The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A friend of mine said she started this book one evening and couldn’t put it down. I should have listened.
I started and finished this book this morning. I’m actually giving it 4.5 stars. It was a super fast read. There was a lot of “science” in there, but I put it in quotations because I can’t confirm any of it. You know what? I’m OK with that. It all sounded reasonably plausible to me (even the parts that I figure aren’t could work, right?). In the end this I think the science could be substituted out for any inhospitable landscape and particular level of ingenuity. Don’t get me wrong, placing the story on Mars makes this what it is but that’s just the backdrop. The really wonderful part here is the characters. They’re all people. There’s no trouble at all believing all of them as real. I totally believe this story could happen in our near future.
You know what else? I hope this and other stories of people overcoming great odds to accomplish things that move us toward outer space exploration (ahem, Apollo 13) become the sort of thing that inspires people to push for more exploration. This book was a heck of a ride. I can’t wait to see the movie.