Figgy O'Connell

I didn't know it before, but this book is something the astronaut wannabe inside me has been waiting her whole life for.

Actual rating 4.5 stars.

When I was a kid, my dad and I would go out and look at the stars through his telescope, or just stare up at the sky as a whole, and watch for satellites and shooting stars.

Confession time: I still do it, and actually asked for money to put towards a decent telescope of my own for my birthday.

I have no doubt I could be an astronaut.

If I didn't like sleep and comfort so much, and if I had more drive when I was younger.

Even now, if someone told me I could have a real chance at going into space, I would work so hard for that chance. I'd completely forgo sleep, if they told me that would help.

And I like my sleep.

There's something about space that has always amazed me and terrified me at the same time. Made me feel like somewhere out there is my destiny, and at the same time made me feel so small and insignificant.

Got that in your mind? Good. Now go and read this book.

Don’t take that the wrong way, this book isn’t for everyone. Some people will be bored by the details, some people (I’m sure) will think there isn’t enough detail.

This book was the third bowl of porridge for me; just right.


The Plot:

Mark Watney was the lowest ranking in a crew of six astronauts meant to spend 31 days collecting samples on Mars. On the sixth day, the mother of all storms showed up and, rather than having the roof cave in on a planet with no human life-supporting atmosphere, they decided to evacuate. Watney, our POV character, was hit and impaled by a big antenna on his way to the MAV(Mars Ascent Vehicle), and the others left without him, believing him already dead.

Then he woke up.

Alone.

The only person on the planet.

With everyone(NASA, the rest of his crew, the people of Earth) believing him dead.

There’s no way to communicate with anyone since the method for communicating with Earth was on the MAV his crew escaped on.

It’s not completely hopeless. His was the third mission of five planned Mars Missions. The prep for the fourth mission was already underway when they landed on Mars.
He just has to figure out how to stay alive for the four years in between. On enough food to get one man through about 300 days. In a habitat designed to last 31 days.

There are no aliens in this book. Don’t go into this book expecting alien contact. That would have ruined this book.


I Loved:

The style of writing, and Mark’s character.

The book opens on a log entry, and the first five chapters(48 pages, give or take), are told in log form.
By the end of the fifth chapter I was so engrossed in this story, and so separate from the real world, that I actually found myself believing that I was really reading the logs of someone who was, or had been stuck on Mars.
There were no aliens.

I love aliens and other weird shit, but the fact that this book had none was awesome. Aliens would have taken this book in a different direction, and made it less believable.

The detail.

If I ever get stuck on Mars, in a habitat that will keep me breathing, I will know how to make soil for plants to grow in. Provided I have some sort of plant to grow.
I hadn’t thought about it to that depth before, but the knowledge of how to introduce much needed bacteria into the process was fascinating.

Mark’s sense of humour.

It took a bit to get used to the style of writing, but once I did I felt like I could easily be friends with Mark. He’d do well in Australia, with his sense of humour.
And at times he made me laugh out loud, or grin stupidly. In public.

Didn’t love, but understand:

The shifts in perspective.

As much as I loved the first five chapters, I found the sixth chapter jarring.
Suddenly we weren’t reading Mark’s logs, but were watching the people of NASA as they dealt with the loss of one of their people.

I understand why it was done, I think it would have likely been a harder book to be engrossed in if it was ONLY Watney’s POV for the whole 369 pages, but it did shake me out of the story a bit.

A bit of Dues ex Machina.

Shit hit the fan, I can understand that these things weren’t meant to last as long as they did, and they weren’t being used in their optimal conditions, but I felt like it was one thing after the other. Once again, I get it. He’s stuck a LONG way from home, where each little mess up could mean death, and he’s the only one watching his back. Shit happens.

Now, I don’t know if Watney is just WAY more determined and clever than I am (hey, put me in a bind, and I WILL work a way out, but I don’t know that I would think of a lot of the things he did), or if it was just a case of “we need to work out a way for Mark to survive this disaster, and I can’t think of a better way, so it’ll have to be this”, but it seemed like he overcame a lot of the issues way too easily.

Sometimes, at work, I have to do displays to advertise books. I will often come up with an idea, and then something happens that makes it not work (can’t get the materials, a similar store did a VERY similar design, the boss doesn’t like my suggestion), but the second idea is ALWAYS better than the first. Sometimes this did happen in the book, but more often it was a case of getting it right the first time, or trying the same thing again until it was successful. Once again, this is a little hard to tell, reading just his logs, so it could be that more time has passed than it feels like for us, reading it.

I didn’t feel like this detracted from the book much, if at all. It was still an amazing ride.

It ended too soon.

I wanted to see what happened when Watney returned to Earth, and I totally want to google online and watch all his live interviews and so on, and the documentary on his time on Mars, but then I am hit with the realisation again that none of this happened in our world, and there is no more.

I want to read more on this, I would like to read more books on Mark, but... I know that would be pushing it, “jumping the shark” and so on.

It was a good place to wrap it up, and if it had’ve gone longer, it would have likely dragged.

It doesn’t matter. I still want MORE.

I’ll definitely be looking out for more books by this author. Thanks, Andy, for letting this wannabe Martian live on another planet for a little while.