The novel “The Martian” by Andy Weir was published for the first time in 2011.

When a storm hit the area around the MAV (Mars Ascending Vehicle) with winds exceeding its tolerance limits, the crew of the Ares 3 mission is forced to leave the planet Mars a few days after landing. During the evacuation, astronaut Mark Watney is hit by an antenna and the sensors of his space suit are put out of action. His colleagues believe him dead and it would be too dangerous to go physically check his body so they take off leaving him on the red planet.

In fact, Mark Watney only fainted but is still alive. When he wakes up, he discovers he was left alone on Mars without even a chance to warn his colleagues or NASA mission control center because the communication system was destroyed by the storm. How can he survive until the next Mars mission, scheduled in four years?

The first edition of “The Martian” was self-published by Andy Weir as an ebook obtaining an extraordinary success. At that point, he signed a contract with a publisher and the novel was published in regular channels in a paper edition as well. Success also brought a movie adaptation with the same title released in 2015. This review is about the novel, not the movie.

The story begins with the evacuation of the outpost on Mars by the Ares 3 mission and the accident that nearly killed a crew member, Mark Watney, a mechanical engineer and botanist of the expedition. Presumed dead, the astronaut is abandoned on the red planet and must try to survive until help arrives with the equipment remaining after the his fellow astronauts’ departure.

Andy Weir is a computer scientist who carefully studied all the technical and scientific issues related to Mark Watney’s story and you can see that from the beginning of the novel. All the protagonist’s adventure is developed trying to keep it totally realistic: there are technologies more developed than the current ones but those are refinements of the existing ones today so readers can experience the feeling of reading a possible chronicle rather than a science fiction story.

It’s because of this realism that last year the German space agency DLR created a topographic map of the area of Mars where Mark Watney lives his adventure. Because the notes linked to the novel are spoilers I preferred to just link it instead of reproducing it in this article.

An example of the story’s realism can be seen when Mark Watney makes his plans to try to survive and decides to grow potatoes developing more than expected an experiment scheduled for the Ares 3 mission. This idea is based on a real project of NASA, which just recently announced that it intends to to experiment that type of cultivation in a laboratory by simulating Martian conditions.

This is just one example but Andy Weir pays great attention to the technical and scientific details of Mark Watney’s adventure. The protagonist tries to re-establish communications with Earth retrieving the Pathfinder lander and Sojourner rover and NASA’s operations after discovering that Watney is alive are described with the same attention.

Andy Weir’s skill lies in his ability to strongly base his novel on many technical and scientific elements without making them too heavy. The author manages to explain everything in simple terms making the story understandable to people who have no particular knowledge of those topics.

The element of “The Martian” I didn’t like is Mark Watney’s characterization. The protagonist’s behavior is basically always over the top giving the story a comedic tone, instead it should be the drama of a man who might die at any time.

I can understand that in that situation for Mark Watney being a little crazy is the only way to remain mentally sane. On the practical side, wondering why Rosco doesn’t go looking for the Duke cousins to their farm rather than unnecessarily chasing them through the streets of Hazzard means not wondering what piece of equipment essential to his survival is likely to fail first. The problem is that his behavior is always like that.

In the story of an astronaut stranded on Mars desperately trying to survive for a long time I expected many psychological insights. We’re talking about a man who risks several times to die because the situation forces him to take various risks and has only very limited contacts with the rest of humanity.

Mark Watney’s story is told in the first person in the form of his mission diaries. Also for this reason, the way of expressing is weird. It’s understandable that in his situation he’s not very formal but even after restoring communication with the Earth he keeps on writing with a style that’s really colorful.

Let’s say that the characters are not the best element of “The Martian”, which actually is a survival story based especially on plot development. Unfortunately, the way the novel is written made it for me very interesting from a technical point of view but gave me no sense of drama.

For these reasons, in the end I have really mixed feelings about “The Martian”. The novel’s success shows that most readers had no complaints for what I consider flaws. If you don’t consider them a problem you’ll probably like it.