The Martian by Andy Weir
I love reading books
There are times when I get so into doing other things that I forget that I really like reading and then there are other times when I read one book after another. It’s always good when you are transported into a different world and you just enjoy the story and the experience of following what’s going on with a character. At the moment I’m reading about a cheeky astronaut called Mark Watney who has been stranded on Mars. Obviously he is a very clever fellow and is managing to stay alive in a very hostile environment using his brains and an irreverent outlook on his predicament. So we’re getting this first person story from our hero, Mark, along with the back story of what is happening back on Earth. Then there is also the crew of the mission that left him behind on the spacehip heading back to Earth that have a part to play.
When I first started reading the story it was on the back of reading a book by Philip Rothfuss about a character learning all sorts of magic and fighting skills living in a fantasy world and it was a very big change going from one book to the other. It can seem odd sometimes when you have to go from one style of writing to something quite different and at first it seemed that the book ‘The Martian’ was nowhere near as good. The thing is, the most important point is the story and I am finding that this book is a real page turner, just as much as the previous book I was reading ‘The Wise Man’s Fear’.
As has to happen with any story, our protagonist in The Martian has to have things go from bad to worse and sometimes even worse than that, before things can start to get better. Writers and readers do like to have a happy ending though so I am expecting things to get sorted out at the end of the story. On account of this truism, we will probably have our character amazingly saved at the last minute. I am still only two thirds of the way through this book and the way that I am going with it, it is not going to take me too long before I get to the end. In any case I can certainly recommend this book as a good read.
