W.B.'s Book Report: The Martian

“Cast Away meets Apollo 13” is how more than one reviewer describes Andy Weir’s compelling page-turner The Martian. In a world where everything needs to be a reference to something else, I suppose that description works as well as any.The plot of the book does indeed contain elements that will remind the reader of both movies, although Mark Watney never befriends a volleyball.

And it doesn’t cover Weir’s unique voice, the humor, and the care taken to walk that thin line between realism and the absurd. For all of the headaches and dangers that Weir sends the way of his astronaut stranded on Mars, I never once said “Oh, come on, now you’ve jumped the shark,” or “Oh, please, that solution was way too convenient.”

This is a great novel that takes readers to the real Mars — as real a Mars as contemporary science can speculate — and never lets up until the story reaches its powerful conclusion.