A gripping book with a sympathetic hero. Even with a couple of quibbles, The Martian deserves 5/5 stars.
The Martian has been described as “Robinson Crusoe in space”. However, we quickly realise that Mark Watney – the astronaut marooned on Mars – makes Defoe’s hero look like a pampered, snivelling amateur.
This book does so many things seamlessly:
- It makes you believe in and care about the hero within 2 pages, enough so you worry about him and can’t bring yourself to put the book down until you know his latest survivalist science stunt isn’t going to kill him.
- It juggles action on Mars, Earth and the Hermes (the craft the rest of Watney’s crew mates are using to get back to Earth), often using different timelines, but all in a way that creates a clear, easy-to-follow narrative.
- The pace is break-neck. We are dropped straight into Watney’s predicament on page 1 and the narrative pressure rarely lets up.
- It’s surprisingly funny. There’s some great dark humour which provides welcome comic relief.
If I had to nitpick, I’d say that in a couple of places I could have done with less of the highly-technical scientific explanations. I found myself skimming down the page to find out what I really wanted to know: would Watney’s current experiment kill him or not?
But that’s just me being difficult. Overall, The Martian is a tremendous accomplishment and a book I would recommend to everyone (and particularly anyone, like me, who likes sci-fi and wanted to be an astronaut).
P.S. If they screw up the movie of this, heads should roll. I hope it will be Apollo 13, only with more dark comedy and potentially lethal hard science. Here’s the trailer if you haven’t already seen it (WARNING: BIG SPOILERS. If you’d like to read the book before seeing the film, don’t watch this!).
Now I’m curious to read page one…
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It’s very good. Can’t beat the old “Oh dear, I seem to have got stranded on Mars with no way to communicate with anyone else and I’m going to die soon if I can’t figure out how to extend my food and other supplies” routine.
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I felt exactly the same about this book as you did. Loved it, but could have done with a bit less of the scientific descriptions in places!
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At the beginning I didn’t mind so much, but by the middle I think I’d hit my “detailed science I don’t really understand” quota 🙂
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Great review! I’ve been thinking about reading this but I’ve heard mixed reviews. I definitely need to see the writing now that you’ve talked about how well it switches up the timeline.
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Thank you!
It’s impressive because it’s made to look so simple 🙂
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Like you, loved this book and was astounded by how he made all the science so understandable, even to me. I have raved about it to everyone and said read it first before you watch the movie. In fact I think the movie and Matt Damon captured the humour and the feel of the book really well…not an easy thing to do.
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I completely agree! The movie was also excellent, but quite a different creature (particularly with the changes to the end and missing out most of the final journey down into the crater). I can never recommend the book highly enough! 🙂
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Really agree that we root for Mark Watney in this and I’m so glad you were gripped! Awesome review!
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Thank you! It’s still one of the best books I’ve read over the past few years. I’m glad the film version was good (although not as good as the book!).
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