‘The Martian’ Book Review

If you listen to The Nerdcast you know that Tyler and I really liked The Martian. So it seemed time to do an actual review of the book. The Martian is the debut novel by Andy Weir, released just last October. If you go back and listen to The Nerdcast from back then, Tyler slides in a little note about having read it and about how good it was. A little after that we find out it’s been optioned for a movie, which peaks the interest of Iggy and Bob who would rather watch than read.

I decided I wanted to read the book before I had too many impressions from the movie and all of it’s announcements. When I started the book I knew the basic premise and that Matt Damon had been cast in the lead role of Mark Watney. I hadn’t seen the trailer (which is amazing and should be watched after reading the book) or spent too much time learning anything more about the story.

Martian Damon

The Martian is set in the near future when humans are making trips to Mars. Our technology has allowed us to send a series of missions to the Red Planet to study it and look around. The story begins during the third mission, Ares 3, where our protagonist, Mark Watney (botanist and mechanical engineer) has just been stranded on Mars. The Ares missions were designed for only 30 days, so Mark has to use all his know-how to try and survive on the barren surface of Mars until the next missions can reach him.

The story is fantastic. Knowing that Damon will be playing the part of Mark Watney I found myself saying, “Man, Damon is going to be perfect for this role” several times while I was reading it. Weir writes his main character in an immediately relatable way. Despite being a genius astronaut, Watney comes across as someone you’d really like to have a few beers with, it’d be a very fun time. While Mark is having his adventures we also get some of the perspective of what is going on with NASA on Earth. (You know, since one of their astronauts is stranded on Mars and all).

martian book

Overall, The Martian is a smart and funny book. It’s definitely not an all ages book though as there is a little bit of language in it. There is a lot of science, most of it is explained but not in a long and boring way. Some of it is done with Watney saying something like, I won’t bore you with the math but it should work like this… (paraphrased to remove any potential spoilers). I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes sci-fi, science, or generally funny books.

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