Astronaut Mark Watney is on Mars. Alone; the rest of the crew thought
he'd died in the dust storm that they were escaping from. Now he's
trying to work out how to survive.
This is a story with rivets in it, in the traditional
heroic-engineer mould. The bulk of the narrative is Watney's diary,
describing how he's going about cannibalising equipment to stay alive:
to stretch food, water and oxygen supplies that were meant to last
another 24 days for six people out to the 500-plus days he'll need
before rescue can possibly arrive.
Occasional cutaways deal with events on Earth, particularly once
communication is restored, but this is primarily Watney's story. There
are no enemies to fight except the forces of nature: the cold, the
dust, the lack of usable resources.
The writing style, presented as Watney's log intended to be found by
whoever discovers his body, is pleasant though extremely informal
(lots of "yay!"). The low-brow jokes wore on me at times, when I had
difficulty believing in Watney's psychological role in the crew as
someone who'd help them all get along better. Still, he manages to
stay sympathetic, reminding me of a less-annoying version of David
Brin's protagonist in The Practice Effect, and the story is a
compelling one even if the interpersonal elements are pretty flat.
Fortunately there aren't many of them; this is a humanity-vs-nature
problem in the style of classic Clarke or Asimov. Many people report
having stayed up all night to finish the book. I didn't, but I did
read it in less than 24 hours.
The ending is somewhat abrupt, and (spoilers):
Grafvba qebcf bss n yvggyr va gur svany fprarf, jurer Jngarl orpbzrf n
cnffratre sbe uvf nfprag vagb beovg naq vf cnffviryl erfphrq; nsgre
nyy jr'ir frra bs uvz fheivivat ol uvf bja rssbegf, vg frrzf n ovg bs
n funzr gung gur ynfg ovt bofgnpyrf fubhyq or birepbzr ol bgure
crbcyr. Shegurezber, gur zvffvba pbzznaqre jub znqr gur qrpvfvba gb
nonaqba uvz va gur bevtvany vapvqrag unf orra pyrneyl gelvat gb pbcr
jvgu vg, cnegvphyneyl bapr fur ernyvfrf gung ur vf va snpg fgvyy
nyvir, naq guvf unf orra tenqhnyyl ohvyg hc guebhtu gur obbx… ohg va
gur raq gurer'f ab erfbyhgvba ng nyy.
(If you don't recognise this way of hiding text, paste it into
rot13.com .)
The book was originally made available as a free download, though it's
now been locked away by a publisher. Film rights have been sold. Drew
Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods) is apparently writing and
directing. This might not be entirely terrible.
Many thanks to
Meg Wood
for pointing me at this one.
Addendum: yes, this is the same Andy Weir who used to write and draw
Casey and Andy.
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