The Martian Review

In my family, we have a tradition. If you drop something, break something, fall down or otherwise injure yourself, but will be all right, you just call out, "I'm Okay!" That way everyone knows we don't need to rush over and run off to the hospital. The Martian by Andy Weir is a bit like that just about every chapter and it's great.

The Martian started as a self-published serial novel on Andy Weir's website, then a $0.99 e-book on Amazon and later was "discovered", published by Crown Publishing Group and optioned for a movie directed by Ridley Scott. The New York Times Bestselling book is the story of a manned mission to Mars, the third such mission in fact, and begins with our main character, Mark Watney, in mortal danger. Things just continue to be dire for Mark from there.

At its heart, this is a castaway story of survival. Mark, a botanist and mechanical engineer, has to find a way to survive everything Mars can dish out with limited supplies and only a sliver of hope of rescue. What is great about the book is the way Mr. Weir weaves solutions based on real-world science (most everything is plausible). Math is applied along with chemistry and plain old ingenuity. I really liked the feel of old-school space exploration with more modern references as well as a dash of 1970s nostalgia (which also fit well with the space exploration background - anyone of a certain age has the two pretty well intertwined in their brain).

I heard of this book through the Sword & Laser podcast, so I knew much of the story ahead of actually reading it. I also knew that a movie was in the works, starring Matt Damon, so I found myself visualizing how the story would translate to the screen (very well in my opinion). I am sure there will be parts of the story that will be cut to allow the movie to fit the time limits of film, therefore you should read the book before seeing the movie.

Pick up a copy of The Martian. The iTunes e-book version had a Q&A with the author, an essay about writing the book and questions for readers groups as extras. I can't recommend this book highly enough. It has reinforced the fact that though I read a lot (A LOT) of fantasy, books set in space are my favorite. The Martian gets 5 Mick Happies. Can't wait to see the movie now.