Over the weekend, I picked up The Martian by Andy Weir based on recommendations from Andy Ihnatko and Jason Snell. Somehow I’d completely missed hearing about this novel back in March when it was reviewed on The Incomparable.

Anyway, I knew right away the story sounded intriguing, and the Kindle version was only $3 so it was a no-brainer. And, I was not let down at all. In fact I could hardly stop reading and ended up staying awake until 3am to finish it.

So what’s it about?

At some point in the near future, NASA has completed two successful manned missions to Mars. The third one goes horribly wrong when an enormous dust storm hits the team’s encampment and they must abandon the planet. Mark Watney — the team’s engineer and biologist — gets injured and thrown into the storm. The team is eventually forced to abandon him. The book begins just after this, with Watney waking from unconsciousness and realizing the gravity (heh) of his situation.

All alone on a strange planet, with a limited food supply and no way to contact Earth (or the crewmates who all think him dead), Watney is forced to do anything he can to survive. He’s a smart guy, but the situation is absolutely grim and he’s not immune to making big mistakes. You can see why I couldn’t put the book down. I won’t say anymore about the story, for fear of spoiling it.

Note: This book contains a lot of adult language and themes, starting from the very first sentence. We don’t recommend handing it over for your kid to read, no matter how much of a space enthusiast they may be.

Get The Martian for just $2 on the Amazon Kindle store.