Book recommendation
I rarely give book recommendations, partly because I spend so much time reading fanfic, and partly because it really takes something different to wow me.
The Martian: A Novel
by Andy Weir
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
Humans are finally going on expeditions to Mars. The Ares expeditions are time consuming affairs, with all the supplies sent years in advance by unmanned ships, before humans begin their extremely long voyage to set it up and do science on Mars for a month before returning to the Hermes, which serves as the reusable mothership ferrying crews back and forth. The general idea is to scout out various places on Mars, with an eye towards eventual colonization. What happens with the Ares 3 expedition is an accidental colonization.
On Sol 6 of the mission (Martian days are about 40 minutes longer and referred to as sols), an intense sandstorm threatens to destroy not only the habitat, but also tip over the ascent vehicle, which is set up sort of like Apollo ascent vehicles. The landing struts serve as the launch pad when the time comes, but it also puts the craft up high enough that violent winds could tip it to an angle where launch is impossible, or just knock it over completely.
The mission is aborted, and as the crew makes their way to the ascent vehicle in the blinding storm, a piece of equipment hits botonist/engineer astronaunt Mark Watney and punctures his suit. They can't see him in the storm, but sensors from his suit show it was breached and there's no life signs. The vehicle platform is tipping dangerously, so they make the difficult decision to leave his body behind in order to save the rest of the crew and head back to earth.
And then Watney wakes up. What saved his life was he fell forward, and the metal that punctured the front of his suit (and him as well as damaging his suit's sensors) left a hole that was covered with blood, which froze and sealed his suit. He's alone on Mars, the communications array on the habitat was destroyed by the storm, and it will be four years before another crew arrives, and even then it will be on another site thousands of kilometers away.
Watney really should have been named Murphy, because everything than can go wrong does. He's determined to figure out a way to survive long enough for some sort of rescue, and even though he has the food supplies intended for six people, it's not enough. Equipment was intended to work for a month, and he'll need it for over a year in the best case scenario. Most importantly, he has to figure out a way to contact NASA and let them know he's alive to even have a hope for rescue. He's got to use his botony skills and some very imaginative engineering that NASA would never approve.
Much of the book is done in the style of Watney's logs of what has happened during various Sol. I've seen someone comment that it felt more like reading a science nerd's blog instead of an astronaut's log, but seriously, astronauts are some of the biggest, smartest nerds on either planet. He's not sure he'll be rescued, but even if he dies, he knows someone may find his recordings later and he wants them to know what happened. Plus, he's all alone on the planet, so he can only talk to himself anyway.
Parts of the book are written about how certain pieces of the expedition equipment were constructed back on earth, leading up to a reveal in a log of it failing due to design flaws or simply not being designed for how it's being used. Then there's the folks at NASA, who've had a memorial service for Watney, and then someone looking at satellite images of the Ares 3 site show signs of activity. Most of this deals with the initial "Oh, shit!" reaction, followed by trying to figure out how to quickly rescue him or at least send supplies to keep him alive longer, all without any way to communicate plans to him. There's also talk of how they have to deal with the media, partly in order to make the rescue of Watney a "cause" that people will support and the government will fund.
There's a scene that I really liked in which one person planning the rescue asks another if they believe in God. Now in most books, this would either go into a sappy Christian "We must trust in God!" thing, or a more atheistic "I believe in science." We get neither. The guy responds he believes in many gods, because he's Hindu. That was a bit refreshing.
In one sense this could be considered "hard" Science Fiction due to all the details about how the science works, but to me it was more about how a man uses the science to survive, so those of you who like character driven stories should like it even if you don't normally do SF. It's got a good dose of suspense, as each failure leaves you wondering how he's going to survive this time, and if he'll die of starvation or injury long before anyone can get to him.
As usual, I'll pimp your local library. We have a print copy, but I read the eBook through the digital library system. I had put a reserve on it shortly after my back went out, and got a notice it was ready for me to check out three days before my surgery date. Um, yeah, no. I put myself back on the list and suspended it, meaning I could move towards the top of the list, but if I hit #1, I wouldn't get a notification until the end of the suspension time. It's a way for people to not get notices if they're out of town, or are reading other stuff and can't get to it, but in my case it was "I'm going to be drugged out of my mind for a while, better wait until the brain reboots before I read anything complex."
I'll give one spoiler to those of you who read the last pages of a book to see how it ends before investing your time in reading it (I think you're weirdos *g*).[Spoiler (click to open)]There's a happy ending, but I won't reveal exactly what it is.
