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369 pages, Paperback
First published September 27, 2011
I’m pretty much fucked.Ok, show of hands. How many of you have uttered these exact words? (or words to that effect). Not everyone? I see we have some liars out there. How many have said them at least twice? Three times? Four? Those with hands still up, you probably need to make some adjustments to your approach, find a safer line of work, hobbies that do not entail long drops, stop trying the weekly specials at McBlowfish, or seek out people to date who are into less extreme…um…sports. These are the opening words of The Martian. Astronaut Mark Watney is definitely more screwed than most of us have ever been. Dude missed his ride and there will not be another along for, oh, four years. Supplies on hand were only meant to cover a few weeks, maybe months. And that Martian atmosphere is definitely no fun, lacking stuff like, oh, breathable air, and a reasonable range of temperature. It does, offer, however, extremely harsh (good for scouring that burned on gunk from sauce pans) and long-lasting (as in months) dust storms. And if that was not enough he faces an array of other challenges.
Having a likeable narrator is like having a great friend whose company you love, whose mind you love to pick, whose running commentary totally holds your attention, who makes you laugh out loud…Probably the greatest strength of The Martian is the narration of Mark Watney. He is engaging and funny, optimistic and capable. I suppose there are some who might find him lacking in sharp edges, but I thought he worked great.
“I can't wait till I have grandchildren. “When I was younger, I had to walk to the rim of a crater. Uphill! In an EVA suit! On Mars, ya little shit! Ya hear me? Mars!”A book that makes me willingly turn my chronically sleep-deprived state into the acutely sleep-deprived one as I battle somnolence at 4 a.m. so that I can read just *one more* chapter (we all know how that one chapter somehow turns into a dozen as the sunrise starts lurking outside the window).
“So that’s the situation. I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I’m in a Hab designed to last 31 days.Mark Watney is an astronaut who is an engineer AND a botanist. He was the 17th human to set foot on Mars, and the first human to be abandoned there after being mistaken for dead. There's no way in hell he has enough supplies to last until a dubious chance of rescue (if NASA even figures out that he in fact is very much not dead). In a situation like this, I'd crap my pants and become breathing-challenged.
If the Oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death.
So yeah. I’m fucked.”
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“Mars keeps trying to kill me.Mark, however, embarks on the determined survivalist adventure unrivaled since the time of Robinson Crusoe (and lacking the blatant and now painful colonialism of Defoe's protagonist). Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids, sure - but it may be just the kind of place to raise a few potatoes and fix up a few Mars rovers.
Well... Mars didn't electrocute Pathfinder. So I'll amend that:
Mars and my stupidity keep trying to kill me.”
“I told NASA what I did. Our (paraphrased) conversation was:Faced with a disaster after disaster, he beats all the odds and finds ways to survive in a true MacGyver way, using his brains (stuffed with all kinds of science, of course) and a few cosmic supplies. And duct tape. Can't forget the duct tape.
Me: “I took it apart, found the problem, and fixed it.”
NASA: “Dick.”
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“Also, I have duct tape. Ordinary duct tape, like you buy at a hardware store. Turns out even NASA can’t improve on duct tape.”MacGyverism is great, yeah. But what makes this book my literary soulmate and more addicting for me than a bag of crack laced with meth and sprinkled with chocolate (or whatever the drugs of choice may be now) is Mark Watney's near constant wisecracking that is EXACTLY the humor I *get* and I (sadly, perhaps) inflict on others.
“Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.”
[NASA guy on Earth]: “What must it be like?” He pondered. “He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?”Ah, the sheer awesomeness of dorky humor peppered with bits of science that probably would work if used by someone who, unlike me, was a bit more experimentally-engineering inclined. Ah, the silly lowbrow puns that never fail to make me chuckle. Ah, the deadpan humor that never gets old. Ah, the beauty of never taking yourself too seriously. Mark Watney, you are my literary soulmate.
He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”
[MARK'S JOURNAL ON MARS]: LOG ENTRY: SOL 61
How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.”
