Paperback, 384 pages
French language
Published Aug. 24, 2015 by Bragelonne.
Mark Watney est l'un des premiers humains à poser le pied sur Mars. Il pourrait bien être le premier à y mourir. Lorsqu'une tempête de sable mortelle force ses coéquipiers à évacuer la planète, Mark se retrouve seul et sans ressources, irrémédiablement coupé de toute communication avec la Terre. Pourtant Mark n'est pas prêt à baisser les bras. Ingénieux, habile de ses mains et terriblement têtu, il affronte un par un des problèmes en apparence insurmontables. Isolé et aux abois, parviendra-t-il à défier le sort? Le compte à rebours a déjà commencé ...
Stunning read, couldn't wait to turn each page. The pacing was incredible, the characters fantastic, just enough science talk to keep it understandable and believable while not over-loading the reader with "techno babble".
“Quantum physics doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Please don’t try to think about it too much. It can be very distressing.”
This booklet out of the Forward series was intriguing as well.
It explores a scenario where Quantum Computing becomes mainstream and is now used to crack the algorithms of Vegas casino's. And indeed, our world would become very interesting, as QC will break many things, like our encryption, non of our passwords will be safe anymore!
Quite a page-turner. The pacing here is just about perfect. This one is a rare hard science fiction title that is immediately accessible and easy to read. Highly recommended.
I saw the movie first.
This book ruined the movie for me. It is that much better.
I felt the stress, the isolation, the tension and the relief. One of those books when you get close to the end there is absolutely no chance of you putting it down.
Loved the level of science geekery, the characters all felt real and the story was engaging all the way through.
Listened to the audiobook, don't know if that impacted things but I doubt it.
I closed off 2019 with what I figured would be a reasonably quick read. I saw the movie when it came out... years ago, and liked it enough to plan to read the book but not enough to actually pick the book to read. After years of reading increasing numbers of mixed reviews, I picked it up on a whim and see both all the praise and all the criticisms.
Watney is an ingenious astronaut stranded on Mars after an accident who has to somehow survive until help shows up with limited supplies and things constantly breaking on him. Outside of the (admittedly very cool) setting, it's a pretty standard survival story where Watney juggles barely finding the means to survive with barely avoiding gruesome death for a few hundred pages.
There are two things that I think significantly set The Martian apart: one is the framing of Watney writing …
I closed off 2019 with what I figured would be a reasonably quick read. I saw the movie when it came out... years ago, and liked it enough to plan to read the book but not enough to actually pick the book to read. After years of reading increasing numbers of mixed reviews, I picked it up on a whim and see both all the praise and all the criticisms.
Watney is an ingenious astronaut stranded on Mars after an accident who has to somehow survive until help shows up with limited supplies and things constantly breaking on him. Outside of the (admittedly very cool) setting, it's a pretty standard survival story where Watney juggles barely finding the means to survive with barely avoiding gruesome death for a few hundred pages.
There are two things that I think significantly set The Martian apart: one is the framing of Watney writing about his own experience shortly after these issues happen through typed (and occasionally spoken) journal entries. For the non-journal portions, Weir's writing is kind of whatever, but Watney's voice comes through these segments so perfectly that you may as well be reading someone's journal about how they almost died today and tomorrow this is how they're going to try and fix it. When Weir makes a bad joke, it's like Watney making a bad joke. When Weir needs an arbitrary complication in the plot, it's typically revealed by Watney's "Oh fuck I'm going to die."
The second thing would be the emphasis on cooperation. Watney is on his own for much of the book, but there are also lots of chapters that involve NASA working as hard as humanly possible to bring him back alive. It's clearly a bit optimistic (like the general public can pay attention to an issue for that long in reality) but there's a thread throughout the book that really hammers home that Watney can't survive without help from NASA, and the support for saving Watney is almost entirely borne by compassion. God knows how many people would be living happier lives during the rescue if they just let Watney die, but they don't. They work harder than ever to create even a marginally better chance that he can get back home. It's heartwarming at times.
But there are a lot of "eh" things about the book, too. Whenever Weir isn't writing Watney's logs, his writing is at least as boring as this review. There isn't a notable style, the pacing is pretty much constant, there's no evidence of anyone having a character other than "mildly disagreeable nerd," and the solutions rarely seem to have much effect on Watney's actions, which is pretty much the only thing to care about. While compassion and cooperation are clearly important themes in the book, most of the characters are ornery and flat enough that Weir apparently feels the need to spend the last two pages beating the idea like a dead horse instead of almost anything less annoying. Troubles never seem to last more than a chapter or two, and most of Watney's attempts to not-die succeed on the first try with plucky application of either duct tape or hacking stuff to shreds. It usually reads fine, but occasionally some seemingly difficult problem is resolved so easily that it's a bit of a bummer.
And while Watney's jokes are mostly amusing and most of the cringy ones come across as him being a loser, the bit about ninja-pirates was awful and took way the fuck too long to disappear.
On the whole, this was a great survival story with a bunch of not-great parts involving not-survival elements. Watney is a great character among a sea of non-characters, but does sort of turn out to be a Gary Stu most of the time.
Still better than the movie, at least.
Got to this one kinda late. Especially considering I worked at a space startup in 2015, where everyone raved about it. I saw the movie and enjoyed that so I figured I'd give the book a go on my recent flight. Turns out it's a really bad choice to read while flying. I started hoarding peanuts and listening for Hull breaches.
