The Martian by Andy Weir
Rating: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 6/10
Wow, this is my first review in almost a month. I haven’t been reading as much because I’ve been busier at work, and the book that was in progress (this one) was only meh. It was entertaining, don’t get me wrong. I liked the ingenuity of Mark Watney and the twists and turns in the plot as he sought rescue. But holistically, this book was super underwhelming.
First of all, the characters are so shallow. All the characters pretty much have the same personality, which is smart and snarky. The only character who didn’t fit into that was the nerdy astrophysicist who came up with the plan to have Hermes return to Mars. And even he was a stereotype. I mean, come on…the disagreements the NASA scientists have with each other are half-hearted, and there is absolutely NO one who would speak to a 7-levels-above-you superior the way Mindy spoke to Venkat.
Second of all, the problems and mishaps Andy Weir started throwing at Mark became a bit contrived and artificial. That’s not to say that the actual problem itself seemed unrealistic, but that it was foreshadowed and laid out in a way that the reader would groan and be like “here we go again, Mark’s gonna say something like ‘Fuck me. I’m going to die on this planet’, and then hatch an ingenious plan to survive, and then complain about how many sols he has left”. It worked for the first couple of problems, but near the end, I wasn’t really a fan of it.
Finally, I didn’t particularly like that there was only one storyline in the entire book. I get that other plots could have detracted from the overall story, but I mean, there could have been something. There was the main plot of getting Mark Watney back home, and then side plots (if you can even call them that) of the politics at NASA and some romance between crewmembers of Hermes.
This was a straightforward read, sort of like a modern, sci-fi version of an Agatha Christie novel. In that sense, it was a nice “on the beach with nothing to do” read. But I think I’d enjoy a book like Ready Player One or Sharp Objects better — they provide equal (or more) entertainment, and it feels a lot less predictable.
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