Book Bearings
The Martian
- 407 pages · about 7 hours
- First published 2011
- 74 editions
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1 About this book
Six days into a mission to Mars in 2035, a violent storm forces the crew of Ares 3 to abandon the planet. During the evacuation the astronaut Mark Watney, a botanist and engineer, is struck by flying debris and lost from sight; his crewmates, believing him dead, take off without him. Watney wakes alone, with no means of contacting Earth and supplies meant for a short stay. He sets about solving one problem after another, starting with how to grow food where nothing grows, and records it all in a log. Andy Weir first published the novel himself in 2011, as a serial on his website, and it was reissued by a major publisher in 2014.
- Science fiction
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Suspense & Thriller
- Survival
- Survival skills
- Adventure
- Fantasy
- Astronauts
2 What to expect
A survival story set on Mars: an astronaut left behind by his crew has to keep himself alive with what the mission left. Most of it is his log, in which he works through problems of food, water, air and power with real science and a steady stream of jokes, and other chapters follow the people on Earth. It is fast, funny and technical, a puzzle book more than a character study, with some strong language.
Good for readers who want: hard science fiction, a survival story, and problem-solving with humor.
3 About Andy Weir
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
4 More by Andy Weir
5 Similar books
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- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
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- The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells