Kindle, 384 pages
English language
Published Feb. 11, 2014 by Ballantine Books.
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 while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he 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 isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
I have no idea why I didn’t read this book earlier. It is a fantastic story that kept me reading until I was done (a day and a half!).
I’ve always wanted to take a trip into space, but certainly not if it ends up like Mark’s.
I went in with the understanding this was a book about a bunch of whatif science problems so enjoyed it. The author did a good job of keeping things moving forward without getting too bogged down in detail. The structure of the story meant the protagonist was maybe the most upbeat superhuman I’ve met so it there was no emotional stakes but that was by design.
I bought this book in an airport to read on a flight home. It seemed like something written just for me: nerdy scifi with a geeky protagonist. It'd be a fun read on a boring flight. Oh, how wrong I was! Oh, the naivety of youth!
The Martian is what you get if you set Ready Player One in space. The protagonist is self-aggrandizing and utterly high on his own sense of self-esteem. Beyond this, he is omnipotent and omniscient, never failing and thus never being given an opportunity to learn from his mistakes. He's stranded, alone, on a planet with barely any atmosphere and (according to the real world science at the time) no accessible water. This is the kind of environment that gives Star Trek characters pause, and I'm supposed to believe that one person, without reference materials, with equipment that would fit in a scifi MacGyver, at …
I bought this book in an airport to read on a flight home. It seemed like something written just for me: nerdy scifi with a geeky protagonist. It'd be a fun read on a boring flight. Oh, how wrong I was! Oh, the naivety of youth!
The Martian is what you get if you set Ready Player One in space. The protagonist is self-aggrandizing and utterly high on his own sense of self-esteem. Beyond this, he is omnipotent and omniscient, never failing and thus never being given an opportunity to learn from his mistakes. He's stranded, alone, on a planet with barely any atmosphere and (according to the real world science at the time) no accessible water. This is the kind of environment that gives Star Trek characters pause, and I'm supposed to believe that one person, without reference materials, with equipment that would fit in a scifi MacGyver, at a tech level roughly equivalent to the real world, can survive? This beggars belief, and solidifies the book as little more than a male power fantasy akin to the modern techbro's belief that technology will solve all our problems. Fitting, then, that Andy Weir got his start as an old school techbro, working at AOL and Palm. I got no more than 30 pages in before deciding I wanted no part of this circle jerk.
By the way, I have terrible flying anxiety. This book did not help.
I finished the book in two days. It’s great. You will especially enjoy it if you’re interested in detailed explanations of how stuff works on Mars (farming, orbital dynamics, making water, fixing and tinkering with all the tools and machinery, etc). There isn’t a lot of emotions involved in large sections of the book, so don’t expect it. This makes sudden jokes hit very hard though. There are emotional moments and the book will keep you at the edge of your seat.
A really great tale of survival in an unforgiving landscape. The writing style is reminiscent of Michael Crichton and the adherence to realism is admirable!
Probably boring if you're not interested in the technical problems involved in being stranded on Mars as those make up most of the book but for someone like me who is interested in the exploration of Mars and everything to do with space in general this is a great hard Sci-Fi story set in the near future.
The writing could be much better, I wish there was more of backstory to how Watney became a person able to survive so well in a situation like this (nothing really explains it to me) and not everything is beliveable to me but the overall concept and most of the details are solid. Wil Wheaton's narration of the audiobook edition was good but not perfect.
Obwohl ich den Film schon kannte und wusste was passiert war das Hörbuch doch bin zum Ende spannend und fesselnd.
I loved this book, as did my two teenage boys. So this is a book that can be enjoyed by a wide range of ages. The book has a rip-roaring story and the protagonist frequently uses science to solve problems (which I liked) while making snide comments (which my kids liked). It’s really plot driven with minimal character development, but that’s OK for this book. The movie they made out of it isn’t bad, either. Recommend very strongly for science, sci-fi, and adventure story lovers.
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.
"I'm pretty much fucked."
And probably at least semi realistic? Didn't like it as much as Project Hail Mary by the same author. This sorta read as a sequence of "oh crap, another thing went wrong" problems, followed by solutions. I'm certain this is realistic - or even still overly optimistic, given what they were surviving through - but kinda made for an overly long, repetitive narrative. I suspect this is part of why they cut some of these out of the movie (and to save time, but also it got repetitive). Nevertheless, a fun read if you enjoy sci-fi that sticks close to contemporary science.
a bit unrealistic in the sense that a person left alone on Mars for over a year would probably go a little insane
The Martian has everything you heard about it - hard science fiction, snarky humor and humans pulling together towards a singular goal. Given how hard it dives into numbers and science, it's a surprisingly fun and light read.
The Martian is my favourite science fiction novel of all time, not only because its ingenuity in keeping the reader on the edge, but also because of how "down-to-Mars" it is regarding scientific accuracy. Having started to read this novel, I just couldn't put it down for a second, and kept thinking about the plot during meal breaks. The Martian is fantastic, and I do not regret a second of reading it.
I love this book, definitely to hold a paper version too.
It reminds on a whole deal of scifi books we had years back when humanity was able to dream of bigger things than metaverses and onlyfans models.