”I tested the brackets by hitting them with rocks. This kind of sophistication is what we interplanetary scientists are known for.”No wonder Mark Watney can call himself the King of Mars. And even better:
“Ruining the only religious icon I have leaves me vulnerable to Mars Vampires. I’ll have to risk it.”
“They say no plan survives first contact with implementation. I’d have to agree.”
“Here's the cool part: I will eventually go to Schiaparelli crater and commandeer the Ares 4 lander. Nobody explicitly gave me permission to do this, and they can't until I'm aboard Ares 4 and operating the comm system. After I board Ares 4, before talking to NASA, I will take control of a craft in international waters without permission.So yeah, this book struck a perfect chord with me. It seemed to have somehow been written just for me, since of course I'm clearly the most important thing since sliced bread, or however that saying goes. All I know is that a book I read twice in three days is perfect for me.
That makes me a pirate!
A Space Pirate!”
“Yeah. This all sounds like a great idea with no chance of catastrophic failure.
That was sarcasm, by the way.”
“I guess you could call it a "failure", but I prefer the term "learning experience".”
“I don’t want to come off as arrogant here, but I’m the best botanist on the planet.”
“He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?” He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 61
How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.”
“Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.”
“If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human that it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do.”
I’m stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth. Everyone thinks I’m dead. I’m in a Hab designed to last 31 days.If you think about it, Robinson Crusoe is kind of a whiny pussy, I say, while sitting in my plush computer chair, with a bar of 72% dark chocolate resting atop my glass of port. Surviving on a deserted island? Easy shit. Crusoe's got all that fucking water, plenty of good carbon-based animals for the eatin', and all those coconuts growing on tree. And here I am, having to actually go to Whole Foods to buy my fresh, young coconuts and having to pay for extra virgin cold-pressed coconut oil!
If the Oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I’ll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death.
So yeah. I’m fucked.
I’m pretty much fucked.Yep. That he is. Mark Watney, botanist, mechanical engineer, participant in the fledgling Ares program to send humans to Mars, is royally screwed. Shortly upon his arrival to Mars with his crew, his "MAV" ("Mars Ascent Vehicle") got blasted with Category 5 hurricane winds, and with no other choice, the crew had to hightail it out of there.
That’s my considered opinion.
Fucked.
Six days in to what should be a greatest two months of my life, and it’s turned in to a nightmare.
It was a ridiculous sequence of events that led to me almost dying. Then an even more ridiculous sequence that led to me surviving.There was an accident involving lots of blood and a punctured suit (fuck), and long story short, the crew left without Mark, believing him dead (fuck).
We were six days in when all hell broke loose, so that leaves enough food to feed six people for 50 days. I’m just one guy, so it’ll last me 300 days. And that’s if I don’t ration it. So I��ve got a fair bit of time.He's got enough air from the Oxygenator. He's got power cells. He's got enough water from the Water Reclaimer. The trouble is that the next mission to Mars isn't coming until four years. Mark's got to stay alive until a) they come or b) he manages to communicate with Earth. Clearly, it's a better idea to try and communicate with Earth so they can come get him.
But if I could communicate, I might be able to get a rescue. Not sure how they’d manage that with the resources on hand, but NASA has a lot of smart people.Priority right now: get enough food to last four years. That's a whole lot of calories to generate from nothing. But hey, here's where his botany degree comes in handy!
So that’s my mission now. Find a way to communicate with Earth. If I can’t manage that, find a way to communicate with Hermes when it returns in 4 years with the Ares 4 crew.
Remember those old math questions you had in Algebra class? Well, that concept is critical to the “Mark Watney doesn’t die” project I’m working on.It's not a foolproof plan.
I need to create calories. And I need enough to last four years. I figure if I don’t get rescued by Ares 4, I’m dead anyway. So that’s my target: four years.
I have an idiotically dangerous plan for getting the water I need. And boy do I mean *dangerous*. But I don’t have much choice.In fact, it's downright fucking dangerous at times.
