Homer's Travels: Book: Andy Weir's "The Martian"

Monday, February 23, 2015

Book: Andy Weir's "The Martian"

For some reason I'd avoided putting Andy Weir's "The Martian" on my reading list.  I think it may have been because Mars is such a science fiction cliche.  (I know, cliche usually doesn't get in my way ...)  After it appeared in several end of 2014 top ten science fiction/nerd book lists I decide to give it a chance.  I'm really glad I did.  I loved this book.

The novel follows an astronaut stranded on the surface of Mars after a sandstorm forces the rest of the crew, thinking their companion to be dead, to evacuate.  The book starts as a transcript of the stranded astronaut's logs.  They are written was an informal, often humorous, often technical manner that I really liked.  The situation he is in seems plausible and well thought out.

I liked the log entry style so much that when the book shifted away from the logs to a narrative of what was happening back on Earth with NASA and JPL, I felt a little bummed.  The rest of the book alternates between narrative and log entries.  The log entries are by far the best writing of the book.

The book has a definite action movie feel to it and I have no doubt a movie is in the works.  If it isn't, it should be.  This action movie feel is also my one minor criticism of the book.  It feels like the author went to great efforts to make it a plausible, scientifically, accurate story but the travails this poor stranded guy goes through, in reality, would not have been survivable.

I gave "The Martian" my first 2015 five star rating on Goodreads.  Well worth the read.

UPDATE:  Turns out there is a movie coming out on November 25, 2015.

2 comments:

  1. Do you have the book or did you get it from the library....sounds like something I would like to read....mom

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    1. Mom, I got the eBook from the library. They may have a non-electronic version as well I would think.

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