All told it was an interesting story that didn't manage to lose me with technical details. I will say that I agree with much of the criticism. The protagonists voice is as monotonously upbeat, as his earthbound counterparts are grumpy. It sucked the tension out of an impossibly tense situation. Still, I like the guy, and I think sometimes I read books to learn to think like another person. Mark Watney is as good a role model as I could want.
This is a solid sci-fi heist that relies on an old-fashioned what-if premise: What would happen if quantum computers existed, and how long would it take before someone figured out the criminal applications?
In this case, an enterprising engineer figures out how to defeat the random number generators at a casino and complications ensue. There isn’t a lot of plot to this story, since it’s mostly a thought experiment hung on a little bit of narrative, but the execution is well-done and I enjoyed reading it.
Randomize wasn’t amazing, but it was possibly my favorite from the Forward collection so far.
Really intriguing tech short story. Read it twice.
Great book. I've always loved "survival" stories like Hatchet and Into the Wild. This is an extreme survival story that takes place on Mars. What's not to love? Compared to the movie, I would say the book is about equal (that is to say, I love them both).
I don't think I've ever been more sad that I didn't pursue a career in science/engineering.
This is a wonderful adventure filled with risk and humor (sarcasm). The hero is inventive, creative and humble. Yes, the story is a bit geeky.... but it left me wanting more.
I had heard quite a lot about the movie and honestly, it didn't seem interesting to me. However, as soon as I had heard that it was based on a book, I started to look into it and thought that I would give it a shot.
I must say that when I usually read a book, I don't read more than 50–100 pages at a given time. This book however managed to get my attention which meant I was able to finish it within just a day. The main reason for this is, in my opinion, the main protagonist's personality which I thought really spoke to me. His style of writing is often-times very amusing which had me laugh a good couple of times whilst reading, yet he also manages to convey a tone of urgency and seriousness within all the humour. I also liked the detailed descriptions of the …
I had heard quite a lot about the movie and honestly, it didn't seem interesting to me. However, as soon as I had heard that it was based on a book, I started to look into it and thought that I would give it a shot.
I must say that when I usually read a book, I don't read more than 50–100 pages at a given time. This book however managed to get my attention which meant I was able to finish it within just a day. The main reason for this is, in my opinion, the main protagonist's personality which I thought really spoke to me. His style of writing is often-times very amusing which had me laugh a good couple of times whilst reading, yet he also manages to convey a tone of urgency and seriousness within all the humour. I also liked the detailed descriptions of the technology used on Mars and how he managed to fix it if it happened to break — which it turns out is more than just a handful of times!
However, despite all of this, I must say that the book also had its weak spots — mainly the parts that play on Earth. For those who haven't read the book, the book plays part on both Mars — focussing on the main protagonist — and on Earth — focussing on them trying to communicate with the main protagonist and rescuing him. While reading the parts that play on Earth I would frequently find myself getting rather bored and hoping that we would soon be talking about what is happening back on Mars again. My main problem with the Earth parts is the fact that I found all the characters, except for the main protagonist, rather dull and boring. This is probably the reason I didn't manage to finish this book in one session, as the parts that play on Earth increase in length and number near the middle of the book.
All in all however, I would say that this has been the best SciFi book I've read so far and I would definitely recommend fans of SciFi to read it!
I had heard quite a lot about the movie and honestly, it didn't seem interesting to me. However, as soon as I had heard that it was based on a book, I started to look into it and thought that I would give it a shot.
I must say that when I usually read a book, I don't read more than 50–100 pages at a given time. This book however managed to get my attention which meant I was able to finish it within just a day. The main reason for this is, in my opinion, the main protagonist's personality which I thought really spoke to me. His style of writing is often-times very amusing which had me laugh a good couple of times whilst reading, yet he also manages to convey a tone of urgency and seriousness within all the humour. I also liked the detailed descriptions of the …
I had heard quite a lot about the movie and honestly, it didn't seem interesting to me. However, as soon as I had heard that it was based on a book, I started to look into it and thought that I would give it a shot.
I must say that when I usually read a book, I don't read more than 50–100 pages at a given time. This book however managed to get my attention which meant I was able to finish it within just a day. The main reason for this is, in my opinion, the main protagonist's personality which I thought really spoke to me. His style of writing is often-times very amusing which had me laugh a good couple of times whilst reading, yet he also manages to convey a tone of urgency and seriousness within all the humour. I also liked the detailed descriptions of the technology used on Mars and how he managed to fix it if it happened to break — which it turns out is more than just a handful of times!
However, despite all of this, I must say that the book also had its weak spots — mainly the parts that play on Earth. For those who haven't read the book, the book plays part on both Mars — focussing on the main protagonist — and on Earth — focussing on them trying to communicate with the main protagonist and rescuing him. While reading the parts that play on Earth I would frequently find myself getting rather bored and hoping that we would soon be talking about what is happening back on Mars again. My main problem with the Earth parts is the fact that I found all the characters, except for the main protagonist, rather dull and boring. This is probably the reason I didn't manage to finish this book in one session, as the parts that play on Earth increase in length and number near the middle of the book.
All in all however, I would say that this has been the best SciFi book I've read so far and I would definitely recommend fans of SciFi to read it!
What a book. Action packed, and full of characterization. Granted, I didn't understand all of the Science aspects, but I did want to know what happened. I knew Mark wasn't going to die, else other readers wouldn't have reviewed the book as highly as they did.
