The Martian, 369 pages
Andy Weir copyright 2011, Crown Publishing 2014, available on Amazon in ebook and audio.
As threatened, I saw down and read Andy Weir’s The Martian, the book upon which the generally marvelous Ridley Scott / Matt Damon movie was based.
This was brought about by reading Weir’s suspense/thriller/geek fest, Project Hail Mary. After spending hours immersed in Weir’s scientifically rigorous and intellectually challenging narrative, enjoying the dry wit and depth of characterization, I got around to wondering how much of The Martian had been lost in translation in going to the motion picture. I also wanted to compare the endings. The movie had an overblown and somewhat weak ending, although the hour and forty five minutes spent getting there was well worth it. And finally, how well did Matt Damon perform as Mark Watney, the central character?
The answers weren’t particularly surprising. Yes, Damon did a fine job. Watney is a sardonic smart ass who also happens to be extremely intelligent and resourceful and Damon captures that. A lot of the technological improvisation and sheer skull sweat Watney uses to stay alive for over 500 sols (about 15 months) on Mars is of necessity trimmed, but the movie keeps enough of it to give the viewer a good general idea. The book, of course, is an ongoing nerdgasm. Yes, that’s a good thing.
Some of the movie action sequences are overblown, including the hydrogen explosion in the HAB and the retrieval of the MAV by the Hermes fly-by, because Ridley Scott. The fly-by sequence in the book is exciting, and has the trademark ingenuity, in one instance by constructing a serviceable bomb by combining liquid oxygen and standard refined sugar. Make spark, go boom! Handy for blowing out an airlock and providing enough thrust to slow a craft by some 20 meters a second.
Watney’s post-mission life on Earth is a bit tedious and pointless in the movie, and felt tacked-on. That’s because it was. In the book, it’s one page, much more in character for Watney, and more satisfying for the reader. Watney isn’t the politest character to be found in modern fiction, remember.
I think Project Hail Mary is the stronger of the two novels. Not only does it have the genius problem-solving that permeates The Martian, but it adds powerful human elements to the interactions between the viewpoint character, and an oddly moving First Contact tale. While there is the ever-famous “supporting cast,” The Martian is very much focused on the one character.
I’ve been in the habit lately of binging authors new to me: Joe Abercrombie, Ashley Pollard, and now Andy Weir, and I’m delighted to see there’s at least a third novel, short stories, and graphic novels in his CV. Already have Artemis, his second novel, in my queue. I suspect I’m going to have fun.
I note that Weir originally self-published The Martian, serializing it on his web site in hopes it would be noticed. He couldn’t give it away, but when he started charging for the ebook on Amazon for .99 cents (the minimum allowed) it took off, and when several tens of thousand of copies sold, the publishing world noticed. According to Wikipedia, “This garnered the attention of publishers: Podium Publishing, an audiobook publisher, signed for the audiobook rights in January 2013. Weir sold the print rights to Crown in March 2013 for over US$100,000.” So yes, self-publishing doesn’t preclude a publishing future. Encouraging, that.
