The Martian
The Martian By Andy Weir
Any book which starts with “I’m pretty much fucked,” I’m always going to enjoy, and I enjoyed The Martian a lot. From that opening line the book never loses its sense of humour despite some of the desperate and dire circumstances the lead character Mark Watney is put through. It’s a survival story, but also a book about hope and heart. A book about defying the odds, but not purely through luck. Instead, it takes hard work, discipline, and resilience, along with a little help from friends.
The Martian follows astronaut Mark Watney who through a series of unfortunate events ends up stranded on Mars, having to survive with extremely limit resources, until such a time he can be rescued. Unfortunately for him, that happens to be years away, if ever. He is on Mars after all.
Anyone who’s seen the movie will know what a charming, funny, and outright likeable character Mark is, and all of that is in the book. You instantly root for him. Want him to survive. Eat every Martian potato with him, and feel every frustration when something inevitably goes wrong. I’d go as far to say he’s one of the most likeable characters i’ve read in sci-fi, which is just as well as you spend most of the book with him.
Despite the mostly single location of the book––a HUB on Mars––Andy Weir can’t sit still with the writing, and I applaud him for that. Like a well shot bottle episode, he makes the most of the room at his disposal. A large chunk of the book is Mark’s diary entry, but within that we get voice, sound, and visual entries, which all look different on the page. We have transcript. Conversations. The stuff on Earth is written in a different prose. Everything is kept interesting throughout, and the pace of the book is fantastic, despite sometimes getting bogged down in maths––of which I have no intention of double checking.
Even the maths is cut short a lot of the time by Mark stating ‘long story short,’ or ‘trust me,’ like the author knows enough is enough and its time to move on.
I love Mark’s little warnings when he thinks he’s going to blow himself up, or his rebelliously acts when sometimes talking to Earth. His connection to the crew which accidentally left him behind is beautiful. As I mentioned in my film review of The Martian, the fact that everyone is so nice, kind, and just trying to do the right thing, is the strongest aspect of the story.
The thing I was most curious about having watched the movie was whether the ending within the book would be the same. I thought the film was a little bombastic and wondered whether that was just to make it more cinematic, but no, the book might even be a little crazier with the journey to the pod being more extreme. Loved it.
The Martian really is a charming book. It’s easy read and very straight forward to follow. The lead character isn’t interested in describing the Martian Landscape in some flowery way, he’d rather tell you about Maths and Potatoes, but somehow you’re always drawn in. You always want to know what he’s going to do next. And, more than anything, you want to give him a hug and have him rescued. It’s a lovely, well written book, which I definitely recommend.
