Andy Weir's The Martian

The Martian by Andy Weir is a thrilling and highly accurate novel that tells the story of Mark Watney, a NASA astronaut, who is stranded on Mars. The novel is incredibly detailed and scientifically accurate to an exacting degree, while still maintaining an attention grabbing and well developed plot. Andy Weir was a relatively unknown author prior to publishing The Martian, as he has been employed since the age of fifteen as a software engineer, not having published a novel until publishing The Martian. He identifies himself proudly as “ a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of subjects like relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight” The Martian is a standalone science fiction novel that received

Due to the fact that the book is set in the very near future, it utilizes technology we already have on Earth today to create a storyline that can be easily related to or imagined, because the premise is not to outlandish. Additionally, the way Weir presents the story is crucial to its success. Its unfiltered, brash comments style creates a sense of realism and humanity about the characters, along with providing a great dose of comedy. These details set it apart from most sci-fi novels as they are usually set so far in the future the technology must be explained or imagined by the reader before the plot of the story can be explored. This creates gaps in the presentation of the plot, as well as causing some confusion on the exact details of the proposed technology. Yet another layer to The Martian is the authority with which it presents facts and decisions made by the fictional characters. This authority stems from the extensive research that Weir conducted before writing the novel. “Because NASA is a public entity, I was able to research existing mission profiles to understand why and how decisions were made in dire situations” (Weir). This extensive research plays into the theme of exact data and seamless and realistic decision making by the

Because the novel is set in the near future, it explores technology that has been conceptualized and prototyped, and Weir uses this technology in The Martian to create an understandable plot. This novel is unique in the fact that is one of the first science fiction novels that is detailed enough that it will help the reader understand what is going to be occurring in space exploration in the near future, and how it will be