I tend to stay away from hard Science Fiction, which is defined as
fiction that’s limited by the technology that we have or can prove at this
point in time, and as such can be worked into the realm of science fact.
It’s not that I’m in love with ray guns and warp drives, it’s that I
tend to read for the thrill of the unknown, and when something isn’t an
unknown, it’s not quite so thrilling.
But, in the interest of coming out of the comfort zone, I picked up a
copy of the Martian, mainly for the opening line on the preview, which reads…
“I’m pretty much f*****”
Sometimes all you need is a good tagline…
It’s the story of the first manned expedition to Mars, and an accident
that befalls the mission when the weather conditions prove to be more severe
than expected. One of the crew, Mark
Watney, is left behind on the planet, presumed dead following being separated
from the others in a massive storm.
Except he’s not dead.
What follows is the explanation of how he finds himself alone on Mars
with supplies for six people for 31 days, needing to make them last for at
least four years so that mission control might be able to send a team back to
rescue him. Note that word, explanation, because there’s a lot of
that going on in this book, not to be confused with exposition, and that for me is the cornerstone of Hard science
fiction, the proof that the things going on in the book can be done.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no ability in the scientific disciplines
that are used in the book, so I can’t speak for the veracity of the equations
or the botanical conundrums that are described, but a whole bunch of people who
do have that knowledge have spoken praise of the accuracy, so that’s good
enough for me.
It would have been easy to imagine a scenario where nothing goes wrong
and science wins the day, but Andy Weir hasn’t taken the easy way out on this,
throwing problem after problem against Watney.
Each time coming up with an accurate scientific solution for how Watney
could make a success out of it, from explosions within the base to
miscalculations of minute degrees that make a massive difference, everything is
about the science, how it can save us if done right, destroy us if done wrong.
Given that the book is pretty much one man and his thoughts on the
surface, there’s very little in the way of dialogue in the book, and as a
result, a lot of what’s going on is only communicated through the logs of Mark
Watney, and therein lies the problem for me. The problem with communicating in
Logs is that everything is past tense, you know he got through it because
there’s the log to show how he did it, and while there’s nothing wrong with
writing in past tense, it loses some of the tension that present tense would
bring with it. It’s not till the end of
the book when the action is happening in real time that we get some idea of the
man that we’ve been reading about and not just the notes that he kept on what
had happened. Like any journal, it’ll tell you what happened, but it won’t put
the emotion of the moment on the page.
There are a few moments of live action, and those moments were well
done, giving some much needed life to Watney, but not as many as I felt there
should have been. A lot of the action
would have been much better in real time rather than reading about it later.
Then there’s the character of Mark Watney, who is intelligent,
resourceful, and has the exact mindset and skillset to survive on the
planet. I understand that leaving the
medical technician or comms specialist on the planet would have had them dead
after the food ran out and that doesn’t make for a good story, but Watney is
exceptional in all the things he needs to be, and he does have luck on his side
in a number of places. I found myself
not fearing for Watney, because his assured view is that science can and will
overcome everything, a viewpoint that he proves on a number of occasions, but
given that science is his ally, there was a lack of tension in the book (for
me) as a result.
It’s heavy going in places where the science is going on, particularly
when you don’t really understand if what he’s saying is accurate or applied
phlebotinum, but it’s an enjoyable read, worth getting through the grinding
bits for the ending, and certainly the first Hard science fiction novel that
I’ve read that I enjoyed.
One thing I would say is that it’s getting made into a film, and I’ve
seen the trailer, from which the line, “I’m going to have to science the shit
out of this…” leads me to believe that Hollywood have their claws into it to
make it less like the novel and more like a cheerful version of Interstellar.
