The Martian by Andy Weir
369 pages
Published 2014 (originally published as an ebook 2011)
Read from September 9 to September 10
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
I will say this for The Martian: I haven't been this hooked on turning pages since All Clear by Connie Willis, way back in January. Actually, considering that I read 369 pages in a matter of ten hours, this may be my fastest reading pace of the year so far (which, admittedly, isn't saying much -- it's been a bad year for my reading pace). Easy readability is not the same as high literature, however. Weir's narrative voice for his stranded astronaut's logs (and occasional verbal recordings, which mysteriously possess the same cadence and sentence structure the character uses in writing, which must make him a bore at parties) is the snarky geek voice familiar from a thousand tech and science blogs, which no doubt contributes to the internet's seemingly universal esteem for this book. Unfortunately, the astronaut's log gets interrupted by boilerplate scenes of technicians discovering problems and administrators holding meeting after meeting in conference rooms, scenes which felt wholly out of place, more suited for a Crichton-esque airport thriller. Perhaps those interruptions were added to "polish" Weir's self-published manuscript for the Big Time? They certainly felt tacked on, as did all the faceless technician and bureaucrat characters that fill out the scenes.
Nevertheless, what Weir produced here is an excellent example of its type, and I'm eager to see how thoroughly Matt Damon botches the central role in the movie version next month.
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