Title: The Martian Author: Andy Weir
Published: October 28, 2014
Genre(s): Science Fiction
Page Count: 387
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads: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 forces his crew to evacuate the planet while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded on Mars's surface, 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.
Armed with nothing but his ingenuity, his engineering skills--and a gallows sense of humor that proves to be his greatest source of strength--Mark embarks on a dogged quest to stay alive. But will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
The first fifty pages or so of The Martian made me think that I had made a terrible mistake. Not only was I completely uninterested in all of this stranded astronaut’s science jargon, but I actually sort of loathed his schoolboyish, nerdy sense of humor. (It was very Big Bang Theory, which, ew.) I thought to myself that if I was going to have to deal with 300 pages of being stuck in Mark Watney’s brain, then I might just have to spare myself the trouble and DNF before it got ugly.
And then something miraculous happened: Andy Weir introduced a pivotal secondary perspective: that of the NASA scientists still on Earth. And, suddenly, The Martian got very, very good.
See, nobody wants to read about an astronaut who’s been left on Mars to die and get only his perspective, day after day of farming and trying to put the radio up and dealing with minute-yet-life-threatening problems. Aside from daily survival, there’s no real goal there. Books need goals. And, by having the NASA people involved in the story, we have a goal: somehow get Mark Watney back to Earth alive. This is also pivotal because it gave me a break from Mark’s perspective.
Because, as much as I enjoyed the book, I don’t think I actually enjoyed Mark’s character. He was a grown man and clearly smart and talented enough to go to Mars, but he lacked the ability to be serious or speak maturely for more than a few seconds. Literally everything was a joke for him, everything was an opportunity to be a smart aleck, and so on and so forth. It’s not that Weir was a bad writer or anything, it’s just that people like Mark irritate me a lot.
What’s interesting, though, is how successful I found The Martian to be, in spite of its main character and in spite of its repetitive plot structure. Because that’s the other thing: this book just goes in circles. Mark’s all “I fixed this thing, so I’m going to be fine!” and then one day later: “OMG I’M GOING TO DIE! Now this other thing is broken!” and then the next day: “Okay, so I think that other thing is fixed now…” ad nauseum. Literally the entire book takes this structure. The entire book. It’s probably my biggest complaint, really.
But. Now we’re getting to the part where I actually really liked the book: it’s completely addictively readable! Even though it’s repetitive, the reader really does want to see how Mark is going to ingeniously overcome this new obstacle that he’s come across. We want to see how he’ll finally get off Mars (because obviously he will). We want to see what NASA’s doing back on earth, how Mark’s news coverage is going. This is the genius of The Martian: problems aside, Andy Weir has completely hooked the reader for the duration. It’s actually unputdownable.
It also doesn’t hurt that the book is very sciency and actually seems to be legit. I feel like Weir knows what he’s talking about, and regardless of whether he does or not, the fact that he’s convinced me, the reader, goes a long way. Sure, I skimmed some of the more technical sections of the book because I, rightly, assumed they weren’t necessary to my overall enjoyment, but they’re there. I love that the book doesn’t just do some magic wand-waving and call it science. The fact that Mark explains his actions helps me buy into the story just that little bit more.
So, in short: The Martian is totally a book that I was surprised to find myself enjoying. It has its definite faults, some that seem to be pretty insurmountable. But never underestimate the quality of compulsive readability, because it’s harder to come across than one might expect.
