From the Bookshelf of Challenge: 50 Books…

The Martian

Andy Weir

Start date: June 1, 2015

Finish date: July 1, 2015

Discussion: Group Reads

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What Members Thought

Jan 03, 2016 Liz B rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, full-length, 2016-books-for-grownups, sciencefiction, 2017-already-owned-it

Update: Re-read December 2017.

Such a fun reading experience, and I can't wait to see the movie now. I love survival stories anyway, so survival in space is juuuuust fine. (Well, Robinson Crusoe was boring.)

Things I loved:
*Mark was a really charming character--I always like when a character's voice makes me laugh out loud, and his did. Frequently!

*The pacing--while there was plenty of suspense and what-will-happen-next, there was also plenty of thoughtful description & downtime, of thinking and p ...more

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Aug 01, 2014 Tiffany rated it did not like it

Shelves: goodreadsrecommendations, nancysruleof50

I try to follow what I call "Nancy's Rule of 50," Nancy Pearl's theory that life is too short to read a book you don't like, so if you're under the age of 50, you read 50 pages of a book before you decide if you don't like it (If you're over the age of 50, you subtract your age from 100, and that's how many pages you read before you decide.). With this book, though, I couldn't even make it that far. I think I was around page 20 when I started to skip large chunks of pages to see if it got any be ...more

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Dec 03, 2014 Michelle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-club-2

I freaking loved this.

I don't think I have to say too much else but I will. From page 6:

"I stumbled up the hill back toward the Hab. As I crested the rise, I saw something that made me very happy and something that made me very sad: The Hab was intact (yay!) and the MAV was gone (boo!)."

Okay, so our book is about Mark Watney, an astronaut who has been left for dead on Mars. And I was initially thinking, Oh geez, this will be depressing. So when I read that within the first few pages, I knew thi I freaking loved this.

I don't think I have to say too much else but I will. From page 6:

"I stumbled up the hill back toward the Hab. As I crested the rise, I saw something that made me very happy and something that made me very sad: The Hab was intact (yay!) and the MAV was gone (boo!)."

Okay, so our book is about Mark Watney, an astronaut who has been left for dead on Mars. And I was initially thinking, Oh geez, this will be depressing. So when I read that within the first few pages, I knew this book was for me. Because, one, I talk just like Mark (minus all the genius science), and two, there's going to be some humor to get us through this ordeal.

And oh boy is this an ordeal. Mark has to survive until the next mission to Mars and he does a lot of math and science to figure out how he's going to do just that. He doesn't get overly complicated but he does explain just enough that you feel both smarter for having gotten through the explanation and dumber because, wow, we're really not all NASA astronauts. Mark still manages to stay grounded and funny, though, like when we're going over all the things duct tape can accomplish (I will forever pack duct tape wherever I go). And it has to accomplish a lot. A lot of problems arise throughout the book (as you'd expect, but some of the problems are not what you'd immediately think of), so it's amazing to see Mark's quick thinking and ingenuity constantly coming through. Some solutions are simple! When he made a ramp, I really said out loud, "Whoo! Simple machines, too!" Throughout, I kept happily sighing, "SCIENCE."

When everybody pulls together to save Mark? Ugh, I would get chills sometimes or shout "Whoo-hoo!" in my head (apparently I was very excited and expressive while reading this). Love this:
"Teddy swiveled in his chair and looked out the window to the sky beyond. Night was edging in. '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 right now?'
LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They're mammals! Makes no sense."

The whole book's like that.
"NASA, however, is absolutely shitting itself. They see the water reclaimer as a critical survival element. There's no backup and they think I'll die instantly without it. To them, equipment failure is terrifying. To me, it's 'Tuesday.'"

I was very glad that our author Andy Weir chimed in at the end to tell us about writing the novel because I wondered many, many times, How much of this is real? Can actually happen? What was the research like for this book? Etc.

So read it! It makes science and NASA so exciting, even if that sort of thing isn't normally exciting for you. Problem solving! Life or death! Workarounds! Teamwork! ...more

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May 28, 2016 Kristen rated it really liked it

This took me a while to really get into. It's good, I think I just wasn't in the mood for it at first and the bits where Mark is just explaining how he solved various problems were a little dry for me. But! It's good and the plot is plausible and I really appreciate how much effort Weir put into getting it right. Very solid science fiction! ...more

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May 04, 2014 Ryan Mac rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, alexander

Fantastic book about an astronaut stranded on Mars after his fellow astronauts thought he was dead and left the planet and how he works to survive. Clever, funny and full of great characters from the astronaut Mark to the people at NASA trying to help him. The audiobook reader was excellent.

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