Stop what you’re doing right now and reserve or order or buy or download Andy Weir’s The Martian. And read it. It’s fantastic!
The Martian is one of the funniest and wittiest books I’ve read in several years. When I use the term “laugh out loud,” I do mean it literally. And usually, if I go so far as to actually use the term about a book or movie, that also means that I erupt in laughter no matter where I might be reading the pages or viewing the screen. After all, it’s one thing to laugh to oneself while reading at home. But to constantly disrupt the person sitting next to me on an airplane, that’s a whole separate level of funny.
But The Martian is more than funny. It’s witty. It’s clever. It’s downright smart. To summarize generally the premise of the book, though, cannot possibly inform as to why the book is as good as it is; it’s about a botanist mechanical engineer astronaut who is stranded on Mars and must figure out how to survive, without communication with NASA, while he waits the years before the next mission to Mars is due. So we’ve a protagonist heavy with botany, mechanical engineering, and space knowledge, and yes, this means, admittedly, the science was often over my head. But it’s in Weir’s writing of the science makes it approachable and accessible. And the voice given to our protagonist Mark Watney, yes, the Martian (not really from Mars, but stranded there (we learn this (and most of the rest of the premise I mention above) on page 1, so this is not a spoiler)) brings the humor most fabulously to life while also allowing some level of believability to this never-as-of-yet-actually-encountered setting.
The Martian is coming out as a movie in the fall, but I urge you not to wait. Instead, read this. Laugh. Giggle. Be surprised. Cheer for our stranded Watney. And revel in enjoying words written on a page, words so wonderfully descriptive and entertaining as to allow you too to live life on a planet with a stranded botanist astronaut. Sure, use Matt Damon’s voice in your head if you like (I did; he’s the title role for the movie), but read the book. You’ll surely thank me. : )
And then let’s all go see the movie in the fall—-and hopefully (there’s always a risk when the words in one’s head transfer to scripted language on a big screen), we’ll laugh again.