Author: Andy Weir
Publisher: Self/Crown Publishing, 2011/2014, 369 pages
There’s a chance you’ve seen the movie The Martian starring Matt Damon and might think, “Why would I read the book if I already saw the movie?” In most cases, you would read the book after the movie to get more information from the source because they always leave out details from the books for the movie adaptations. This is true for The Martian as the book covers all the science and engineering of what happens. But don’t let that dissuade you from reading this anyway.
The book’s actual first sentence is “I’m pretty much f@!%ed.” That ought to grab your attention and let you know you’re in for an adventure.
Botanist and engineer Mark Watney is one of a crew of six sent to Mars in the not-too-distant future on a series of missions of exploration for NASA. So far, everything has been going smoothly on their 30-day mission. They’ve gotten their living quarters built, set up all the solar panels and have power, and have many scientific tests well underway. That’s the fun part.
Just a few days into their mission, they get hit by a massive storm that forces them to abandon Mars. Watney is struck by debris and, thought dead, left behind on Mars. Watney awakens and is faced with the fact that he is the only person in existence on an entire planet not designed to be inhabited by human life. And he doesn’t have enough food supplies to live long enough for the next NASA mission that is four years away. To make matters worse, he’s living with technology not built to last more than 60 days. So, Watney needs to rely on his intelligence and training if he’s going to survive long enough for a rescue mission to reach him.
This story, at its core, is about how nasty Mars really is. It looks like a desert, which brings to your mind a wasteland of heat and hot, gusting winds. Mars is actually a mostly frozen desert with almost no atmosphere and a gravity of about 38% of that of Earth’s due to its mass density. Did I mention cold? Temperatures range from -226 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Did I mention almost no atmosphere? Mars has an atmospheric pressure of .6% compared to Earth and is made 95% of carbon dioxide. It’s basically a freezing vacuum, so you have to wear a pressure suit at all times. In addition to all of that, you need more solar cells because Mars’ distance to the sun is much greater, which makes its effect much less.
Did you enjoy that little bit of learning? If so, then you’re in for a real treat as Mark Watney embarks on a page-turning tale of scientific exposition rarely seen outside of a college astrophysics or engineering class. It’s not all bad. Author Andy Weir does such a good job of writing that you won’t realize you’ve learned until after the fact. All the detailed explanation is key to the story because science is both for and against Watney if he’s to survive.
There are times when I got tired of the explanation of how to break down the components of water (H2O) to separate the hydrogen and collect it into a container that is needed to create the fuel for the engines. But those moments are infrequent and don’t drag the story’s momentum down too much. There’s plenty of humor to keep it from getting too dull as well.
You’ll be rooting for Watney as he struggles to overcome every possible setback imaginable.
