January 9, 2015

Book 3: The Martian

The Martian
Andy Weir

Sometimes you know from the first few words that you are going to enjoy the hell out of a book. Such was my experience with The Martian: it was, from the outset, a hilarious, emotional, and thrilling story built on legitimate science and a very human core. The premise- a lone astronaut is stranded on Mars- comes pre-loaded with numerous possibilities; Weir wisely opts for the realistic route, creating a well-paced near-future adventure that sacrifices neither its science nor its accessibility. Despite being heavily steeped in fields as diverse as chemistry (both organic and non-organic), orbital dynamics, and mechanical engineering, the book is easy to digest for readers whose last encounters with these subjects were in high school. Weir has pitch-perfect intuition for details, knowing what to include, what would become burdensome, and when (and how) to gloss over the specifics; it is nonetheless obvious how much care research, and work went into the book, and the author should be commended for resisting the urge to turn it into a dry treatise or, worse, a testament to his own brilliance. His ability and willingness to let his research inform the story without overwhelming it makes for one of the most enjoyable, appealing hard science fiction stories I have ever read, educational without being pedantic or condescending, plausible, and wholly enthralling throughout.

I suspect that a large part of the novel's appeal is due to the primary narrative voice. We learn about astronaut Mark Watney's plight mainly from his own log entries, written intermittently throughout his time on Mars. From the first three sentences, which are gloriously profane but hilariously accurate, Watney is an entertaining tour guide and a likeable smart-ass whose attitude and sense of humor will instantly lure readers like me to his side. It also didn't hurt that the narration consistently hitting the sweet spots of my personal sense of humor. From the outset, I couldn't get enough of the jokes and asides that, while possibly unnecessary to the plot, really make the novel come alive. From his wavering convictions about his prospects of survival to the increasing frequency of references to seventies television and music (for he is stranded with only his crewmates' USB drives for entertainment), Watney is surprisingly down to Earth; he constantly reminds readers that astronauts are, after all, people much like ourselves. Moreover, Weir is careful to have his protagonist relay his trains of thought; from the way that he works through various puzzles and dilemmas to the ways in which he reacts to- and learns from- both his successful ventures and his mistakes, the reader feels like a part of the action. Mark Watney is a protagonist that readers can see as a real person, a virtuoso example of the kind of character building through narration that is essential for a book that so often revolves solely around one guy.

The writing- and the book- does become a bit uneven in various (necessary) third-person passages that focus on NASA officials and the other astronauts from Watney's mission, but I suspect that much of the problem is due to the effectiveness of the main narration; anything in near proximity is likely to pale in comparison. Whenever the story broke away, I found myself eager to return to Mars, and while the supporting cast is essential and varied, no one is as vibrantly realistic as Watney himself. Weir does occasionally fall into the trap of having the secondary characters tell each other things that they no doubt already know, despite the effective tactics he deploys to avoid this during the book's first-person passages. These, however, are minor flaws that detract only slightly from a well-written and well-conceived book; any given diversion is far more likely to enhance the reader's understanding and the story's general air of suspense than it is to make for a burdensome reading experience.

Even if the supporting cast is a bit thinly drawn, they add crucial elements of tension and dramatic irony, alerting the reader to issues that elude the stranded Watney while he lacks radio contact with Earth. For all of its good humor and charm, The Martian is, at its heart, a race against time and the elements that, somewhat ironically, incorporates the long stretches of dead time that are inherent in space travel. Watney faces problems as urgent as his certain starvation knowing that his resources on hand could last as long as a year or more but also aware that any rescue mission is years away at the soonest. His most abundant, and in some ways most valuable, resource is time, and Weir's effective management of the story's many stretches of dead time is one of his most impressive accomplishments. Between Watney's log entries, which convincingly explain away any gaps, and the third-person shifts in focus, Weir creates a solid pace buoyed by his ability to make even the most tedious challenges of Martian survival compelling and by the vitality of Watney's narrative voice. The book feels balanced, allowing the reader to relax and panic in step with the stranded astronaut, a kind of relaxed thriller that consistently holds readers in its grasp.

I feel, despite the length of this post, that I still can't distill exactly what combination of premise, humor, and plot that made reading The Martian such a thoroughly enjoyable experience for me; at the end of the day, I suppose, some books are just damn good, and this is one of them. I strained the edges of my lunch hours trying to get just a few more pages in, knowing full well that I couldn't finish the book before I had to go back to work, and couldn't wait to see what challenges would smack Mark Watney right in the face- and how he would respond to them. The first and final pages have a nice symmetry about them, mixing humor and sentiment, and I came to enjoy the book's irreverence despite its deep respect for NASA and the astronauts who risk their lives to further humanity's knowledge of the universe's smallest and largest secrets. The Martian has everything that I want in a novel, and I highly recommend it as an exemplar of meaningful, intelligent, and just plain fun hard science fiction.


Grade: A

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