This is a remarkable story about survival in the greatest sense of the word. It's one thing to be stranded on an island on Earth. It's complete4 stars
This is a remarkable story about survival in the greatest sense of the word. It's one thing to be stranded on an island on Earth. It's completely different when you're stranded on a desert planet such as Mars.
Mark Watney was left behind on Mars after a freak dust storm blew a hole in his suit. With no choice, his crew members aboard Hermes had to leave or all of them would die. Now all alone, Mark must find ways to somehow, get a message to Earth that he is still alive. But in order to do that, he MUST REMAIN ALIVE. ON MARS!
How do you do that on a planet that is all dry land. No water, no growth of any living thing to make it livable. That's where Mark Watney's ingenuity, perseverance, and pure will power to do all that he can to survive come in. From getting water, to rationing food, and hey, even growing some food! Mark Watney is like the MacGyver of space.
Told mainly from first person POV through logs, it recounts everything that happened. The majority of the book (80-85% of it) is told from Mark's POV so people who have a hard time with reading about just one person might find it tedious. I find Mark's personality to be very likable, especially his sarcasm, there's a certain charm to his thoughts. The events that occurred totally sucked me in, I found myself rooting for Mark and all the people back home working together to try and rescue him. That's another thing I enjoyed about this book. There's no villain who's sabotaging anyone's plans to rescue him (unless you count Mars itself, but that's the way nature goes, it's unpredictable).
There's lots of laugh out loud moments, as well as, holy-shit-what-just-happened moments, to ones of triumph even over the little things. There's some science tech speak, but it didn't deter me from understanding what's going on or get the gist of it if it got too complicated. I just try not to think too hard on the math. There's a lot of it!
I don't read a lot of sci-fi. But for some reason, I keep going back to this book, reading the synopsis again and again one week to another, and finally decided to just pick it up and read it. I'm glad I did. It was entertaining while leaving me on the edge of my seat. If this ever gets made into a movie, I would definitely be in line to see it....more
The world building in this book is unlike anything I've ever read. It had all sorts of elements from historical, paranormal, vampires, steampunk, and The world building in this book is unlike anything I've ever read. It had all sorts of elements from historical, paranormal, vampires, steampunk, and fantasy thrown into one along with steamy romance! An inventive and refreshing read. The characters draw you in, and I mean, every character. Each has something to offer in this book, with enough enticement to make you look for more. ...more
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