Written by Laird Allen
“The Martian,” by Andy Weir
Broadway Books, 2014, 387 pages.
This review contains minimal spoilers.
“The Martian,” by Andy Weir, is a triumphant science fiction adventure novel about an interplanetary Robinson Crusoe (in this case, astronaut Mark Watney) who survives a terrible disaster, only to wake up alone on Mars with his crew speeding home and some four years until the next mission arrives on the red planet. He has enough food, water, and oxygen for considerably less than a year.
The book tells you what he does about it.
It’s difficult to explain what this book is without betraying the thrilling tension of the story. Suffice it to say that Andrew Weir has accomplished something that is rare indeed in the world of hard science fiction. He has taken known technology, hard-won speculation, and accepted scientific fact, then done obviously considerable calculation. Then he novelized the work he did—and it works.
What’s amazing about this is that the book is compellingly—almost viscerally—readable. Most of it is in the style of a journal kept by the marooned Watney to keep his spirits up. He explains, through simple calculations and dimensional analysis, how he’s going to turn sterile Martian dust and recycled water into a way to survive in the freeze-dried hell of the Martian surface. He describes structural modifications to Mars rovers and launch vehicles with loving detail and fervent hope. There are long, knuckle-whitening passages about transfer orbits, and the terror of living—even existing—on a world that is utterly inimical to life.
The emotional heart of the story is the irrepressible Watney, never failing to be the star of his own book. The diary entries describe his continuing thought process, his breakthroughs, and his failures. “The Martian” sets the mind racing on behalf of our marooned hero, striving to keep up with his intelligence and predict the outcome of his plans. Within the first dozen pages, Weir skillfully draws in the audience by laying out the difficulties facing Watney and the seemingly insurmountable odds. The reader is compelled to keep reading by the sheer unlikelihood of survival, and the Watney’s likeability makes you want to keep on reading.
What “The Martian” really brings to the table, besides some disarmingly well-presented math, is a sense of bounding optimism. Watney is, as he freely admits, in just about the worst position a human being can possibly be in at the start of the book, but he never gives up for more than a moment. He fights tooth-and-nail for every advantage, takes no unnecessary risks, and shows laudable common sense for a sci-fi hero. He’s competent and funny, and although the book presents his humor as a way to keep himself sane, to the reader it’s emotional decompression for the nail-biting tension of survival—and that tension stays with you, expertly managed, for the whole book.
There are flaws, of course. Sometimes, Watney’s insouciance can be a bit exasperating. Occasionally, the author’s zeal for calculation overshadows narrative flow, and there are one or two coincidences that are frustrating in their improbability. The relentlessly cheerful position the book takes on human nature is mostly uplifting, but in one or two places, Weir overplays his hand. Further, the book’s steadfast non-engagement with political or personal drama is both a strength and a weakness. The aforementioned optimism wallpapers over where other authors would have seen a chance for drama. But that’s not the story Weir wants to tell. He has calculations, narratives, and physics to show you, and human drama can wait. It can be frustrating to people used to more emotional fare.
Most of these criticisms are quibbles. The core of the book is a soaring good time, riding on wings of science and tension. It’s inspirational to see a character who is at the whim of fate striving to find a solution, using his intelligence and the resources at hand to cobble together a survival strategy in a howling wasteland. This book would make excellent reading for anyone who’s ever struggled with physics. Fans of “Kerbal Space Program” and anyone who’s ever watched a shuttle launch will find this book irresistible.
And as near-future hard science fiction goes, “The Martian” is a worldbeater. Being adapted for the screen right now by the acclaimed director Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, the book has found an utterly deserved success. Read it now before someone spoils the ending for you.
“The Martian,” by Andy Weir, is available on Amazon from $5.99 (for Kindle) and up, and there is an Audible version for $26.95. It’s suitable for science fiction fans of all ages and anyone who loves seeing smart people at work.
