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The Martian by Andy Weir (book review)

 



A number of years ago I saw the movie, The Martian and I loved it (see my blog The Best science Fiction Films Part 1). I had heard that the film was based on the novel by Andy Weir, and I thought to myself that I must someday read the book. That someday came as I was walking through an independent bookstore and saw it on the shelf.  I thought, why not? I had read Weir’s book Project Hail Mary a few months ago and liked it very much.

The reason I wanted to read The Martian was because books are always different than the movie (and usually better). From the movie I knew the major plot points and how it would end, but I could live with that to satisfy my curiosity about the writing. First, I will say that the movie follows the book fairly closely. There is one major plot point as well as a few minor ones that were left out of the movie, but overall, it was a faithful adaptation of the book. 

Astronaut Mark Watney is left behind on Mars. Everyone assumes he is dead, but he is not. Now he has to figure out if there is any way he can stay alive long enough to be rescued. What I like about the book were the same things I liked about the movie. For one thing, Science is the star. Mark Watney’s life on Mars is just one damn thing after another, and he has to use science and math to figure his way out of each potentially deadly situation. He doesn’t give up; he starts calculating. The solutions he comes up with are logical and plausible with the materials he has on hand. Not that anyone would normally survive this situation. The fact that he is a botanist and a mechanical engineer gives him the skill set he needs to stay alive. This is a science fiction story, but it is almost not a science fiction story. By that, I mean that there is nothing particularly speculative about the story. It is not set much in the future. In the movie version, it looks like the present day. There are no futuristic cars or phones or clothes. It looks like it is taking place next week. I think that was a very conscious choice by the filmmakers. It matches the feel of the book. There is no new technology or breakthrough concepts. Today, if we had the funding and the wherewithal to go to Mars, the missions might look very much like the missions described in the book.

Much of what we are reading in the book is Mark Watney’s diary. The bonus for us, the readers, is that Watney is a funny guy. Even though he gets into some rather tense moments, the book is amusing. Speaking of tension, there is a section of the book that is not in the movie where the tension builds and builds. We, the audience know what is going on, but Mark does not. We want to scream at Watney, to tell him what’s coming, but we can’t. That makes for some edge-of-your-seat reading.

There is, in my opinion, one flaw in the movie. It is a moment that stretches plausibility to the breaking point. It is really the only scene of the movie that is not believable. That moment is not in the book. Apparently, Hollywood being Hollywood, just had to throw in a Hail Mary (see what I did there). Anyway, the book remains plausible throughout.

I still love the movie, and I love the book. And I would encourage fans of the movie to give the book a try. I don’t think you will be sorry.

Star Liner

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