Book #72 – The Martian by Andy Weir

Originally published in 2011, this book caught my notice when my younger sister listened to the audiobook about 2 years ago and told me “You have to read this someday”. Apparently, this was the sentiment of many a nerdy young engineer as it ended up in the Great American Read for most beloved novel. The story follows Mark Watney, trapped as he is on the Martian surface after a hasty evacuation of the rest of his crew. Some have critiqued the book, stating that it reads more like a nerd’s journal than an actual account of living on mars, to which I point out that Mark is supposed to be an engineer/botonist. He’s the very definition of a nerd. He’s not military, apparently, but rather an accomplished scientist that was selected for the mission. Which explains why his logs don’t read like Star Trek… unless they were written by Scotty.

There was also a movie made in 2015, starring Matt Damon as Mark, with other known names helping to boost the movie to a metascore of 80. Also, it should be noted, this is one of the few films were Sean Bean doesn’t die. (Seriously, Sean, you need to get a new agent.)

As far as characters go, you’d think that the book would primarily just be Mark. Thankfully, we are given reprieve from Mark’s constant planning to get snippets from the NASA executives and Mark’s crewmates. As well as a brief sideline in China. The characters are given plenty of personality, though I don’t really know what any of them look like, except that Johanssen is smaller in stature and rather pretty.  I can guess at some of the others, based on their surnames, such as Bruce Ng, who is likely Southeast Asian descent, and Venkat Kapoor, who is likely of Indian descent. (Granted, I could be totally wrong, but when you work for an international company with offshores sites in the Philippines and India, you see common surnames for both.) Still, I liked the characters how they were portrayed, and enjoyed being able to have a bit of freedom with their appearance.

Story wise, the book had its moments where the foreshadowing was very heavyhanded. If it ever went into a description of a part or mechanism, you knew it was going to fail, and fail hard. The writer liked to lead up to the failure with why it had happened. The only time that this omniscient third person ever comes into play and doesn’t lead to Mark having to deal with yet another problem is when he is described as repeatedly fist-pumping the air after a major success. Of course, given the good-natured humor of the book, it’s easy to assume the outcome. (My Kindle messed up and told me I have 58 minutes of read time left, and the book abruptly ended, so as much as I expected the outcome, I was left with unanswered questions.)

This is one of the few times where I used my Kindle’s highlight feature, but there’s at least a dozen quotes that I kept for later amusement. Mark’s humor was very similar to my own, which is probably why I enjoyed his log entries as much as I did. I would actually read passages aloud to Apryl, my equally nerdy friend, and we would enjoy Mark’s onesided banter. However, I must admit that his humor and speech patterns are not for everyone. There were several times when I had to look up an scientific term or explore further how he expected a certain feature to work. If you don’t enjoy an engineering/scientific approach to humor, this book may not be for you.

As for setting, I liked the description of the Martian landscape, and the various differences in the named regions. It’s very difficult to give description to a planet that we’ve only seen on rover footage and satellite photos. Still, given the information available, the author was able to put together a pretty convincing landscape. And while I unfortunately kept imagining the Arizona desert in my head instead of the Martian red sands, it’s probably a pretty similar design (minus the cacti and wildlife).

Overall, I loved The Martian. It’s humor and action were a good blend, and while I found it anticlimactic, I think I can blame that more on the Kindle than I can on the writer.

My life is now a desperate struggle for survival…with occasional titration. – Andy Weir

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