Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate the planet while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded on Mars' surface, completely alone. with no way to signal Earth that he's alive. And even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone years before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, Mark won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark's not ready to quit. Armed with nothing but his ingenuity and his engineering skills—and a gallows sense of humor that proves to be his greatest …
A mission to Mars.
A freak accident.
One man's struggle to survive.
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate the planet while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded on Mars' surface, completely alone. with no way to signal Earth that he's alive. And even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone years before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, Mark won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark's not ready to quit. Armed with nothing but his ingenuity and his engineering skills—and a gallows sense of humor that proves to be his greatest source of strength—he embarks on a dogged quest to stay alive, using his botany expertise to grow food and even hatching a mad plan to contact NASA back on Earth.
As he overcomes one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next, Mark begins to let himself believe he might make it off the planet alive.
But Mars has plenty of surprises in store for him yet.
Grounded in real, present-day science from the first page to the last, yet propelled by a brilliantly ingenious plot that surprises the reader again and again, The Martian is a truly remarkable thriller: an impossible-to-put-down suspense novel that manages tc read like a real-life survival tale.
I started this book on the subway home from work, continued reading over dinner, and finished it that night in bed. It's griping, the science is solid, and it's about as close to "hard sci-fi" as you can get. The movie is also quite enjoyable.
This novel is great! It's very hard sci fi, so it's not so much a reflection of the time when it was written as those flights-of-fancy, less techy sci fi stories tend to be.
An uplifting story, just what I like. To be completely honest, most of the science went over my head, but I loved the cheeky protagonist and the general idea of human perseverance and ingenuity
Good - engaging, pacy plot, plausible scientific detail and interesting characters. Audiobook narration largely very good.
Bad - False, jokey modesty of the hero who is clearly a genius. Too much geeky indulgence in explanations of the science. Felt like a textbook sometimes. Note for the narrator, whose German pronunciation was occasionally off the mark: it's "ge-fair-lich", not "ge-FAR -lich". And the Germans I know don't say "und"; they say "and", pronounced "end"!
I don't think it's ever taken me more than two days to read this book, and I've read it several times now. It's just that gripping. You get to the point where you stop lying to yourself about "just one more chapter," and decide you'll live with the sleep deprivation. Watney is the kind of guy the whole internet wants to be, in a situation that nobody wants to be in. Yet the bottom-line struggle—things keep going wrong and nothing is cutting him any slack on Mars—is totally relatable and understanding.
What an impressive book. If Weir's timeline is right, the first astronauts to go to Mars are in high school right now. I hope they read this book. And then I hope they push past the new fears and complexes this book will give them and go to Mars anyway.
Engaging twists and turns, plenty of scientific jargon (must admit I skimmed some of that), interwoven with good humor. Very entertaining read. Had me literally holding my breath at the end.
Writing style was very informal and blog-like, but it helped make this book a fast read. The material was interesting -- it was a series of realistic challenges and realistic solutions. However, this is less a novel and more a diary from the future with an Earth-perspective novella interwoven among some entries to stave off readers' waning interest, rather than to serve as a plot device or provide symbolism.
Despite the artless writing, it's a good book. If it weren't for the language, I would recommend that every highschool student read this to catch the contagious confidence that being an engineer gives.
The only - ONLY - complaint I have about this story is the neatness with which Watney's problems occur at his absolute apogee - i.e., something catastrophic happens ONLY when things are going exactly according to plan. It makes it a little too predictable the third time around, but it's a small complaint. Everything else about this book, I love.
A fun read, though perhaps I just happen to fall into the geeky demographic the book is aimed at. I am impressed by the many ways the author dreamed up to make his protagonist suffer to the point of dying, along with the clever ways he had Watney extricate himself from each setback. It doesn't read as a cinematic treatment at all, with all the raw details of the technology (worked out by Weir using computer simulations he wrote) set out on the page, the number of potatoes the man had to keep from starving, the path of the ground loop that nearly destroyed his chances for coming home, facts and figures that might make another reader's eyes glaze over but which seemed to cement the realism for me. So if it's true that Hollywood is putting together a blockbuster project filming this, you might want to read the original …
A fun read, though perhaps I just happen to fall into the geeky demographic the book is aimed at. I am impressed by the many ways the author dreamed up to make his protagonist suffer to the point of dying, along with the clever ways he had Watney extricate himself from each setback. It doesn't read as a cinematic treatment at all, with all the raw details of the technology (worked out by Weir using computer simulations he wrote) set out on the page, the number of potatoes the man had to keep from starving, the path of the ground loop that nearly destroyed his chances for coming home, facts and figures that might make another reader's eyes glaze over but which seemed to cement the realism for me. So if it's true that Hollywood is putting together a blockbuster project filming this, you might want to read the original if you enjoy that kind of stuff because they're bound to strip all of it out.