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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