they're in? But the way it was written, it really did feel like it was simply a part of who he was, and it made me cheer for him all the more.

There are some valid criticisms of the book I want to address. One is Mark's aforementioned nature in this book. There are no parts where Mark has a mental breakdown or gets emotional, at least not overly so. This might alienate some people who can't get invested in his conflict when he keeps making jokes. I've also read some criticisms where people pointed out that when you have a character who doesn't feel overly threatened by their situation, it feels like they're no stakes. I personally didn't feel any of this while I was reading the book, but this is the way that the book is written.

So, if I love the book so much...why only four stars? As much as I liked how the jumping perspectives and formats were handled in this book, there was a single flashback (no spoilers) that was included. It's the only one in the entire book, and nowhere else does the story take a step back from the current conflict to peek into the past. To me, it felt jarring and disrupted the flow of watching the conflict naturally progress throughout its different stages. I didn't feel it was necessary, either. So, that took off half a star for me.

The other half is because something I really love in real life was insulted in the book, and I couldn't let it slide.

Concluding this giant review, this is a new favorite of mine. I have a few other books of Weir's in my wishlist, and this makes me all the more excited to read them. And you know what? Sometimes we just need an uplifting book during these times, when it seems like we are divided by every imagined parameter and we couldn't hate each other more as a species. It's nice to read a book filled with hope and optimism. It's nice to journey through a story where, for once, it seems like humans are capable of coming together; a problem where we all band together, despite our differences in method and beliefs, to save one of our fellow humans, for the simple and good reason that we value each other and will risk everything to save someone if we have to. That's a nice feeling.

————–

Audiobook review: It's probably ironic that I've been listening to more audiobooks, considering how sensitive I am to ASMR-esque noises and how I can't stand them. I'm happy to say that this audiobook was pretty good. From what I understand, this audiobook was recorded with two narrators, and I listened to the version by R.C. Bray. He was pretty good, in my opinion! I thought his voice and expression matched the tone of the book; kind of dry with a smart, quick wit. Nothing felt over-acted and for the most part, things felt naturally narrated. There were only a few parts where his narration caused my immersion to be broken.

On that subject...I have to talk about his accents. For the most part in audiobooks (and maybe even animated media), I don't mind someone faking an accent as long as they're accurately done. For the most part, R.C. Bray wasn't too bad. Kapoor's Hindi accent seemed accurate enough to me as someone who is not familiar with the language. The other ones weren't too jarring to me. One had a slight Mexican accent, one had an American East coast accent (I want to say it was Bronx or Brooklyn), and there was someone who spoke in African American Vernacular. Bray performed these well enough, but I have to say...as someone familiar with the language and having grown up in East Asian communities, his Chinese/Mandarin accents left a lot to be desired.

I'm pretty sensitive towards Asian accents, just because I've lived in Asian communities in America for almost all of my life. His accents for the Chinese characters erred too much on the inaccurate-derived-from-stereotypes side. I swear at a few points, it slipped a bit into the Hindi accent he used for Kapoor. It's more than possible I'm being too sensitive. I can't imagine this being an issue that many people are affected by. But as someone who's had to deal with Asians being very obviously voice-acted by people who have no clue about the language, it's something I naturally tune into.

The only other thing that stuck out to me (and this isn't necessarily on Bray) is the way that certain scenes turn into a repetitive pattern of “(character) said” over and over again.

But these are all slight complaints. The audiobook was enjoyable to listen to for the most part!