The Martian: A Novel
by Andy Weir
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.
Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
Humans are finally going on expeditions to Mars. The Ares expeditions are time consuming affairs, with all the supplies sent years in advance by unmanned ships, before humans begin their extremely long voyage to set it up and do science on Mars for a month before returning to the Hermes, which serves as the reusable mothership ferrying crews back and forth. The general idea is to scout out various places on Mars, with an eye towards eventual colonization. What happens with the Ares 3 expedition is an accidental colonization.
On Sol 6 of the mission (Martian days are about 40 minutes longer and referred to as sols), an intense sandstorm threatens to destroy not only the habitat, but also tip over the ascent vehicle, which is set up sort of like Apollo ascent vehicles. The landing struts serve as the launch pad when the time comes, but it also puts the craft up high enough that violent winds could tip it to an angle where launch is impossible, or just knock it over completely.
The mission is aborted, and as the crew makes their way to the ascent vehicle in the blinding storm, a piece of equipment hits botonist/engineer astronaunt Mark Watney and punctures his suit. They can't see him in the storm, but sensors from his suit show it was breached and there's no life signs. The vehicle platform is tipping dangerously, so they make the difficult decision to leave his body behind in order to save the rest of the crew and head back to earth.
And then Watney wakes up. What saved his life was he fell forward, and the metal that punctured the front of his suit (and him as well as damaging his suit's sensors) left a hole that was covered with blood, which froze and sealed his suit. He's alone on Mars, the communications array on the habitat was destroyed by the storm, and it will be four years before another crew arrives, and even then it will be on another site thousands of kilometers away.
Watney really should have been named Murphy, because everything than can go wrong does. He's determined to figure out a way to survive long enough for some sort of rescue, and even though he has the food supplies intended for six people, it's not enough. Equipment was intended to work for a month, and he'll need it for over a year in the best case scenario. Most importantly, he has to figure out a way to contact NASA and let them know he's alive to even have a hope for rescue. He's got to use his botony skills and some very imaginative engineering that NASA would never approve.
Much of the book is done in the style of Watney's logs of what has happened during various Sol. I've seen someone comment that it felt more like reading a science nerd's blog instead of an astronaut's log, but seriously, astronauts are some of the biggest, smartest nerds on either planet. He's not sure he'll be rescued, but even if he dies, he knows someone may find his recordings later and he wants them to know what happened. Plus, he's all alone on the planet, so he can only talk to himself anyway.
Parts of the book are written about how certain pieces of the expedition equipment were constructed back on earth, leading up to a reveal in a log of it failing due to design flaws or simply not being designed for how it's being used. Then there's the folks at NASA, who've had a memorial service for Watney, and then someone looking at satellite images of the Ares 3 site show signs of activity. Most of this deals with the initial "Oh, shit!" reaction, followed by trying to figure out how to quickly rescue him or at least send supplies to keep him alive longer, all without any way to communicate plans to him. There's also talk of how they have to deal with the media, partly in order to make the rescue of Watney a "cause" that people will support and the government will fund.
There's a scene that I really liked in which one person planning the rescue asks another if they believe in God. Now in most books, this would either go into a sappy Christian "We must trust in God!" thing, or a more atheistic "I believe in science." We get neither. The guy responds he believes in many gods, because he's Hindu. That was a bit refreshing.
In one sense this could be considered "hard" Science Fiction due to all the details about how the science works, but to me it was more about how a man uses the science to survive, so those of you who like character driven stories should like it even if you don't normally do SF. It's got a good dose of suspense, as each failure leaves you wondering how he's going to survive this time, and if he'll die of starvation or injury long before anyone can get to him.
As usual, I'll pimp your local library. We have a print copy, but I read the eBook through the digital library system. I had put a reserve on it shortly after my back went out, and got a notice it was ready for me to check out three days before my surgery date. Um, yeah, no. I put myself back on the list and suspended it, meaning I could move towards the top of the list, but if I hit #1, I wouldn't get a notification until the end of the suspension time. It's a way for people to not get notices if they're out of town, or are reading other stuff and can't get to it, but in my case it was "I'm going to be drugged out of my mind for a while, better wait until the brain reboots before I read anything complex."
I'll give one spoiler to those of you who read the last pages of a book to see how it ends before investing your time in reading it (I think you're weirdos *g*).[Spoiler (click to open)]There's a happy ending, but I won't reveal exactly what it is.