The Martian

by Andy Weir

Paperback

English language

Published April 2, 2014 by Del Rey.

ISBN:: 978-0-09-195614-1
OCLC Number:: 927949376

View on OpenLibrary

(8 reviews)

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

33 editions

elizabeth@books.superawesomecorp.space reviewed The Martian by Andy Weir (The Martian, #1)

No time for feelings; gotta survive

4 stars

Content warning Minor spoilers about character-building

The Martian still rocks. It has everything that I love in those YouTube video where they walk you through their process of making a cool new machine (youtube.com/watch?v=vsTTXYxydOE&feature=share).

A few times throughout the book, Mark’s plans went out the airlock and he expresses his frustration and hopelessness to the log. Then in the next log, he’s back to working the problem. He decides to survive “off camera” and I think that we missed an essential part of his character.

frosch reviewed Der Marsianer by Andy Weir

Spannend bis zum Ende

5 stars

Obwohl ich den Film schon kannte und wusste was passiert war das Hörbuch doch bin zum Ende spannend und fesselnd.

Trammell Hudson reviewed The Martian by Andy Weir (The Martian, #1)

Read entire book in one sitting

5 stars

I started this book on the subway home from work, continued reading over dinner, and finished it that night in bed. It's griping, the science is solid, and it's about as close to "hard sci-fi" as you can get. The movie is also quite enjoyable.

finktank reviewed The Martian by Andy Weir

Fun read.

4 stars

And probably at least semi realistic? Didn't like it as much as Project Hail Mary by the same author. This sorta read as a sequence of "oh crap, another thing went wrong" problems, followed by solutions. I'm certain this is realistic - or even still overly optimistic, given what they were surviving through - but kinda made for an overly long, repetitive narrative. I suspect this is part of why they cut some of these out of the movie (and to save time, but also it got repetitive). Nevertheless, a fun read if you enjoy sci-fi that sticks close to contemporary science.