This book has EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. But it has everything I wanted. It had a survival story. It had a few nerdy references. It had humor. It had suspense. It had ingenuity. It was extremely well-written, and it captures you within a few chapters. Mark, the main character, is a very likable character, and the fact that he's extremely smart and resourceful doesn't hurt either. It's not that being a likable character should affect the story or my opinion about it, but you have to root for the character to survive. A fun survival story with an annoying character would not have had nearly the same effect.
I am coming at this book with a Communications & Journalism degree, so the math could have been seriously wrong and I wouldn't have noticed. However, based on people's reviews, it seems like that math/science is correct (for the most part), so that's great. And there is A LOT of science in this book. The story is about an astronaut using science and math to stay alive on Mars with limited resources, so you have to expect some scientific explanations or quick math equations.
At first, there was a slight patronizing tone, for example: "The solar cell array was covered in sand, rendering it useless (hint: solar cells need sunlight to make electricity)." The fact that the book assumed I didn't know solar cells created energy made me angry, but it could've been a sarcastic comment. It was also one of the very few cases of it that I found. Other times, when he mentioned a previous detail, it was a complex and scientific aspect that I would have forgotten.
Did I mention the humor? This book was so funny! The snarky remarks, the silly comments, the self-deprecating humor... it made this book. Well, sort of. The suspense and storyline are also extremely well-done, but we'll get to that. I read a review on Goodreads that some people agreed with, and it was along the lines of how they found the comments dumb and not funny. They also made a reference to a comment Mark made, something about a rover getting a Scooby Snack. I kept my eyes peeled the entire book for that reference, and I though the reviewer was a liar until I found it with 50 pages left in the book. Sheesh.
I didn't find that comment to be annoying or dumb. I found Mark's humor to be sarcastic and self-deprecating, two of my favorite types (besides puns or dry remarks). I have a sarcastic mechanical engineering friend whom I could see making these comments if he were in this situation, and reading those lines in his voice were hilarious. I don't think I can explain the humor, so I'll just leave a couple of the best here:
--"One thing I have in abundance here are bags. They're not much different from kitchen trash bags, though I'm sure they cost $50,000 because of NASA."
--"There are four different safety interlocks that prevent the regulator from letting the Hab's oxygen content get too low. But they're designed to work against technical faults, not deliberate sabotage (bwa ha ha!)"
--"'What must it be like?' he pondered. 'He's stuck out there. He thinks he's totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man's psychology?'
He turned back to Venkat. 'I wonder what he's thinking about right now.'
[next page] LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They're mammals! Makes no sense."
--"I used a sophisticated method to remove sections of plastic (hammer), then carefully removed the solid foam insulation (hammer again)."
I could continue, but I don't want to remove the surprise from ALL the jokes. Also, this is not a joke-a-minute book. There's a lot of other stuff in this book, but it has enough humor to lighten the tone, and endears you to this tenacious underdog. Without the humor, this book could become like The Road, a depressing slog about one's impending doom. Fear not, dear reader. This book is nothing like that.
The suspense in this book was incredible. Andy Weir has his pacing down. It's not like Gravity, where one really bad event leads to a more life-threatening event at a constant pace until you feel like the universe has a deliberate vendetta against Sandra Bullock. It's more random and sparse than that- just when things start looking good for Mark Watney, Mars throws him another curve ball. But he adjusts, and either he or NASA figures out a solution. Then another problem will arise. However, it's not a constant barrage of bad luck, more like a series of unfortunate events (I had to) spaced out at random intervals, with varying levels of danger and possibilities for fixing. And the situations seem rather plausible. I mean, I've never been to space, but I think I can accurately judge the plausibility of Mars situations...
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| Gravity and The Martian have nothing in common. Except for space. And NASA. And Astronauts. And... |
My favorite book of 2014. I'm calling it. That is, unless I read some other spectacular, absorbing, fun and mind-blowing novel in the next 5 months.
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