Reading a great book - The Martian

I'm 2/3 of the way through this book - The Martian by Andy Weir - and it's humorous, nerdly and would appeal to anyone on this forum.

A great read, it is causing me sleepless nights because I can't put it down.


All the best, James

Yep, I too just finished it, after the recommendation in the "Wool" thread. Had many nights of short sleep until I finished it. Passed it on to my teenage son. He rarely stops playing games on the computer, but is actually reading the book. Not as compulsively as me, but he is reading, so that's a good thing.
Fabulous book. Very good read. Very entertaining.

Adrian

Funny timing this thread... I'm reading a translation of "Cat Country" (貓城&#35352 by Chinese novelist Lǎo Shě (老&#33293 written in the 1930's.

It's a satire that takes place on Mars where a lone survivor of a "flight" (the spacecraft was described as a plane) that crashed on Mars. The survivor meets the people of Cat Country, and it goes from there.

^^-- and I'm reading _The Long Mars_ by Baxter and Pratchett. They don't have to climb out of the gravity well of Earth West 1,617,525, but still need a rocket.

I'm working my way through The Top 25 Science Fiction Books of All Time as voted by Redditors

The list consists of some very good books.

-Kevin

Really enjoyed The Martian. Fun and plausible hardware intensive science fiction that you do not see enough of these days.

I got the original kindle release before the rights were sold for print and it left the kindle domain.

Word is it will be a movie fairly soon done by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. Both are pluses in my book.

https://blogs.indiewire.com/theplay...im-burtons-peregrine-bumped-and-more-20140801

Fingers crossed (without a lot of hope) that Hollywood does not damage the story much. Will still likely be a fun popcorn movie, in any case.

I started this a couple days ago and am enjoying it. It's nice to read a science fiction story that is more science than fiction. So far it seems like a straightforward survival adventure set in space that uses realistic technology and is not about aliens, or a conspiracy, or technology run amok, or time travel, or a wormhole, or a deeper meaning. There should be more stories like that.

There is one thing that is a bit of a false note for me. The book is presented as a series of daily log entires by the astronaut trapped on Mars, but the style of the entries is so casual and conversational that it doesn't seem like an astronaut would record his experiences that way. I had read an excerpt of the first entry a year or so ago on Space.com, and that style put me off, and I decided not to read it. But my wife just finished it and told me it was really good. So I decided to give it a chance. Putting aside the tone, it is really good! And of course the writing style is definitely more entertaining and readable than something with a more realistic tone to it.

I'm only a little way into ti, so i'll try to remember to come back and post some final thoughts when I finish.

I LOVED this story. The audiobook is excellent.

I read this last spring and couldn't put it down. I understand a movie is in the works. Great book, originally self published I understand.

Fdog said:

I'm 2/3 of the way through this book - The Martian by Andy Weir - and it's humorous, nerdly and would appeal to anyone on this forum.

A great read, it is causing me sleepless nights because I can't put it down.


All the best, James

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I raved about it in the "Wool" thread.

I think I read about a 3-4 chapters the first night, then got so hooked that the next night I just could not stop and read all the rest. Really looking forward to the movie.

- George Gassaway

I recently just bought the book, but haven't started reading it yet.

rocketgeek101 said:

I recently just bought the book, but haven't started reading it yet.

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You will just love the part where he runs across a guy named Marvin....




Oops, SPOILER ALERT!

Great,captivating easy to read and hard to put down.

ChrisAttebery said:

I LOVED this story. The audiobook is excellent.

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I spend a lot of time on the road listening to audio books. Not very often a book causes me to miss a turn, but happened more than once with The Martian. Definitely a worthwhile read/listen.

tab28682 said:

Word is it will be a movie fairly soon done by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. Both are pluses in my book.
.

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Didn't Matt Damon already get stuck alone on a planet? (Interstellar).

s6

stealth6 said:

Didn't Matt Damon already get stuck alone on a planet? (Interstellar).

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I think that was Matthew McConaughey.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/

qquake2k said:

I think that was Matthew McConaughey.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/

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Matt Damon had an "uncredited" role in the movie as the astronaut who was stranded in the earlier mission that Matthew McConaughey's mission was going to follow up on. They had a big fight, because you can't have two Matthews on one planet.

ThirstyBarbarian said:

Matt Damon had an "uncredited" role in the movie as the astronaut who was stranded in the earlier mission that Matthew McConaughey's mission was going to follow up on. They had a big fight, because you can't have two Matthews on one planet.

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Ah, I did not know that.