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?
Source: …
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 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.
brilliant! this one was an audio book so I am aware my perception is skewed by the narrator but Weir's artwork is just splendid; I love the movie but for some reason they have decided to film all the wrong things, it could be some much more; I won't spoil here but it is a very thrilling story with lots of 'mechanics' described (for the lack of a better word). It tries to depict everything through the system thinking approach while simulating one engineer's thinking; I will be looking for something similar, it reads like a project management guide, not lying here XD
Абсолютно платоновский Уэйр: набор совершенно уже не экзотичных околонаучных фактоидов завёрнут в настолько тонкую сценарную обёртку, что всю требуху и кости видно с первого взгляда.
Представляет исключительно исследовательский интерес.
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.
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.
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).