{photo sourced here}
I saw the movie trailer for The Martian during previews for Jurassic World and thought the movie looked excellent. I made a mental note that the movie was based on a book (by first time novelist Andy Weir), as I generally enjoy reading the book prior to seeing the movie. The next day, Tom Hanks tweeted about The Martian. I mean, if Tom Hanks says to read a book, you read that book- am I right? And ironically this book has lots of similarities to Castaway– minus the volleyball sidekick.
I downloaded the book to my iPad and started reading. In summary, the book is about an astronaut who accidentally gets left on Mars because he was believed to be dead. Spoiler alert: he’s not dead. He has no way to communicate with Earth, and everyone at NASA believes he is dead, so no one is looking for him. This takes “Houston, we have a problem” to a whole new level. The story is about a man trying to survive against all odds. There is a surprising amount of humor in this book. I found myself laughing out loud quite frequently.
“Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?”
Normally this is not the kind of novel I go for, but something about the storyline was compelling to me. The book is meticulously researched, fast-paced, and surprisingly funny for a guy that finds himself in a very precarious situation. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book I can’t put down but this was definitely one of those times. I read the whole thing in about two days. It was such a page turner. This is also the first book I’ve read where I immediately wanted to read it again upon finishing it. To read an except from the book for free click here.
While the book falls into the science fiction category, it is not “science fiction” in the sense that it involves aliens and takes place 500 years in the future. In fact, it pretty much takes place in present day (technically the “slight future” according to Weir) and all technology referenced currently exists in the world today. Remarkably, Weir has stated that he had no contacts at NASA while writing this book (he does now, ha ha) and he simply used Google to self-research everything he wanted to know. Another striking fact is that almost all of the science noted in the book is accurate- down to the math formulas needed to calculate how to turn 12 potatoes into enough food to last him 1,412 days. Weir a self proclaimed “space nerd”, and a computer programmer by trade, even wrote software to help him figure out the exact orbits needed to fit his plot.
While lengthy, I highly recommend watching the below video put out by NASA regarding current plans for further Mars exploration, in conjunction with themes from Weir’s novel. I have very minimal knowledge on the subject but I found the information discussed at the panel fascinating.
The movie comes out October 2nd and stars Matt Damon in the leading roll, alongside a very interesting cast that includes Kate Mara, Kristen Wiig, Jessica Chastain, and Jeff Daniels.
Have you read The Martian? What did you think? Are you planning on seeing the movie? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
-Ashley xx