Fast forward a few weeks and my husband tells me that this movie is based on a book (something I didn't notice from the trailer). That got my attention. While I'm an avid reader, he is very selective and even he wanted to read it. So on the recommendation of my husband's friend, we venture to the local bookstore (which can be a hit or miss experience, but I was hopeful) and there was The Martian by Andy Weir. It even had Matt Damon on the cover. Jackpot. So clutching the book like the treasure it is, I got it.
As soon as we were seated in the car I read the first few lines, but alas I get car sick when reading and those few lines were awesome and sucked me in. If less than a hundred words can do that, then this book was going down. I look at the page count and for this edition it was 369. That's a good little number, but it's not like I haven't inhaled longer works. Granted the last thing I was expecting was to be challenged. And that was what the question, "You think you can read that book by tomorrow?" I scoffed and looked at my hubby as if I didn't hear him correctly. I mean I eat, um read, yup read, books up. so my response was, "Of course." I really wanted to roll my eyes. okay maybe I did. I don't recall.
Now, I wanted to get home and read right away, but I had some domestic things to do. Cleaning and cooking. So after I made the dishes go from dirty to clean with my magic wand, aka the Dishwasher, I pulled the whole chicken from the fridge, gave it a little bath, buttered it up and dressed it in spices before throwing it into the oven to bake for hours. Hours mind you. That would give me plenty of time to sit down with Matt, errr, Mark Watney. But alas Facebook stole me away for a bit. Then, I was able to settle down onto my comfy couch to be brought to Mars.
This finally came to pass around 9pm-ish. I wasn't watching the clock all that closely. I mean sure I had work the next day, but I was determined.
I happen to really like the planet Mars. It's my favorite out of all the nine, wait someone downgraded Pluto, so I guess we have 8 planets in the solar system, and then they added little ones didn't they? I was taught that there were 9 planets and by god I'm going to continue to believe that. I mean I know the planet isn't flat, But we named Pluto and Pluto shouldn't be thrown into the doghouse. He's a good little planet all the way out there. This is my blog and I say there are nine planets damn it.
Rant over. As I was saying, Mars is my favorite planet and it all started when I was a wee little girl. I spent my time in science museums for fun and there was this traveling exhibit called "Mission to Mars." My parents brought me to it and I was allowed to fly "the spaceship" and land it on Mars so that we could do experiments. Now I seven or eight at the time. It was fantastic and I really thought we went to Mars, so sad to learn we didn't. but come on it was the reason that astronaut became the thing I wanted to be when I grew up.
Mars, wonderful little red planet that will kill you. So back to the book that I finished at 3:50 am that same day. Well, if you want to be technical, it was the following day, but I hadn't gone to sleep, so it was still the same day in my little world. I had the lovely visual of Matt Damon as Mark throughout the entire book, thank you movie marker people. It was funny and entertaining. Andy wrote a wonderful character and he placed you on Mars.
There were so many little jokes and things that happened that I wouldn't be able to list them all and I wouldn't want to spoil this novel or in some cases the movie. How true to the written word will be seen later in the movie theater with popcorn and Coke. Mark's personality was what kept me so entertained. Here's a man stranded on Mars and he's writing a log about how he plans to survive and how he plans on finding a way to contact Earth.
Most of the novel is written like this. It's as if Mark is talking to you. I loved how he redesigned things throughout the novel. He was a nerd alright. One that made mistakes as well. He was flawed. Yay, a flawed character on Mars. Sorry, I like flaws, they make characters realistic. The novel switches POVs (point of view). We get the first person narrative on from Mark, but we also have third person POV, The 3rd POV is done in a couple of different ways. Each POV brings something different to the novel bringing the reader onto an unforgettable journey. I read it quickly, while cooking lunch for the next day.
Here's the book blurb from Amazon.com:
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.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.
Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
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