As you can see, this plan provides many opportunities for me to die in a fiery explosion.
Firstly, Hydrazine is some serious death. If I make any mistakes, there’ll be nothing left but the “Mark Watney Memorial Crater” where the Hab once stood.
Presuming I don’t fuck up with the Hydrazine, there’s still the matter of burning hydrogen. I’m going to be setting a fire. In the Hab. On purpose.
If you asked every engineer at NASA what the worst scenario for the Hab was, they’d all answer “fire.” If you asked them what the result would be, they’d answer “death by fire.”
“He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?”The Setting: Well, it's Mars. What did you expect? There's um, craters, dry dust, and more craters and more dry dust. Just kidding. We spend most of our time within a contained environment, and to be honest, it's not that important. What makes the setting believable is the science that's presented to us, in entirely layman's terms. There's a lot of concepts to understand, and Mark does a fantastic job of breaking science in a way that makes it feel real while making it credible and easy to comprehend.
He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 61
How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.
I’m going to use the RTG.I'm a fan of science, but I avoid the hard shit when I can. I'm not the smartest person in the world, and technicalities beyond the basic grasps of physics, chemistry, and biology hurts my head. I can understand science. I just choose not to sometimes, and I avoid the cold, hard technical stuff when I can. I can break down most of the basics (like a truly laughable dystopian global-warming scenario) but anything more than that taxes me. Look down upon me if you will. I had no problems understanding and believing any of the scientific concepts in this book. This book may use science extensively, but it is so well-described and so well-drawn and explained that it doesn't feel like a science-fiction book at all.
The RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator) is a big box of Plutonium. But not the kind used in nuclear bombs. No, no. This
Plutonium is way more dangerous!
Plutonium-238 is an incredibly unstable isotope. It’s so radioactive that it will get red hot all by itself. As you can imagine, a material that can literally fry an egg with radiation is kind of dangerous.
I'm turning my pee into rocket fuel. It's easier than you'd think.The humor:
Urine is mostly water. Separating hydrogen and oxygen only requires a couple of electrodes and some current. The problem is collecting the hydrogen. I don't have any equipment for pulling hydrogen out of the air.
If I survive this, I'll tell people I pissed my way into orbit.
I chipped his sacred religious item into long splinters using a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. I figure if there’s a God, He won’t mind, considering the situation I’m in.Mark is a damned funny narrator. This may be projection, but I see a lot of my own personality and humor in him. I'm such a humble person, aren't I? He's just like me, only wittier, funnier, smarter, and 1000x more brilliant. But I'm prettier, so I'm sure that makes us just about even.
Ruining the only religious icon I have leaves me vulnerable to Mars Vampires. I’ll have to risk it.
One thing I have in abundance here is bags. They’re not much different than kitchen trash bags, though I’m sure they cost $50,000 because NASA.And computer-related jokes that might go over the heads of people who don't fuck around with computers for fun.
"We updated Pathfinder’s OS without any problems. We sent the rover patch, which Pathfinder rebroadcast. Once Watney executes the patch and reboots the rover, we should get a connection.”The Character Development: This is one of my few complaints. Mark is incredibly cheerful, and this is very hard to believe. He is fucked, but he makes a joke out of it. This might work, except that for almost the length of the entire novel, he is constantly funny and optimistic about it. He jokes about his own death. He jokes about the fact that he might end up a a handful of dust on Mars. Everything is humorous, and I like it, because I love his humor, but it doesn't make him a believable character.
“Jesus what a complicated process,” Venkat said.
“Try updating a Linux server some time,” Jack said.
After a moment of silence, Tim said “You know he was telling a joke, right? That was supposed to be funny.”
[12:04]JPL: We’ll get botanists in to ask detailed questions and double-check your work. Your life is at stake, so we want to be sure. Also, please watch your language. Everything you type is being broadcast live all over the world.
[12:15]WATNEY: Look! A pair of boobs! -> (.Y.)