The Martian is a wonderful combination of realism, science, hard facts and most of all, real people. The Ares 4 mission had to bug out in a hurry ahead of a sandstorm and thinking crew member Mark Watney was dead, left him behind. Mark is alive and now stranded – alone – on an inhospitable rock in a habitat meant to last a month, with very little food, no method to contact Earth and facing near certain death since his only chance to catch a ride back home is 4 years away.
Author Andy Weir doesn’t sugar coat the situation: Being on Mars is dangerous and being alone on Mars is very dangerous. Mark will most likely die, whether from starvation, oxygen depletion, CO2 overload, freezing or pure chance.
The best two parts of the novel were the people back on Earth and Mark’s resilience and creative methods to win through. In the end, the book is about people. The science is realistic and it adds to the interest; the constraints are deadly and keep us turning the pages, but it is the people that make it memorable.
5 Stars
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