themusicaddict's Review of Andy Weir's "The Martian" (Finished September 1st, 2014 with Spoilers), Glossary

Hello,

This is my review of the book "The Martian" by Andy Weir. I don't know how it worked out, but I updated this blog as I reading through the book. I'm looking forward to an exciting ending. But who knows Mars is doing it's best to kill Watney. There are spoilers, please consider that before reading this blog. You could always come back and read this blog when you are down reading it. By all means if you either agree or disagree with me, please let me know.

It seems that either Weir thinks most readers have a working knowledge of astronaut acronyms or he didn't think it necessary to give us some explanation about the acronyms. I'm going to provide that service for you. I'm not sure when this story is taking place, Weir doesn't give many clues of the which years this story is happening. Here are some acronyms, shortened words and what they are/mean.

The Hab- short for the Mars Lander habitat: a place the astronauts can relax without wearing a space suit.
EVA: Extra-Vehicular Activity- a spacesuit they wear when the astronauts explore the area beyond the hab
MAV: Mars Ascent Vehicle- the device the astronauts use to leave Mars surface when they left on short notice or when a mission is complete.
MDV: Mars Descent Vehicle: the device they use to land on Mars
Sol is a Solar Day, which is 24 hours, 39 minutes
RTG: Radioisotope Thermonuclear Generator, which is an "electrical generator.... converts heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material".
ARES: Aerial Regional-scale Environmental Survey- essentially 5 different missions exploring different parts of Mars. Watney is a crew member of Ares 3. For him to get rescued he has to find a way to get to ARES 4 so he can use that MAV to meet the Hermes.
Mars Opportunity rover: it landed on Mars in 2004, as of July 28th, 2014 it had traveled over 25 miles, which is about 40 kilometers. If the rover is able to continue on and get to 26.2 miles it will be able to examine what is called Marathon Valley. (mars.jpl.nasa.gov)
Mars Pathfinder, landed on Mars on July 4th, 1997- it seemed to be only effective for a couple of years. (mars.jpl.nasa.gov)
Phobos, which Watney uses to navigate by, is the inner most of Mars two moons. It's also the largest of the two moons. Phobos is closer to any planet than any other moon in the solar system. (www.seasky.com)
Deneb: brightest star in constellation Cygnus, one of the vertices of the summer triangle and the 19th brightest star in the night sky. It's many more times illuminos than our own sun. (This is essential copied verbatim from the Wikipedia site for Deneb.)

(Thanks to Wikipedia for the above definitions, unless otherwise mentioned. My thanks to all sources.)

I'm going to be honest I almost gave up on reading "The Martian". For about the first 60 pages, the book is highly technical, read boring. It's the tale of a lone man on Mars, Mark Watney. After the first 60 pages we are introduced to other characters. They bring life to what had been a highly dry book and increased the book's entertainment value considerably. While the technical aspects remained firmly in place, the story became much more interesting.

Mark Watney was left behind on Mars when the rest of his crew, on the Hermes, had to leave suddenly because of an intense wind storm. His crew thought Watney had been killed in the turmoil on Mars' surface. However he hadn't died and through fortuitous circumstances he survived and was able to make it back to the Hab. It's the best place he's going to find on Mars' surface to recover. Watney is clever and motivated to live. Very ingeniously he figures out a way to survive, well at least for the first 300 + pages. Along with his will to survive he's also has a very smart ass sense-of-humor. NASA might want to ignore him if they only didn't have the potential public relations disaster of one of their astronauts dying on Mars.

Watney's entertainment choices are limited, mostly he has 70's TV to watch and disco music to listen to. Very wisely he chooses The Bee Gees "Stayin' Alive" as his theme song. Perhaps "I Will Survive" would also be a good fit?

At first he can't even communicate with Earth, he's been reported dead and they take that at face value. There's no reason that they wouldn't, but again through his ingenuity he's able to reach Pathfinder and is able to make contact with Earth. Nasa, JPL and most of the Earth become very involved in saving his life. In fact saving his life becomes one of the Earth's top priorities.

However at this point Watney accidentally fries Pathfinder's "delicate electronics", which cuts off most of his communication with Earth. Satellites are able to see Watney, so he can still spell out messages to NASA by spelling words with rocks. They just can't send him messages, he's literally on his own.

The crew of the Hermes is able to help in his survival. They would be able to pick Watney up if he could reach Ares 4, using the MAV there and meeting up with the Hermes. The Hermes crew has 5 additional crewman besides Watney. They are Commander Lewis, who's in charge of the Hermes and by extension the Ares 3 mission. There's also Vogel, Beck, Martinez and Johannsen.

We find out that Johannsen and Beck are a couple, which works out well for the sleeping arrangements on the Hermes. It also gives Martinez the opportunity to make a joke about the "million mile high club" at their expense. The Hermes isn't exactly built for when a mission is extended from 396 to 898 days. The crew is having to make some adjustments in dealing with their slowly deteriorating space ship.

Along with the first 60ish pages of the book, I noticed later in the book how much the story slows down when the book focuses just on Watney and the very technical things he's doing to survive. As soon as the book shifts to the Hermes and their interactions with family members the story picks up.

Watney continues preparation and testing to leave the Hab, he's finally ready to leave. He's leaves to Schiaparelli basin, which is a 3200 kilometer journey from the Hab. It's not the smoothest of drives. His first goal is Mawrth Vallis, which millions of years ago was a river. The first 650 kilometers will be smooth, then the 700 kilometers of Mawrth Vallis will be smooth. But the rest of the 1,850 kilometer journey will be a challenge, especially when Watney "descends into Schiaparelli itself". Good thing Watney has experience with traveling across the surface of Mars, as he already had ventured to Pathfinder. (Most of this paragraph comes from the book itself.)

Watney finally reached Schiaparelli basin. However he ran into some difficulties when he reached it. Obviously NASA is worried about him. It's too bad they can't do any thing for him as they had no way to communicate with him. Watney outwits a dust storm though, which was something that could have killed him. You have to read the book to find out how. Also Watney decided not to go to the Mars Opportunity rover, although he could have found a way to communicate with Earth via the rover. He decided he was close enough to Ares 4, and its MAV, that visiting Opportunity wouldn't be worth the trip.

Obviously I'm not going to ruin the end of this book for you. I'll highlight the fact that Watney survived 18 months on his own on the inhospitable Mars surface. The credit rightfully goes to Watney, but also to NASA, JPL, the Chinese space agency, the Hermes crew and hundreds of individuals who went above and beyond their jobs to at least give Watney a fighting chance.

I wouldn't say this book is a classic, but I'd give it a solid B or B-. Weir should focus less on all the technical info and focus more on the actual story. All those technical details slowed down a book about the exciting adventure of a smart ass astronaut trying to survive on Mars and return home. Watney having a great sense-of-humor gave a needed jolt to the book.

themusicaddict