A Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

46 years ago mankind set foot on the moon. Where is the next stop? The answer seems to be Mars.

Mars resides at an average distance of 225,3 million km away from our earth. For centuries, Mars captured the human imagination with its dramatic red color, inspiring more science fictions than any other planet in our solar system. Outside fictions, Mars draws enormous interests from the scientific community. Scientists eagerly anticipate the potential knowledge that could be unveiled from exploring Mars. Knowledge that may shed light into our own existence in the universe. Meanwhile, Mars is also the major candidate for interplanetary colonization. This is because Mars is arguably the most habitable planet in our solar system after Earth. The space program focuses heavily on Mars, where NASA is planning to send humans to Mars in 2030s. So 2 decades from now, mankind will likely set foot on Mars. The technology already exists to get people there, and going to Mars is no longer the stuff of fictions. What an exciting era we are living in!

But the environment on Mars' surface is hostile to humans (due to a lack of atmosphere and low temperature rather than green Martians). This means, a mission to Mars involving astronauts comes with high risks, and must be meticulously planned and executed with fine precision. Any incident or miscalculation during such a mission can create life-threatening dangers for the astronauts. In fact, take a moment and imagine this disastrous scenario: You belong to a team of astronauts who landed on Mars. Then a terrible accident struck. Your are left alone, stranded on Mars with limited supplies. The communication facilities are broken. Everyone thinks you are dead. How will you survive on Mars and seek rescue?

The above scenario is the premise for The Martian, a critically acclaimed, sci-fi thriller written by Andy Weir and published in 2011. A movie adaption of this novel, directed by Ridley Scott, is on its way to the cinema in October this year. I read this novel during a weekend and absolutely loved it! The movie adaptation could be good, but I highly recommend this book even if you are planning to see the movie. In this book review, I wish to provide a short, no-spoiler overview for this novel, then explain why I recommend this book.

Synopsis:

Astronaut Mark Watney is one of the first humans to walk on Mars. But will he become the first human to die on Mars?

Why do you mean Mark could die on Mars? Ok, this is what happened.

Six day ago Mark and his crew landed on Mars. The code name for their mission: Ares 3. They were about to write a new page in history, when a fierce desert storm assaulted their camp, forcing them to abort the mission and evacuate. During the evacuation, an accident nearly killed Mark, knocking him unconscious and separated him from the rest of the crew. Mark's teammates thought he was dead. With a heavy heart, his team evacuated from the surface of Mars and returned to their spaceship.

When Mark regained consciousness, he found himself lying alone in the sea of pebbles on Mars. He is stranded on the red planet with limited supplies. As if his ordeal is not disastrous enough already, the storm also destroyed the communication devices, eliminating any chance to contact his crew and NASA.

So here is Mark's dilemma; even if he can somehow send signals to NASA, he will still run out of supplies and starve to death before they can rescue him. Furthermore, time and supply are not the only enemies threatening to kill Mark. In Mars' hostile environment, a single wrong move means a quick death. Yet, Mark Watney is not about to lie down and die. Padded in his space suit, and armed with his quirky humor, Mark steadfastly engaged waves after waves of obstacles, initiating “project Mark Watney survives”. The first ever “made on Mars” project in history. In this project about survival, Mark will tax every revenue of his scientific knowledge and engineering skills, and subject his iron determination to the harshest trials. If Mark fails, then he will gown down in history as the fist permanent resident on Mars... in death.

My thoughts on this book:

I absolutely loved The Martian! In the process of writing this review I did some research about this book on the internet. I discovered the fascinating background story that gave birth to this novel. The Martian's author Andy Weir, is a computer programmer by trade. He is also a huge space nerd. According to an interview, Andy revealed before The Martian took the shape of a novel, it was originally an idea that he came up with for a mission plan to Mars. He designed this plan based on existing technologies. When Andy began to work on the disaster scenarios for his mission plan, then it evolved into a story, which Andy molded into a novel by creating a fictional character called Mark Watney.

