The Martian Paperback – October 28, 2014

I'm a hard-science science fiction fan and would rather read hard sc-fi than almost anything. I love stories and movies about Mars, and I'm a fan of survival, castaway, and man-against-the elements stories. I loved Robinson Crusoe, so it should not surprise you that I loved the movie, Robinson Crusoe on Mars. I realize it's not Academy Award material, but to me, it's everything I want it to be, as was this book, The Martian.

The main character, Watney, presumed dead, is accidentally left by his crew mates when an intense Martian dust storm forces them to abort their mission. What follows for part of the book is a logbook style narrative that describes in great technical detail Watney's efforts to extend his life until the next scheduled mission arrives in 4 years. After reading just the first 20% of the book (my Kindle has no page numbers) one can't help but be impressed by the author's depth of knowledge in this regard. In fact, the entire book is an astronaut's primer on extraterrestrial and deep space survival and rescue.

The Martian isn't without its typos and editorial glitches, and I'm not sure if this was a result of a bad Kindle conversion or just a shortsighted editor. For me, though, typos and editing issues paled in comparison to the snowballing storyline, which I gladly admit is not for everyone.

This is not a touchy-feely book about love, romance or relationships. There is no overpowering angle between characters. No good guys in white hats and bad guys in black hats. There's no room for cliches. It's all very business like and scientific. So, if you're looking for Twilight in Space. Or Fifty Shades of Mars. Or Tom Hanks making himself a friend by drawing a face on a soccer ball, you'll probably want to skip this one. This book is simply about the mission, and the cold reality of working hard to turn a wrong into a right.

Another thing you won't find in this book is a lot of heartfelt reminiscing or reflection. There are no flashbacks of our main character fishing with Dad at the old water hole, or him riding his first bicycle without training wheels. This is a book about a guy with a keen intellect surviving on a hostile planet and doing so by making the most out of a given set of resources.

About a third of the way through the book, the author adds third person narratives from mission control and the Hermes space craft, the latter manned by the crew that left our hero behind -- and make no mistake, hero is the operative word. Again, we don't follow our mission control cast of characters back too their respective homes and meet their wives and husbands and get served up cliche insights into their innermost thoughts. Blech! I hate those stories! Which doesn't mean these characters are cookie cutter or superficial. On the contrary, I found the characters sufficiently individuated and interesting.

I highly recommend this book to people who are into reading hard sci-fi of the not-too-distant future, sci-fi without blasters and ray guns or 9' tall aliens that bleed acid. (Btw, I like those stories, too, but good ones are hard to find.)

Somebody did their homework on this one -- and that's what stands out above all else.

Mark Watney is the botanist/engineer on a 6-person crew to Mars. On the 6th day of their mission, a high-winds storm sends the crew back to the MAV (Mars Ascent Vehicle - be prepared for LOADS of acronyms, it's NASA/government after all!). Unfortunately, Watney was blown away from the crew and appeared dead. Fortunately, Watney is NOT dead - he's just trying to survive all alone in on Mars until NASA can figure out how to send a rescue mission.

It's been a few years at this point since EVERYONE was telling me I needed to read this immediately. I'm a bit of a rebel to be honest - when everyone is saying, "Read this!" I tend to be just that little resistant to reading it. There's the hype machine, there's the fact that just because you liked it doesn't mean I will - and I'm a bit of a rebel. I hate being told what to do.

I ended up seeing the movie before reading the book (light me up at the stake now for heresy!), which I thought was enjoyable, but dumb in places (namely the so-called "Iron Man" moment).

But the book is always better than the movie - so what did I think of the book? Well, people, I think it was dumb in places but enjoyable, so basically I liked it probably as much if not maybe a wee bit more than the movie.

Now, I need to start off first: this could be quite boring and tedious for some people because nearly the entire book is problem solving. Problem happens -> People need to figure out how to overcome it. Insert lots of techy-science that even I as a mechanical engineer by training have forgotten from ye olde college days.

If you can get past that part of the book (and it's most of it), then I think you'll enjoy it. You'll enjoy seeing what problems occur, many that you might never have thought of being cushy and Earthbound, what solutions Watney and company come up with and how they work or don't.

If you are coming here for character development or some deep thematic exploration as to what it means to be human or Martian - I'm sorry, you're going to have to look elsewhere. Weir, you wrote a fun book, but deep character moments this book is not made of. Watney is most interesting just because of his easy-going logs (even then some of his more childish jokes or comments about how attractive women couldn't ever possibly be nerds are eye-roll inducing). The other characters are stiff forms of cardboard - from Venkat Kapoor to Annie to Mindy to Bruce to Mitch to Teddy to the remainder of Watney's crew. All these people kept me, the reader, at a distance. I felt zero connection to these random names.

Not to mention, once again, the novel is very sausage-laden. I am more aware than most about the dearth of women in engineering - I work with 99% men on a daily basis - but this book is obviously in the near future. Would it have been so hard to make Teddy female - or maybe Mitch or Richard? Did the only women really have to be Lewis, Johanssen, Annie and Mindy? (And before everyone "helpfully" reminds me that Lewis is the commander of the mission - YES, this is a great thing, but why do we have to applaud people for recognizing that women make up 50% of the population? That's like saying - "You didn't murder anyone today! GOOD JOB!")

As for themes - well, again, this book is a "How do we solve this problem" book. Sometimes, in Watney's downtime, he'll contemplate being the sole person on Mars - and then he makes a ridiculous joke about being a pirate, as if he's a 15 year old boy. Cue headdesk. Sure, I get it, humor and being upbeat like this can keep a person from despairing and giving up - but lord have mercy, it wears thin on a person to read about it!

Other than the dryness of the characters, the most irritating part of this was the 3rd person sections. When I stumbled upon my first one, I was somewhat mad - how dare the author intrude on the intimate relation he had created between me, the reader, and Watney by including these mainly superfluous bits from Kapoor, Richard, and Lewis, that really contribute little to the plot. The story is Watney's - is there no other way we could have learned this besides a clunky 3rd person author intrusion?

But this all makes it sound like I read this kicking and screaming. I did not. I enjoyed myself greatly and found myself racing to the end - which I alternatively liked and HATED in its abrupt ending (damn you, Weir, couldn't have even brought Watney all the way back to Earth!).

2016 was an abysmal year for me in reading just for the sheer number of "meh" books I read. Even though I am giving "The Martian" "only" 4 stars, I am proud to have read this book and would even consider buying a physical copy to display on my bookshelves. Given my new goal is to shelve only books I am 100% happy to have read or to read, I think it's indicative that this book, warts and all, meant something to me and made me realize my love of reading.