The Martian

A gratingly 'regular guy' who happens to be an astronaut gets left behind on Mars, after his crew evacuates. This surprisingly satisfying epistolary novel is about if, and how, he survives.

Our hero is a botanist and mechanical engineer, so it's got a very Swiss Family Robinson-like focus on explaining the mechanisms of what and how life support and habitation systems work. It's technically scifi, but very 'hard' scifi, staying very close to available technologies.

The how-to bits are fun, and if you can get over the narrator's painfully jokey tone, it's a page turner. Bring it to the beach!

Noted on March 28, 2014