The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have a man crush on Mark Watney. There, I said it. If you think this makes my review biased, move on sir, move on.
Still here? Good. Let me tell you about my mate Mark. He is the nerd’s nerd. Not content with just being a kick-ass engineer / astronaut, he can farm, he can drive, heck he can even sew.. on Mars! He possesses a testicular fortitude and self belief not often seen in these post modern, post apocalyptic morass that calls itself modern science fiction. What a dude!
I won’t lie to you, I was dubious about this book. After much prevarication, I finally booked a ticket to Mars on the enthusiastic recommendation of a normally rather taciturn colleague.
So what is The Martian all about? Its about an astronaut stuck on Mars after a NASA mission goes horribly wrong. We follow Mark Watney as he figures out how to survive on a desolate, inhabitable and bleak planet. Most of the book is written as a series of log entries and monologues from Mark as he rolls with the punches Mars throws at him and comes up with ingenious solutions to problems that would have stumped us mere mortals. He manages all of this while listening to disco – yes, disco. Mark has it rough.
There is a lot of science and a lot of engineering in this book. We get long passages on how to extract water from rocket fuel, how to grow potatoes in space and even how to build a crude sextant to navigate on a planet that does not have a magnetic field. The book could have been tremendously boring but the main character is likeable and the writing in places is wonderfully, crudely funny.
There are passages that are set on Earth and in space that provide a bit of context around the plot. Honestly, I skimmed through some of these chapters to get back to the action on Mars.
So yes, I am a fan of The Martian. Yet, it only gets 4 / 5 stars. Why? Well, you never get a real sense of danger for Mark. Yes, the situations are difficult and bad things happen. Yet, you just know that Mark will survive. This drains some of the suspense out of the book. But hey, its a minor quibble!
If you are a fan of science fiction, you will enjoy The Martian. If you are a space nerd and you Buzz Aldrin is your hero, you will love it. If you still happily watch re-runs of McGuyver, go and buy this book now!