The Martian by: Andy Weir

 

Andy Weir’s path to publication is a non-traditional one.  According to Wikipedia, he began writing science fiction and publishing on his website, as well as working on several web comics, for years before his big hit.  The Martian was originally published online in 2011, stemming from the idea to explore scientifically and technically what it would take to survive on Mars, once again on his website.  It gained popularity and Weir would place a copy for sale on Kindle at 99 cents, the lowest price allowed, before becoming popular enough to be traditionally published in 2014 by Crown Books.  This makes this book significant as one in a gaining trend of self-published works slowly gaining the respect that they deserve and the path towards more traditional publishing.  While far from the norm, Weir is a perfect example of the potential of self-published works and the markets they can tap into.  The Martian is a fairly hard science fiction novel, something that in terms of popular science fiction fell out of fashion as general trends moved away from a very clinical style of speculative fiction towards more plot and character based stories.  Andy Weir’s pitch for The Martian, at least when discussed after its release, is an essential blend of the two, taking the time to explore how Mark Watney survives on Mars after being stranded by his team.  It is set 34 years in the future (from the perspective of its publication) where the third manned mission to Mars is cut short after six Martian days, a dust storm causes the rest of the team to flee while Watney is seemingly killed by a piece of machinery.

 

Weir’s novel is an interesting beast, at least in attempting to review it.  It bounces back and forth between two formats, the first person logs of Mark Watney which take up the majority of the novel and third person limited prose giving the reader insights to NASA working around the clock to rescue him and the rest of the Ares 3 mission on their way back to Earth (and later back to Mars post mutiny to rescue Watney).  Of all of the books I’ve read and reviewed, I do not think I’ve ever come across one that even attempts to switch perspective like this, nor doing so sometimes in the same chapter.  This could be a quirk of the original format of the novel, being published in serial installments, but it doesn’t feel like Weir is being unintentional with the way he is switching perspectives.  It should be something that disrupts the narrative and drags you out of the story, but it isn’t.  Watney’s perspective is the most prevalent but the lead in to the shifts in perspective, especially the first one, is done so excellently and quickly you hardly notice the shift happening.  The Martian also succeeds at easily conveying the scientific material, something Weir focuses on throughout the novel as a possible way for a man to survive on Mars based on what a potential one-month mission would have on hand.  The science is not dumbed down for a general audience, but conveyed in a way that lays out what exactly Watney is doing, while the larger scale projects at NASA (especially any building of rockets) are given just enough information for the reader to understand the principle but none of the details.  This leads to the book being a genuine survival guide for Mars if it weren’t for discoveries of the red planet after publication that would make specifically the way Watney gets crops to grow false.

 

If there were one place where The Martian falls the slightest bit flat, it would be a lot of the characters not being entirely fleshed out, especially those who aren’t Mark Watney.  This makes obvious sense since they all have to share about a quarter of the book while Watney is physically logging everything else, and that the book ends without an entirely proper resolution for everyone.  Weir had honestly knocked it out of the park with a near perfect first novel.  It reads incredibly as a survival thriller in space, something where I don’t want to give away pretty much anything that actually happens in the plot outside of the vaguest premise and the setup.  If you somehow haven’t gone and read this, go do that.  10/10.