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 ...
if you like technical books this one is great. mysterious island mixed with Apollo 13 and Crusoe. one of the best I read recently.
Programmers should write more books.
How did this novel keep my attention the way it did? I don't know. In fact, I started this novel with some trepidation because I am not a math and science geek. This story is one tough problem solving task after another, and it's all over my head. And yet--Mark Watney, in his humor-spiked journal, kept me rapt. Perhaps it reminded me of Sherlock Holmes's deductions. Those are a bit easier to follow, but often contain a scientific element. I doubt Arthur Conan Doyle wrote as many deductions or solved as many problems in all his books combined as Andy Weir wrote for this one spare story!
I am so glad that I had not heard how this story ends before finishing it! Boy, was I on the edge of my seat....
Highly recommended!
Andy Weir got two things right in this book: 1) the importance of scientific and technical accuracy (or at least plausibility) to the plot; and 2) the well-managed suspense throughout the story.
The book is worth reading for those two reasons. I gave it a four-star rating with great hesitation, because beyond that, this is a pretty flat book.
It amazes me how it is possible for an author to strand a man alone on a distant, alien planet and be so completely uninterested in both the internal existential terror that this man ought to feel as well as the external appearance and environment of the desert-planet of Mars.
Instead, Mark Watney, the main character, is an annoying smart-ass with a sense of humour that tires you after the first few sentences.
Apart from a few token sentences towards the end, Watney has no real emotions, no fear. He has …
Andy Weir got two things right in this book: 1) the importance of scientific and technical accuracy (or at least plausibility) to the plot; and 2) the well-managed suspense throughout the story.
The book is worth reading for those two reasons. I gave it a four-star rating with great hesitation, because beyond that, this is a pretty flat book.
It amazes me how it is possible for an author to strand a man alone on a distant, alien planet and be so completely uninterested in both the internal existential terror that this man ought to feel as well as the external appearance and environment of the desert-planet of Mars.
Instead, Mark Watney, the main character, is an annoying smart-ass with a sense of humour that tires you after the first few sentences.
Apart from a few token sentences towards the end, Watney has no real emotions, no fear. He has the ironic, sarcastic detachment to his plight of an american sit-com character. The author may well have intended this (there is an aside from a psychologist of how Watney's psychological make-up and sense of humour is why he makes a great astronaut) but it feels like a waste of a great premise for human drama.
Mars, also, is a cardboard character. There are barely any descriptions of the terrain, of the sky, of the environment. Watney might as well be stranded in a vast parking lot. Again, a waste of a great premise.
In short, an enjoyable book - but not a particularly great one.
This is one of the best books I've read. The subject is fascinating, the characters are engaging - particularly Mark Watney. I had to regularly remind myself that this was not a retelling of actual events and that these people are fictional.
I won't lie, I did tend to zone out a touch during some of the longer scientific passages but they only made the story feel more real. I can only imagine the insane amount of research that went into this book.
In addition to the fantastic writing, the extremely engaging story, and the great character portrayals, the narrator did a stellar job of bringing it all together.
xkcd.com/1536/
My sort of thing.
NASA fanfic
It really is a shame that such a good concept is bogged down by some of the saddest dialogue that I've seen in some time from a bestseller.
Weir knows his science, but he sure as hell doesn't seem to understand how people interact. Every conversation in this book feels like a tea party between HAL models. Watney in particular seems to have a mentality that revolves between genius and fourteen year old redditor.
Maybe I'm just a big killjoy prude, but I feel like there is so much potential wasted here. Weir had a perfect opportunity to examine the consequences of Watney's isolation, and all of that is squandered for the sake of an absurdly happy-go-lucky attitude that never, ever lets up. It's great to have a plucky character, but Watney's insane optimism never gets tested. It never gets used as a character flaw, so he ends up being …
It really is a shame that such a good concept is bogged down by some of the saddest dialogue that I've seen in some time from a bestseller.
Weir knows his science, but he sure as hell doesn't seem to understand how people interact. Every conversation in this book feels like a tea party between HAL models. Watney in particular seems to have a mentality that revolves between genius and fourteen year old redditor.
Maybe I'm just a big killjoy prude, but I feel like there is so much potential wasted here. Weir had a perfect opportunity to examine the consequences of Watney's isolation, and all of that is squandered for the sake of an absurdly happy-go-lucky attitude that never, ever lets up. It's great to have a plucky character, but Watney's insane optimism never gets tested. It never gets used as a character flaw, so he ends up being uninteresting.
The science is cool, but it gets tiresome by the middle of the book. When that's the strongest element that the writing has to work with, it makes me feel like I'm reading a textbook instead of a novel.
Characters aren't very well developed; even the main character is rather one-dimensional. But the book is not really about the characters, so much as it is about science and problem-solving and creativity; and interpreted as a love letter to science and engineering, it's very moving.
There's a huge segment in the last third of the book which is entirely absent from the film, and it was perhaps the most thrilling part of the book. Worth reading just for that.
One of those very hard to put down suspenseful books that just keeps you engaged till the very end... and then you are so disappointed it ended that you have to go back and repeat the good bits in case you missed anything! Full of lots of science but not in an overwhelming way, and a really great and realistic scenario that remains gripping till the last word. Look forward to seeing the movie version now to compare!
Exposition was painfully clumsy, but even so this was a real treat. Primo geek porn, constant thrills with no cop-outs.
Good ol' action packed fun. Loved that it had all those calculations.
Un titre à faire bondir mon petit cœur ! La réputation de ce roman de Hard SF le précédant, je n’ai pas hésité à me jeter dessus, d’autant plus que la sortie du film était imminente, il me fallait ABSOLUMENT le livre AVANT. Je compte désormais les jours avant sa sortie. Il ne me sera pas possible, dans mon bled où les cinémas sont aussi rares que les librairies, de le voir en VO, mais le spectacle annoncé me semble valoir le sacrifice, quitte à le revoir plus tard.
Nous avons donc ici un roman classé Thriller, mais il s’agit bien de Hard SF, dans un contexte de survie extrême. Le personnage de Mark Watney se retrouve livré à lui-même sur Mars, avec pour seul abri l’Habitat prévu pour 31 jours. La mission suivante, Arès 4, étant prévue 4 ans plus tard, il va devoir prolonger la durée de vie …
Un titre à faire bondir mon petit cœur ! La réputation de ce roman de Hard SF le précédant, je n’ai pas hésité à me jeter dessus, d’autant plus que la sortie du film était imminente, il me fallait ABSOLUMENT le livre AVANT. Je compte désormais les jours avant sa sortie. Il ne me sera pas possible, dans mon bled où les cinémas sont aussi rares que les librairies, de le voir en VO, mais le spectacle annoncé me semble valoir le sacrifice, quitte à le revoir plus tard.
Nous avons donc ici un roman classé Thriller, mais il s’agit bien de Hard SF, dans un contexte de survie extrême. Le personnage de Mark Watney se retrouve livré à lui-même sur Mars, avec pour seul abri l’Habitat prévu pour 31 jours. La mission suivante, Arès 4, étant prévue 4 ans plus tard, il va devoir prolonger la durée de vie de l’Habitat et subvenir à ses besoins les plus basiques. Fabrication d’air, de nourriture, recyclages en tous genres.
[La suite sur mon blog, merci :)]
So much was done so well in this book. The narrative jumps keep you on your toes, the blended first person and third person narratives cover the story unfolding in multiple places. The pacing is amazing. I really couldn't put this book down. I loved it.
A good old-fashioned space adventure story of the sort you might have read as a kid. The technological details feel very realistic, and that's the strong point of the book: making a "shipwrecked on Mars" story seem plausible.
On the other hand, the characters are two-dimensional comic book figures, and the plot is just one can-he-get-out-of-this-fix after another. It's pretty fluffy stuff.