This means, while The Martian is identified as science fictions, but every scientific fact mentioned in this book is legitimate, and almost all technologies mentioned in this book are either in existence or can be made (including the ion engine). In other words, The Martian is a believable, scientifically accurate “sci-fi” novel, grounded in real science and existing technology. Does this mean The Martian is a dry, academic novel? Nope, not at all. In fact, this “realism” is integrated perfectly into the storytelling to create a captivating novel.

Speaking of the story, The Martian tells a very simple story, but it is a gripping story that will move you emotionally while keeping you at the edge of your seat. The book is divided into two narrating arches. The first arch follows Mark Watney's endeavors to survive on Mars, and it is presented in the form of log entries. From these log entries, readers come to know Mark's character, who is a very positive guy packed with an abundance of good humors. Some of his log entries are so funny that I could not help but laugh heartily until my stomach began to ache. Mark is a very likable protagonist. When I was reading this book, after I read the first 5 pages, I already liked Mark and wished he could survive his ordeal.

Mark also narrated his thought processes, and how he formulated solutions to tackle the insurmountable obstacles facing him on Mars. These narrations are very technical. I was fascinated by the science and technology in Mark's narrations (probably because I have a perceptual interest in these things). However, I have heard some readers were overwhelmed by the technical descriptions. I do not think the appreciation for this novel is hinged on understanding the technical stuff mentioned in the book. Instead, I think the technical stuff serves as a part of the characterization, where Mark is portrayed as an individual possessing excellent problem-solving skills, and he is highly capable of critical, and rational thoughts. These qualities are a part of him and played roles in the storytelling. In other words, have you seen the TV series, MacGyver? If so, then reading how Mark Watney solved problems to survive on Mars, is like watching MacGyver perform feats of engineering ingenuity to combat the bad guys. Yet, Mark is not flawless. In this book, he made human errors that can kill him. This made Mark a very believable character, and readers can really feel the sense of danger for Mark as he tried to survive on Mars.

The second story arch follows the NASA workers, Mark's teammates (and the rest of the world, so to speak) who tried to rescue him. I really liked this part of the story, because every character has an egalitarian quality about them. They set aside their petty differences, and worked together to save Mark at personal costs and sacrifices. After I read the book, I realized the book never provided enough descriptions to help me visualize the physical appearances of these characters. Yet, their characters stood out so vividly in my mind and I felt like I knew them. This is another aspect I love about The Martian, the book does not overly describe the details, but the characterization is so impressionable that I felt I knew every character and their personalities.

The second story arch is also tied to the main theme in The Martians. That is, human beings have this basic instinct to help each other out. This instinct transcends our differences like gender, age, culture or nationality (Actually, as a side note, we can also observe this instinct in animals from experiments). Yeh sure, there are some jerks out there who don't give a crap, and sometimes the world looks like a cold place where no one cares. But when we walk down the street and see people lining up to donate blood at Red Cross, or when we turn on the TV and see people organizing rescue teams to help victims struck by natural disasters, then a realization dawned on us that as long as there is human compassion, then we are not really alone or isolated in this universe, even if we are millions of kilometers away from Earth on Mars.

I am not going to reveal if Mark Watney survived or died at the end of the book. I think you should read the book to find out. The Martian is the best stand-alone novel I've read in years. If you are going to read one fictional novel this year, then I recommend The Martian. If you are planning to see the Ridley Scott movie in October, then I still recommend reading The Martian before watching the movie. The bottom line is, The Martian is a fine novel and it is worth taking out a few hours of your time reading it.

P.S. People often say you should not judge a book by its cover. In the case of The Martian, this novel has both excellent contents and a stunning cover. I don't usually talk about book covers in my reviews, but I really like the book cover for The Martian. The cover arts is simple, but beautiful and striking. It totally captured the essence, and the atmosphere of the story.

Until the next time, happy reading!