The Martian by Andy Weir

This book is amazing! There is so much I feel like I want to talk about, but I figure I should just give it to you straight. Why did I love The Martian? Because it did what great SicFi books do, it combined that little bit of reality in science with fiction to create a blockbuster story. I could see Mark (the main character that is stuck on Mars) as a real person, this is how the people in my life actually talk, and I loved the interaction between him and NASA and his fellow characters. I’ll even give you an example, when Mark is emailing one of his fellow astronauts he says: Frankly, I suspect you’re a super-villain. You’re a chemist, you have a German accent, you had a base on Mars…what more can there be?  Great stuff! I also enjoyed some of the secondary characters, like Venkat, Mindy, Teddy, Mitch, Martinez, Johanssen, the list could go on and on. I found them to be interesting “full” characters that I looked forward to reading about. I also loved that the book was about a Mars mission, which is what the space program is about right now, and had a lot of solid technical facts, yet still held true to the futuristic scifi genre that I love. I laughed, worried, fought, and was generally consumed by this book. It’s a worthy read.

As a side note, I don’t know anything about Andy Weir, I believe that authors books should speak for them not their background or schooling or how old they are, so I don’t like to read bio’s. It’s their business not mine. But from this book I gather that Andy has some scientific background so when I noticed that the second highest rating on goodreads for this book is a 5 star rating from Wil Wheaton, the actual Wil Wheaton (you know who I’m talking about) I fangirled a little for him. That’s awesome for a scifi writer. And if he’s a nerd? Even better! Good for you Andy Weir!!

As with most of life’s problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation. I can’t help myself, I’m going to be quoting this book for weeks! I loved this book!!!!